kachok said:
in fact they are widely regarded as having noticeably narrower wounds,
Really? References and evidence? That's the first such claim I've ever seen.
It'a funny, over the years I've been in this forum I've seen almost every cartridge used in the sentence "Every deer I've shot with the X Cartridge has been DRT". Sometimes it ends with "has never gone more than Y yards!"
Such claims are just silly. I can't even list the number of cartridges and guns that I've seen used on deer. Deer that weight literally 35 pounds on the hoof all the way up to near on 200 pounds. Of all those cartridges, deer, varying distances, poor and perfect shot placement, poor and perfect angles, I have never been able to categorically say "X" cartridge kills better and faster than "Y" cartridge.
Never.
I have never seen any way, short of spinal/brain shots, to guarantee that a deer goes less than "X" distance.
Fact is, it's all very random. One deer shot through both lungs from 40 yards perfectly broadside with a 7-08 will drop where it stands. Another shot with the same gun will run 100 yards with a hole in it's heart. A deer shot through the aorta with a 12ga slug will run 150 yards, another hit in the chest with the same gun drops where it stands. I've seen deer shot through both lungs AND the heart with 12ga slugs go so far and leave so poor of a blood trail that it takes 1/2 hour to find them in open woods. That's a 74 (or sometimes 58) caliber bullet, by the way, generating 3,000+ ft/lbs with some loads. I've seen a deer shot through the heart with a slug go 30 yards and pile up, with a blood trail you'd slip on if you stepped in it.
I find all of this "that bullet", "this cartridge", kills better to be totally unrealistic, a fact only on the internet. Absolutely nothing I've seen in real life backs it up. Nothing.
The bullet has to reach both lungs. It doesn't matter if it's 0.3 or 0.5 or 0.7" wide when its gets there. It doesn't matter if it puts 1,000 or 2,000 or 3,000 ft/lbs in the tree on the other side. If it reaches the vitals, the animal will be dead in no more than 15 seconds probably, but beyond all guarantee and prediction, 5 seconds or less. If the bullet doesn't reach both lungs, there's no guarantee of a successful outcome, regardless of bullet size. If you have an exit wound and a well placed bullet, 95 times out of 100, you'll have a very easy to follow trail. When you don't it's not because the bullet is too small, it's because randomness put you in that 5 out of 100. (5 out of 100 is to make a point, not a statement of statistical fact)
When you don't recover the animal, it's because you made a bad shot. If you didn't, the animal would be found, most times easily, unless randomness puts you in that 5 out of 100 again. When it does, it's not because you used a .243 instead of a .30-06, it's because all the variables happened to conspire against you in this particular instance. Odds are good it won't happen again soon, no matter what cartridge you do or do not use.