[quote[Mule Deer,
Out of all those bullets, how many animals have been lost due to bullet failure?[/quote]
Not many. One was a young cow elk I shot with a then-new "premium" bullet, a 150-grain from a .270 Winchester, that was getting good reviews from gun writers. The range was about 75 yards, and the cow was angling away to the left. I put the bullet in the rear of the ribs, angling toward the right shoulder, and the cow disappeared into to the nearby timber. Didn't find any blood, and it was early in the season with the ground too dry and hard to show many tracks. Found her a day later, more than half a mile of rough country from where she was shot. Opened her up, and the bullet had barely made it into the left lung. The meat was soured.
I went back and read the reviews, and none of the writers had actually tested the bullet on game or in media. Instead they basically repeated what the bullet company press releases said. A few months later Bob Hagel ripped the bullet in his review, because he'd actually shot some into his sawdust/sand test media, and they failed miserably. The company eventually redesigned the bullet, and that version turned out to be very good. The failed bullet was the original Speer Grand Slam.
Lost a whitetail doe shot with a cup-and-core 150-grain .30-30 factory-load Federal roundnose bullet at around 75 yards. It was quartering toward me, and turned and ran into nearby brush, limping. Found some fragments of leg bone and a few drops of blood, but never found the deer.
Other than that I've seen bullet failures on animals that had to be shot again, but weren't lost. One was an eating-size mule deer buck I shot at 200 yards as it quarters toward me, aiming for the near shoulder. After the shot it disappeared quickly over a small ridge, limping but it left a little blood trail, and a half mile later I spotted the buck standing on a hillside, 200 yards away, it's bad leg drawn up. I shot it again in the ribs, and it dropped. Turned out the first bullet had broken the shoulder joint, but lost its core and the empty jacket was lying against the ribs behind the shoulder. That was a 150-grain Winchester Silvertip from a .30-06 factory load.
Saw my cousin shoot a big mule deer doe in the shoulder as it quartered toward us at around 100 yards, the bullet a 117-grain Hornady Interlock boattail started at around 2900 fps. The doe limped off a little ways and stood there broadside, and a second bullet through the ribs put it down. The first hadn't penetrated the ribcage, and we only found fragments.
But have also seen a couple of bullets supposedly "fail," yet kill deer. On was a 130-grain Sierra GameKing from a .270 Winchester that I put into an angling-away mule deer buck, aiming for the far shoulder. The buck dropped and never moved. Turned out the bullet had lost its jacket after only penetrating the skin--found it next to the hole during skinning--but the core ended up in the right shoulder, and killed the deer.
A similar thing happened with a 105-grain Speer Hot-Cor from a .243 Winchester on a whitetail buck at 250 yards. It shed the jacket at the entrance hole, but the core went on into the lower spine, dropping the buck. It needed a finisher, but never moved after the first shot.
