Might also mention that in the early 2000s I went on a gun-writer nilgai hunt in South Texas, where 15 hunters got to shoot both a cow and bull nilgai with the then-new .270 WSM and 140-grain Fail Safes--a now discontinued bullet that worked just about like the Barnes TSX.
In case you're not familiar with nilgai, they're about the size of elk, but the bulls have far thicker hide and shoulder bones. For a number of years they were reported to be the hardest-to-kill (and most bullet-resistant) of any game animal in North America. In fact, many Texas outfitters suggested a minimum of .375 Magnums for hunting them.
The year before the hunt I mentioned (which was my second nilgai hunt), a similar group had hunted the same ranch with .300 WSMs with the 180-grain Fail Safe. When we showed up with .270 WSMs, the outfitter and guides thought they'd be chasing around a lot of wounded nilgai--partly due to the mere mention of ".270".
Instead, by the end of the hunt we'd killed 30 nilgai quite handily, perhaps because the shooters on average shot better than those on the .300 WSM hunt (which may or may not have been due to recoil). But the outfitter and guides decided on the basis of that evidence that the .270 WSM was a BETTER nilgai round than the .300 WSM.
Of course, a .30 caliber round should kill big game better than a similar .270 caliber round, especially with a heavier bullet. But that didn't happen.
Which is one reason, among several, that I tend to doubt generalizations about cartridge/caliber/bullet performance on big game.
And also why I tend to doubt generalizations about bullets, especially when I know Nosler (and other bullet companies) tend to tweak bullet construction, even of the same caliber and model.
