Last year's buck showed me something about bullet construction. A previous buck ran away and hid from a 140 grain TSX too hard a bullet, so I am firmly into the softer is better deer bullet camp currently. I switched to Ballistic Tips from my 7mm-08 and last year broke a deer down with a spine shot a little too far back. The deer needed a second shot and when I hit it in the high neck, the permanent cavity stretched the neck skin and tissue to almost double size. The exit wasn't that large, but the internal damage must have been horrendous. Even if the spinal column wouldn't have been broken, that much shock to the spinal area surely would have put the deer down and kept him there.
