One of the major advantages of "monolithic" bullets, such as the Barnes TTSX and a bunch of others, is they "waste" almost no meat, even with the high shoudler/spine shot, yet drop 'em right there. This is because they don't fragment nearly as much as lead-cored bullets.
Apparently many hunters still haven't realized this, because they've only used the same bullets for decades. The other factor, which is also obvious after somebody's used monos is that you can use a significantly smaller bullet, which will still kill very well (especially with the high shoulder shot), yet ruin very little meat.
A good example would be the pronghorn my wife killed on opening day here in Montana. She shot it through the shoulders at 200 yards with a 70-grain Hornady GMX from a .22-250, started at 3300 fps. This would ruin a LOT of meat with a typical lead-cored bullet, but the antelope dropped right there--and we lost maybe 2-3 ounces of meat.
But whatever....
After a few PMs with MuleDeer a few years back I swapped to this shot and have been very happy.
