This is all very interesting. I've come to the conclusion reading this that even the biggest proponents of using Bergers on Elk don't recommend them if the shot angle is less than ideal or heavy bone may be encountered ...
Well I kinda feel the same way but a couple of people whose experiences and opinions I trust say they will do the job and are especially effective at really long range, where I can see them working fine....all this sets up this HUGE conflict in my brain
I reconcile all this by factoring in that I am not a real LR shooter (being all done at 500-600 yards)....and simply stick to the deeper penetrating stuff I am used to using
I am a bit mystified by the comments of some Berger users who say the elk simply shrug off solid chest hits with things like Partitions and others....sort of wander around a great distance before they collapse...which has not been my experience at all.
Maybe I am angling too many shots through bones?
No, just taking a well-reasoned approach that has been proven effective many times more than all the Berger kills put together. I sum it up this way: "Prepare for the worst and work for the best."
For me that means using bullets I believe will work just fine when all goes well but whose design enhances the probability of deep penetration with controlled and limited expansion if things go wrong. Although I've never used a Partition personally (even though they were my back-up loads for many years), I've seen them used and have yet to see an elk "shrug one off". The same is true with Trophy Bonded. For myself, Speer Grand Slams, North Fork SS and Barnes MRX/TTSX have put a lot of animals down very effectively with no lost animals or long tracking jobs. (Or even short ones.)
Going back to 1999, here is the yards gone after the shot for my hunting buddy (Dave), son-in-law and myself:
1999 - Grand Slam - 5x5 bull - Dave - 0 yards
2000 - Grand Slam - cow - Dave - 120 yards (neck shot against my advice)
2000 - Grand Slam - 6x5 bull - Mine - 0 yards
2002 - Grand Slam - cow - Dave - 40 yards
2002 - Grand Slam - cow - Mine - 40 yards
2002 - Grand Slam - 5x5 bull - Mine - 0 yards
2003 - North Fork - 6x6 bull - Mine - 0 yards
2006 - Trophy Bonded - cow - Dave - 5 yards
2006 - North Fork - cow - Mine - 25 yards
2007 - North Fork - cow #1- Mine 0 yards
2007 - North Fork - cow #2 - Mine 0 yards
2010 - AccuBond - cow - Mine - 0 yards
2010 - WW Power Point - cow - son-in-law - 0 yards
2011 - AccuBond - cow - Mine - 3 yards
2012 - MRX - cow - Mine - 5 yards
That's 15 elk with 8 going straight down after the shot and 3 more making it 5 yards or less. I've no doubt that if my hunting buddy had shot his 2000 cow behind the front leg that it would have dropped much faster. The problem was he had shot his bull in the neck the year before and it went straight down and he expected the same results with the cow even though I had cautioned him that neck shots could be iffy. I suspect a Berger VLD would have dropped Dave's neck-shot cow much faster than the Grand Slam did, even with identical placement. Most likely my .22-250 and a 40g Ballistic Tip would have done so as well, but I don't find that reason enough to want to use either combination for elk. For me such a choice would be like taking a neck shot - it might work but the chance of a problem is needlessly increased.
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Edited because I can't count. 15 elk for the group instead of 16. Cut and paste error in the original version.
