If you use a musket and hit in the perfect spot, you can have a DRT. This is hunting and not bench shooting. Lots of variables come into play, buck fever, environmental conditions, and a moving target.
You need a bullet that can assist with increasing your odds even with marginal shot placement.
These are thin skinned game, you need rapid expansion without having to hit bone for expansion. Partitions and other bullets meant for larger game and always making an exit are not the best choice for smaller game. Elk sure, but not whitetails.
I've had phenomenal results with 140 ELDMs. They expand violently without hitting bone. They can punch through a shoulder on a large whitetail buck and still destroy the vitals.
On average, I see about 25 whitetail/small exotic animals taken each season as I guide clients on hunts from time to time. The most effective bullets used are the thin jacketed violently expanding bullets such as eldms, ballistic tips, etc. I have to do the most tracking when the clients want to use their thick jacketed bonded/eldx line of ammo.
With hornady bullets, the ELDMs have a thinner jacket than the ELDX series.
With berger bullets, the hunting line of bullets have a thinner jacket than their match line of bullets.
