That is exactly what I have witnessed with kills out to 425 yards, with various cartridges, using Ballistic Tips. ...The "Hunting" variety, anyway.
Brutal impact, expansion, and, unfortunately, fragmentation and expansion; and then the tough base sails on through for a large exit wound.
The Ballistic Tip "Varmint", however...
That one may fail to perform on big game.
And, under the right circumstances, might fail to penetrate well.
Ballistic Tip
Hunting ... I've never seen a failure. Good, solid, quick kills, with good exits.
--Coming back to these two (and a half) sentences above, now; having typed the entirety of this reply, I cannot remember a single Ballistic Tip "
Hunting" kill that was not a "DRT" / instant "lights out".--
I've seen animals go down to the "simplest" of projectiles, with bullet technology dating back to the 1890s.
But the only failures to penetrate to vitals that I've ever witnessed first-hand were with varmint bullets. (Or bullets that passed through another animal first. ...But that's another story.
)
Case in point:
I watched a good friend shoot a pronghorn antelope - arguably the most fragile big game species in North America - in the top of the rump, from an elevated position, with a Speer 100 gr hollow point, launched at about 3,300 fps in .270 Win. Approximately 150 yard impact.
It blew up. Most fragments destroyed the top of that rear quarter, with a few passing into the rectum. But NONE of them made it through the other side of the rectum. The antelope, as we witnessed at the time and discovered during cleaning, literally pooped out the fragments that made it to the rectum, while it was running.
We're talking about 4-6 inches of penetration, max.
It took a running heart shot that also broke both shoulders (by yours truly
) to bring that animal down in a humane manner.
Coincidentally, my kill shot was with a .270 Win 130 gr Remington Core-Lokt ... arguably bullet technology from the 1890s.
.
(The shooter with the 100 gr HP made some mistakes. He knows it. He regrets it. He will never attempt such again. But, at the time, he thought his "coyote load" might be good enough for a heart shot. ...He just didn't lead the running animal enough.
I don't hold it against him. He hates himself enough for the decision. But it's a very good example of why "varmint" bullets are not a suitable replacement for "hunting" bullets.)