WildRose
Well-Known Member
IMHO the perfect bullet will exit, but barely. I want an exit hole for tracking. You shoot enough animals, unless you consistently sacrifice a ton of meat to break the shoulder, they will sometimes travel even with a double lung. In heavy cover a 50 yard dash can be a pain if there is no blood. You can make a perfect shot and if the blood pools under the entry wound you get no trail.
One of my favorite woods guns is a Ruger carbine in 44Mag. With 240Xtps I consistently get exits with the jacket caught under the offside skin, which is enough of an exit to provide a good (and typically short) trail.
With the right bullet, that shoulder/spine shot wastes very little meat.
Again, the importance of understanding how a bullet is designed and what it is designed for.
Bullets designed to punch through hard bones don't fragment much and have limited, controlled expansion.
Use an Amax for the same purpose though and you get a heck of a mess.