There isn't any such thing as a brush busting cartridge. You may be able to get through to your target now and then with any given projectile flinging centerfire cartridge, but the odds are not in your favor. All bullets no matter how big and slow or sleek and fast will disrupt, deviate, partially expand or just plain disintegrate when they hit something in their path. Its what they are designed to do.
My mega dittos to go with other voices who speak from experience. Herewith a few of my experiences busting brush with bullets:
-- Miss with 165 Hor. IB from 30-06. White tail buck standing broadside at 18 yards, bullet hit a two inch diameter pole 10 feet from the muzzle. Clean miss, aimed at front of buck's shoulder/base of neck.
--Miss with 165 Hor. IB. Looked like a hole through ragged brush and limbs at 30 yards at a large bodied whitetail buck standing broadside, aimed at center or ribs. No idea where that bullet went, and I'm not THAT bad of a shot to miss the whole deer.
--95 grain NP from 6mm Rem. deflected about 45 degrees when it hit soft green fir needles at the tip of a small branch 18-24 inches from a deer behind it. Aimed between eye and ear at a range of 30 feet or less, it hit at the back of a forkhorn whitetail buck's shoulder as it stood broadside.
-- Keyholed 180 gr. NP from 30-06. It hit brush within inches of an elk and hit the elk within 8 inches of point of aim.
--Keyholed 165 Hornady IB, 20 inches from point of aim at 130 yards from a steady hold with a rest. Not sure what made the bullet tip & deflect but most likely was fine diameter brush or grass within 3 feet of the caribou as he fed in willows. I say fine diameter because I looked for such brush and didn't see any before the shot.
--165 Horn. IB miss. Bullet hit the tip top of a fir Christmas tree 6 feet from muzzle. Missed a mule deer doe so far at 230 yards that she did not get up from her bed nor look toward the sound of any bullet passing.
-- Miss with 150 Sirrocco from 7mm magnum. Apparently hit a fine spray of almost invisible brush tips 40-50 yards from a cougar at 80 yards. Zero reaction of any kind from the cougar, which makes me think the bullet did not pass close enough for him to detect. (Cougar killed with second shot. Brush not detected till we were re-enacting the first shot to figure out what happened.)
--Black bear killed with 180 NP at 30 feet with a shot THROUGH leaves/twigs that were touching the side of the bear at the point of aim.
Brush busting bullets are a nine-lived myth that refuses to die.
Lucky shots through brush are anecdotes of the exceptions. Good luck!
