Mule Deer,
"My main point was that bullet performance is more complex than the simple theory of extra weight retention makes it sound."
I agree with your main point, and after the "novel" I wrote I suppose it'd be silly to say otherwise! I was enjoying the exercise though.
What I didn't bring up backs up your point even more: Over penetration carries potential wounding energy out of the vitals area. I think a bullet that breaks the "off" shoulder and stops has done it's job to it's best potential (or some similar wound). Punching a hole on the "off" side only helps the tracking, not the killing, generally.
We're on the same page. I think for PG, there are several good bullets that would work in the real world equally well. My informal research amongst PH's opinions (at SHOT and on the net) seems to indicate they like clients to use the "new" Barnes bullets more often for PG than any other named brand, but the Nosler Partitions were frequently mentioned. Also mentioned were "bonded" bullets, "core locked" (Remington Core-Lokt?) and "premium". The focus in every case was placement, over any talk of bullets or calibers! They have probably seen a lot of gut shot game. Indian, not arrow.
RE: Barnes TSX use.
Barnes staff indicated a preference for lighter and faster over heavier and slower for PG. I had indicated that I was going to use a 180 gr or heavier TSX and the Barnes guy specifically indicated a preference for going to a 168 gr to pick up speed. Aside from the obvious aiming implications, I gathered the design worked better at higher speeds. BUT the floor of the SHOT show was filled with opinions that heavier is better regardless of the engineers reports! Seems your John Locke quote is at play here.
The 168 gr TSX BT shoots nice, consistant groups from my gun and behave well at 3100 fps or so. Thats a load right out of the Barnes manual, toward the low end (range is 88.0 to 96.5 gr of H1000, I'm at 90.0). I think it's all I'll need for my intended targets.
Later!
Steve
