My nephew used a 180 grain Hot-Cor to take the large cow elk below in October 2021. For reference, my nephew (in the picture) is 6'2" and 235 lbs. He bought the only 30-06 ammo he could find and it did not shoot well out of his gun. I had some 180 Hot-Cor's laying around and used the brass from the bullets he bought to load them (I load them in .308). Muzzle velocity was 2720 fps over my chronograph. He shot the cow quartering away at about 80 yards. The bullet entered near the back of the ribs and lodged under the hide on the far side, just behind the front shoulder. The picture of the damage/bullet is exactly how he found it when he removed the hide. From the photo, it looks like the bullet may have exited the ribs and followed the hide forward, putting a dent in the front shoulder.
He returned the bullet. It retained 122.3 grains and expanded to .673”. I used the same bullet to take a deer at 382 yards (from my .308, mv 2650 FPS). Exit the size of a silver dollar and the deer expired fairly quickly. A nice quarter sized wound through the lungs. A little stout for deer but it did the job. I included a pic of the deer lung wound.
