At the distance I was hunting at, and the MV I was loading it to... was more than adequate... little pre season penetration testing, many years ago, showed me how well 'varmint bullets' penetrate when their MVs slow down...

what got me started is that instead of having to drive thru town to go to our local range, I will go the other way, out onto forest service land, and set up the chrony and shoot right from off the hood of the truck or the top of the car...

I would use a tree as a back stop for the shot...

this was during testing for my Blue Dot and SR 4759 loads for teaching kids etc..via Boy Scouts...

I was highly surprised to see day light thru some of these trees, after a dozen or so shots...

so I just tested penetration with some of these loads, thru wood of varying sizes...

what I found highly surprised me......

but putting some thought into it... it made perfect sense..

these bullets are made to be fragile on the front end.. but have to have enough of a core to them, for the high velocities people will load them to, to withstand the twist of the barrel they will be shot in...

combine that with military training on how to take care of wounds made by folks getting shot in combat...

everything has its 'window of opportunity'.. this experimentation allowed me to further understand that...

and as far as the bullet making it into something that deep...it actually made it all the way thru to the far side... wasn't enough left to exit...but performed much the same as a ballistic tip...

and this is the view of the heart from the above deer....

and the lungs on each side of it were pretty much in the same shape...

[Linked Image]

he wasn't going far...

MV was about 2400 fps or so...IIRC..

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