Razor made a post on his facebook page wherein he mentioned using Hornady Factory loads. If that load punched thru an ELK I wonder what our hotter handloads could do?
I loaded up a 200xtp to 1240ish fps and it punched through 6 water filled milk jugs and kept going. I wish I had put 7 up instead.
Of course this doesn't tell us anything about what it can punch through animal wise, since I did the same thing with my 1700 fps 135 nosler load and it only could punch through 2 milk jugs, yet it was a through and through on a decent sized doe - but the shot was placed properly.
Look, if you put a 5/8 hole (assuming expansion) just lower than and just behind the shoulder of any animal, piercing its lungs and heart, it will not have a chance to run more than 100y or so before it expires - and more than likely, it won't go 25. There is no animal in the lower 48 that has a hide that can resist that kind of force.
Razor said his round penetrated the
shoulder of an elk and kept going until it was just on the inside of the other side of the elk's hide. Just behind the shoulder, there isn't anything but rib bones in there, and they won't stop the bullet - the bullet will expand, dumping maximum energy while in there, disrupting tissue and doing fairly major shock to the animal, then exiting the other side, causing 2 holes, making an easy to follow blood trail that will indeed be a short trail.
What matters for the kill is bullet placement - assuming you have a bullet big enough and fast enough to resist the rib bones (IF it hits any) and juicy bits and dump enough energy in there to disrupt tissue to make the important organs fail.