The SC DNR did a study on a large South Carolina plantation about deer rifles and bullets.....its been out a while. The conclusion was that standard soft points and ballistic tip type bullets were more likely to kill instantly as well as making deer easier to find when they ran compared to "penetrating premium bullets". Keep in mind that these are guys shooting from stands over looking food plots or roads as is common in the South. Also, the deer are going to run small compared to the north and midwest.
http://www.dnr.sc.gov/wildlife/deer/articlegad.htmlI hunt deer in the same conditions and I agree that fast expanding bullets like ballistic tips and Bergers tend to put deer down quicker than the tougher bullets like Barnes and Partitions. However, there's no free lunch, everything comes with a price and after shooting truckloads of deer with ballistic tips I now shoot Barnes TTSX's. The ballistic tips were great until they weren't and I had a few blow ups on bone resulting in long tracking jobs and a bit of gruesomeness. 98% of the time they work great and a deer lying in it's footprints is always easier to find than one that runs a few yards. The TTSX shot deer tend to run a little bit but the results are more predictable, they always penetrate and the deer always die. I don't worry about shot angle nearly as much anymore.
Nothing's perfect, but I've come to prefer bullets that hold together better and penetrate at any angle at any velocity instead of the quicker expanding ones. Berger makes great bullets but I always get a chuckle at the claim that they "penetrate a couple of inches then expand". Basically that means "they're a grenade" and it's presented as if they were designed that way when really it's the byproduct of a target bullet design with a bit of hollow airspace behind the meplat. Bullets that grenade kill quickly and I shoot a lot of bergers for fun, no doubt they account for a lot of game but I just prefer bullets to hold together better.
Remember the following: lung shots on deer. The story about the Berger VLD is not only told by the Berger's advertisements, but in hunting articles. As I mentioned before I hunt moose in Alaska where I live, and like you use bullets that hold together. I use the .338-caliber 225-grain TTS-X, although I have also used the 250-grain Partition, 250-grain A-Frame, and the 230-grain FS (not longer produced).
I don't know anything about deer hunting, other than most hunters not wanting for a bullet to pencil through deer, thus my reason for bringing up the Berger bullet.
