I have taken many animals in Africa and north America and toughness is something I have heard for years but it is really just what a person has seen personally. For me the caribou and moose are not tough, bull elk are a different story. Black bear are not overly tough but griz and brownies seem to take more lead. In Africa the animal that sticks out as tougher than elk or any other animal is cape buffalo. I have personally shot quite a few pushing 20 with a number of different calibers and they are tough with any gun. Yes I have had some just go down after short run but many last Long enough to kill you even hit right through the heart. The worst performing bullet I have seen on buffalo is the 300 grain nosler partition 3 total failures but I have not seen this with plains game with 7 mm's or any of the normal rifles. I have not ever seen a TSX fail on anything and have shot jackal's that literally exploded, I have also shot leopards with them and they were devastating. The one thing I have noticed is reaction when an animal is hit with TBBC and north forks and swifts, it seems to rock them more than the TSX and I am saying I don't know why but it is noticeable. I have seen the VLD's slam some animals and some acted untouched until they died but they were dead. My conclusion is it is a strange argument because everyone has seen all fail in their minds but it is strange they always have pictures recovered from dead animals. The buffalo I saw had to shot and killed with another bullet and after examination found they may have lived from their wounds long enough to hurt a lot of people.that is the only animal other than elephant I would not shoot with a partition otherwise I am confident in using them on anything else if that's what I had but given a choice I will take a TSX or north fork as my first choice.
