My personal feeling is that there is very little to be gained by moving away from cup and core bullets. Deer are just not that hard to kill.
Our camp has shot all our deer in the past 16 years with standard Hornady Interlock and Rem CoreLokts. The bullets do their part if we do ours. A .308 165 grain Hornady SP IL will flatten any whitetail or hog in the CONUS at reasonable ranges if the hunter does his part. Forget moose and elk unless you are going hunting for moose and elk.
As to the environmental aspects at lobbing lead, my personal feeling is you are taking a leak in the ocean on that one. A chunk of lead is pretty well sequestered once it buries itself in the ground.
As to accuracy: if you are having accuracy issues in regards to whitetail hunting, then I would look at everything else before I focused on bullet design.
My overall suggestion to you is that you have been reading too many magazines. As a fellow who has been dispensing advice to deer hunters for a long time, I can tell you that this is a common problem and easily fixed.
1) Remove all reading material related to deer hunting from your current domicile. Refrain from purchasing additional material for at least a year.
2) Go find the cheapest deer ammo that will safely operate in your rifle. Remington Corelokts from Wally World are fine.
3) Practice shooting until you can hit a pie-plate offhand at 50 yards and 100 yards from an improvised rest.
4) Go hunt.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Report back with pictures.
Believe me, I wish someone had told me all this in 1982. It would have saved me a decade or so of trouble.
