This has been an interesting thread.
We've heard from several people who've used Sierra hunting bullets in magnums at over 3000 fps and either didn't like the different ways they expanded or how much meat they shot up. This isn't odd, because Elmer Keith was saying the same things about cup-and-cores in high-velocity magnums from about 1930 on. Of course, I had to confirm it for myself, but had pretty done so by my mid-20's, whereupon I started using either heavier cup-and-cores, enough so muzzle velocity wasn't much above 2800 fps, or premiums--though I also discovered that at least a couple of the so-called premiums of the day didn't work exactly as advertised. Apparently, however, every generation has to rediscover the same things.
However, the 7x57 160 GameKing load I've used with such consistent results both in North America and Africa is one stolen from Elmer Keith. He loaded thousands of them for Don Hopkins (the "H" in OKH) for the many lengthy safaris Hopkins and his wife made. They used the load for smaller plains game, what might be called "deer-sized" but ran in size from Thomson's gazelles about the size of a large Eastern coyote to animals more on the order of caribou--and probably some larger. They shot the animals for trophies, camp meat, and baits for cats, and kept requesting more 160 Sierra loads, because they worked, killing quickly and reliably yet not shooting up much meat. It was a load Keith himself recommended, which is exactly why I tried it--and so far have gotten got exactly the same sort of results, several decades later, on a similar range of animals.
