Blaine, I have heard that story before. I grew up hunting thick stands of laurel in PA and about as thick as anything one can imagine.The bullet of choice was 170 gr fl pt out of a 30-30. Shooting was fast as you say, but no one ever thought they had to drill a deer from end to end. For 40 yrs my father used a 38-40.That is a handgun cartrige going about 800fps. A heck of alot of deer fell to that old gun.
After I moved to NM ,we hunted thick oak brush. Again about as thick as the laurel,many times only crawling though it on hands and knees.Then I used the old Norma BT, 130 gr bullets out of a.308. (not produced anymore),then switched to Game Kings. Again,no one I hunted with nor myself ever thought you had to drill one end to end and we sure killed a lot of deer.With those experinces,I have to call BS on the need premium bullets in close cover. Myself I would opt for a heavy bullet out of a 44 mag, 444 .375 or some thing like that
I have never heard of a GK penciling through anything , particularly at 2900 fps,but I have heard a lot about Barnes bullets doing that and even partitions, but I suppose it could happen.
As I posted before I'd bet you can take any bullet one choses and find some story that it did not perform as expected.
