For those of you who prefer Shockwaves, let me say I believe they are extremely accurate and consistent bullets. I am also glad they have worked for you, and that you have confidence in them.
That said, my neighbor has used T/C Shockwaves since he started muzzleloading with an inline, and he is in his 60's. He is not a bad shooter by any means. I converted him to BH209 from Pyrodex two years ago, but he would not consider changing bullets; he is a good man, but he is very set in his ways, as we all can be. His hunting load became 90 grains BH209 and a 250 grain Shockwave. I have personally chronoed his load at 1,732 fps at 5 yards.
Every...single...season, even before he switched to BH209, including this season, he has called me to help him and his wife track one, or more, wounded deer. Few of his tracks are less than 100 yards through fairly thick stuff. Without fail, he loses at least one deer per season...every, single, one, despite an inordinate amount of persistence, skill, and (unfortunately) practice in tracking. This year we lost a six pointer he shot at about 85 yards or so, after two days of tracking.
The last buck he shot this year exhibited an absolute failure on the part of the bullet to expand, whatsoever. We took an unfired Shockwave and placed it in the wounds in the ribs on both the entry and exit sides of the deer, and the bullet just fit both holes. Luckily for him, his shot was right in the boiler room, and cut the top quarter of the deer's heart off. We both believed that had it not been for the shot placement, the deer may have gone further than the 40 yards it did. Maybe this is because he doesn't have enough velocity to expand the bullet ~100 yards, which is the normal distance of his shots, as he hunts a powerline. In the end, I just don't know.
He and I take high percentage vital organ breadbasket shots, not neck or head shots due to the low margin of error for neck and head shots. I could shoot a marble at a deer's head and kill it, so I BELIEVE (and this is just my BELIEF, nothing more) that what a bullet does when you don't make the best shot is what separates the best bullets from the rest. One day, we all make a less than stellar shot, and that's when the bullet's performance makes all the difference. All the practice in the world means nothing at that point, although I am a big believer in practicing until you drop.
Anyway, I say all of that to say that he FINALLY asked me to let him try some older 250 grain Bloodlines I have, because he is sick of losing deer. He has seen what they do in my kills and just can't ignore their fantastic terminal performance any more. I have used 250 and 220 grain Bloodlines on the last nine deer I have harvested, and all but one have died within easy line of sight; the only reason I could not see the one I could not was because he took two bounds into a briar laden cutover and expired.
Just my two cents.
