.... I would say all things are not equal and you are sacrificing expansion (which I agree you do not need with a 50 caliber projectile) for penetration.
If I'm reading your statement above correctly, you are saying that expansion is not needed with a .50 caliber bullet, do I have that right? If so you're not agreeing with me because I didn't say that expansion is not needed, what I said was, a large meplat is not needed for a large wound channel. The logic being, a soft lead projectile is going to expand enough to make a large wound channel and kill an elk regardless of the size of the meplat. That's been my experience, has your experience been different?
Back to your quote above though, if you're saying that expansion is not needed, why does the size of the meplat matter?
And how many elk have you killed with different bullets where you've observed any differences in the bullet's capacity to put the animal down that were due to the size of the meplat? Not that it matters, but I read your quotes above about the pistol bullets and I didn't see anything there that leads me to believe that a larger meplat makes any difference.
Last, yes, I found the article, it's in a copy of Colorado Outdoors on my bookshelf. But there's nothing in there on why scopes should not be on muzzleloaders during the muzzleloader season. Just an explanation of the rationale behind Colorado's muzzleloader regulations that preclude scopes during the special early seasons (not all hunting seasons, scopes are legal on muzzleloaders during the rifle seasons). I'll look up the date of that issue and post it here if you're interested. If so you can order a back copy.
