"Shot high in the lungs, no blood trail. He had to make circles in the woods to find the deer. Pencil sized exit with shrapnel in the neck, spine, and very little lung damage."
Well, I just feel compelled to make a few more comments. First, this is 6.5whitetail's quote, about the story from the guy who actually shot the deer. So we have a second-hand story about a supposed bullet failure.
It sounds to me like the shot was too high, the reason for the "shrapnel in the neck, spine and very little lung damage." Evidently, though, the deer still died, and in about the distance deer often die when shot solidly through the lungs with various other bullets.
A second comment: No, the people at Berger did NOT suddenly decide to start promoting the VLD as a hunting bullet, with no other reason than to sell bullets.
Instead, a LOT of hunters starting reporting to Berger that their bullets worked very well, especially on deer. Berger decided to inventigate, and after more than a year of research decided they would start marketing VLD's as hunting bullets. The research included both shooting VLD's into various kinds of test media, AND shooting lots of animals. I know about this because I was one of the people who shot a lot of animals, and also observed a lot of animals being shot.
As a result, I regularly use VLD's for some hunting myself now. This fall I used one on a pronghorn hunt that cost $2000. I paid for the hunt, and chose to use a VLD rather than one of the many other bullets in my loading room. It worked perfectly, by the way, because I shot the buck through the middle of the lungs, not around the edges.
There is indeed a difference between the hunting VLD's and the target VLD's. The target VLD's are actually tougher, because it was found that the thin jackets of what used to be the only VLD's made sometimes wouldn't hold up when shot in some cut-rifled barrels, such as the ones used by many target shooters. So today's target VLD actually have a tougher jacket. Once in a while somebody makes the mistake of shooting a deer with one, and the bullet doesn't open up. This does not happen with the hunting VLD's. Or at least I have never seen it happen, or heard from anybody who's seen it happen.
I would question Walt's advise about using a 155 instead of a 168 for deer, since I have seen a pile of deer-sized animals shot with 168-grain VLD's (and even 185's) from a .30-06, at ranges from 20 yards to around 400, and they all expanded.
Apparently a number of people still don't understand the way VLD's work, which isn't surprising since most of the people who've posted against them here have never even seen them used on game.
A VLD typically penetrates about 2 inches before it even starts to expand. Contrary to what many believe, this is unique among expanding bullets (at least those that do expand). The others all begin expanding as soon as the tip enters an animal, the reason there's normally lots of damage around the entrance wound. After a VLD gets a couple inches inside, it expands violently, doing massive damage to the lungs--of you shoot the animal in the lungs.
I have seen VLD's shot into a bunch of animals now, ranging in size from 50-400 pounds at ranges from 20 to 550 yards, and have yet to see one fail to make a mess of the lung cavity--unless the lung cavity was missed. One thing VLD's do NOT do is make up for poor shot placement.
After re-reading this thread more than once, I am pretty well convinced that the bullet "failure" was a shot that hit the upper fringe of the lungs, partly from the description of the wound and partly because the deer took 70 yards to die. I have yet to see an animal of any sort well-shot with a VLD go that far, though anything is possible.
