When several of us field-tested Berger VLD's on big game in New Zealand in 2007, we not only killed a pile of animals with no failures to penetrate shoulders.
One of the "problems" we had at first was always hitting feral goats (which have the reputation of being among the toughest big game on earth) anywhere except a shoulder or in the spine, and they all dropped so quickly the guides were very impressed. But we also wanted to see how quickly they killed on rib/lung shots, and finally my wife got a shot at a big billy completely broadside across a draw. She hit it behind the shoulder, and the billy dropped right there, rolling down the steep slope dead.
The bullets tested were 115 .25's at around 3000 fps (the one Eileen used on the billy), 140 6.5's at 3000, 168 .30's at 2900, and 185 .30's at 2800 and 3100, and ranges varied from 18 yards to over 550. All penetrated shoulders and went on into the chest, whether the animal was a feral goat or sheep, fallow deer or mature red deer stag.
Eventually I decided to see IF one could be forced to blow up on a shoulder, so started shooting dead goats from a few feet away, right in the shoulder joint. All the bullets penetrated on into the chest.
Those animals were autopsied to find out exactly what happened, along with the big billy Eileen killed and several others. Eventually, however, we quit slicing goats open, because the bullet performance was so consistent, and unlike the fallow and red deer they weren't being butchered for meat.
