Deer are particularly susceptible to the "charms" of rapidly expanding bullets. A non-expanding solid of any sort will typically exit and do some damage, but not nearly as dramatically as an expanding bullet
Agreed. That's my experience in close to two dozen deer harvested with lead bullets.
In my experience the best course of action for deer recovery is not to chase a wounded deer. A lung hit deer can easily go 100+ yds if pushed. I wait a minimum of 30 minutes for a gunshot deer....
My experience is pretty similar but I give the deer 20 minutes max. Even when I see that it's down, then I creep up on it, as though I know it's wounded just enough to get up and run. I've never needed a second shot.
43-258j bullet at 1264 mv.
So.. what you're duplicating is a .45 caliber muzzleloader while launching a 263 grain conical bullet using about 60 grains of black powder. Well I've seen many times a 240 grain Thompson Center Maxi-Ball drop a doe from a .45 rifle, no worries, with pretty much a MV identical to what you had..... the only difference is that
the muzzle loader was shooting an all lead projectile, not an alloy as you used. Now your alloy bullets would probably be excellent on a European boar, but on a whitetail they sorta acted like a FMJ round, no? Instead of going to the HP, I'd suggest that you cast and load maybe 10 rounds of those bullets in pure lead. Yes you will get a tad more leading which is why I'm not suggesting that you load a half or a whole box worth of them and shoot them.
You can help with cleaning out the lead deposits by shooting a cylinder's worth of jacketed .44 special through the revolver at the end of the season.
I think you will see a dramatic, positive change in terminal ballistics if you go to the all lead, solid slug.
LD