Once a bullet leaves the barrel no one has any further control over it. The mushroomed bullets used for the advertising are recovered from ballistic gel or similar medium and fired into it at the best angle for optimum expansion performance. Just as a photographer picks the best looking model for his advertising spread, they will pick the best looking mushroomed bullet out of several fired for that advertisement. To pull one out of an elk and expect it to look like the photo is like buying the outfit the model wore and expecting to look like the model when you put it on. That guy had been obviously watching way too much reality TV.

Price and performance. I've been using Winchester super X's for decades in my .270 and have been feeding my family venison the whole time. The price is right, and they flat-out work. If I were hunting elk, or moose I'd probably spring for some pricier loads, but for whitetail, I personally haven't seen any need for 'upgrading' to a pricier round.

And people say I'm crazy using a 55 grain pill at 3800fps on Mule deer?

Lets see if I get this right?

Berger VLD's blow up like a bomb causing massive hydrostatic damage making the boiler room into soup while my 55 grain does the same basic job on deer.

Berger VLD's work in the same manner as a frangible bullet. If you shot a roast with a Barnes, you will get a hole clean through it. If you shot it with a frangible bullet, you got instant hamburger, the energy of the bullet is fully absorbed into the tissue.

I like to see game on the ground with little to no muss or fuss. If I can dig out a slug to examine, that's a bonus (see the .454 slug picture on my profile). If you didn't have to bloodtrial, the task was performed well.

Controlled expansion is what I look for. I'm not a fan of overly explosive bullets in any gun. I love the Nosler partition bullet even though I know many today have switched to other equally fine bullets that provide classic expansion along with deep penetration.

I'm only concerned with a bullet's accuracy and its results. On deer and varmints, most commercial bullets do the job for which they are intended and very few that I shoot stay in the deer for recovery. I usually temper my speed for anything I want to eat so the prime steaks aren't hanging on the bushes. I don't shoot deer with frangible bullets because they take the steaks out with them. I don't consider the Berger to be a frangible bullet like the Sierra Match King. It has enough jacket to hold together pretty well and sure sounds like Bigboy has had good results. I like the Bergers for long range shooting because of their great Ballistic Coefficient but I haven't shot anything with them yet. I am spoiled with too many other good bullets to have tried them for huntng yet. I am practicing with 210 Bergers though for my 1000 yard elk.

My buddy and I laugh about this very thing all the time. He says that we have killed everything for the past 40 years with plain jane Sierra Game King and Pro Hunter bullets before someone told us we couldn't kill deer with them anymore we had to have some kind of super bullets.

Jim in Mo was right, I heard this story long time ago!!!