The worst bullets I ever experienced was a box of Winchester silvertip 170's in 30-30 about 20 years ago, before they thankfully quit making them. I shot a mulie and a whitetail with them, both were through the lungs on an easy broadside shot at about 50ish yards or so. The first shot on the whitetail buck shredded the lungs but none of the fragments made it through the offside ribcage. The one on the mulie blew up only one lung and left the other lung basically undamaged. The one lung was shredded enough that the deer dropped in a reasonable distance but that was the last I used them on deer I just shot them up for practice. The last deer I got with the 30-30 I used the Win power max bonded and that performed much more like I expected, a nice big hole through and through.
And I killed a Bull Moose with 170 Silvertips in my 30-30 18 years ago and they held together and penetrated well. Perfect mushroom with almost full weight retention
I killed my first bull moose at about 75 yards using the same caliber/bullet. Double lunged, no bullet retention. He had no idea where the shot came from, and ran toward me, dying about 15 yards to my left, in a clump of spruce in an otherwise scattered tree area.
I won't ever us e30-06 Fed Hi-Shoks on game again tho. I don't hunt 50 lb meat animals, which with their instant expansion, seems to be what they are designed for. A ram and a moose taken a few days apart, convinced me of that.
