CRS,
Thanks for the info!
Have found "empty" Ballistic Tip jackets in several animals--but the animals were all dead, and the jackets were found on the far side of the animal. In the heavy-jacket models the jacket itself usually contains more than half the weight of the bullet, up to around 75%.
Might also mention that the recovered Partition that lost the highest percentage of weight in our collection was the 150-grain .270 that Eileen killed a medium-sized Shiras bull moose with in 1989. The bull was quartering away at around 125 yards, and at the shot took a step and a half a folded up dead. The bullet had entered the left ribs and ended up in the right shoulder, retaining 54% of its weight, yet penetrated somewhere around 3-4 feet. This one reason I haven't found retained weight the only factor in penetration or "killing power."
What were the details of the mule deer shot?
