Have any of you ever said/thought "if I had a (?) magnum or (?) premium bullet I would take the shot, but since I only have (?) I won't".
Not me, I've either had a good shot or I didn't.
Many times. Usually when I'm carrying a levergun and shooting rimmed cartridges (.30-30, .375 Win, .45-70, .44 Mag). But that is a problem with the cartridge, not the bullet.
There have been times when cup-and-core performance failed to impress me. The first was my with my first elk when a Hornady 162g InterLock retained less than 50% of its starting weight and failed to exit, even though it had hit only one rib. Years later I took a similar shot (broadside, same range,same rifle) with a 160g Grand Slam. This time the bullet destroyed both shoulder joints before coming to rest under the hide. This time retained weight was over 70% and there was massive damage to the bones involved. Both elk went down but there is no way bullet performance was even close to the same. This, by the way, was the first Grand Slam I had recovered in the intervening 20 years that I had been using them.
Another time I hit a mulie buck in the right ham and recovered the bullet, a 140g 7mm North Fork SS, from up against the brisket. I would not expect a bullet for which the manufacturer claims limited penentration to perform as well in that situation.
My son-in-law mistakenly used the A-MAX practice loads instead of the TTSX hunting loads on an antelope. He got a lot of penetration, starting with the left backstrap and finishing in the left ham. Pretty much shredded them both.
Give me a bullet that will perform well under good circumstances as well as bad. I don't want to take a THS but if a possibly wounded animal is fleeing and that's all I have, the bullet in the pipe needs to be up to the challenge.
