I shoot 240 gr bullets at 2300 and 220 gr bullets at 2500 out of my '06 for bear work and 180s gr bulk bullets for plinking. So yes I like heavy for caliber bullets but I don't need to drive them 200 fps faster to get good performance out of them, and I've had good accuracy with them out to 300 yards. The velocity envelope of the 240 gr Woodleigh is listed as 2400 fps, so shooting that bullet faster from a .300 might not be a wise decision. If velocity is the overriding criteria for out hunting rifles, why don't we all just shoot 30-378s? As I've said in other posts, when my '06 ain't enough I'll bring out a .375 and when the .375 ain't enough I bring out the .458.
The criteria for me is straight line penetration and an exit wound. This requires the bullet maintain a longitudinal axis of rotation after expansion, which can be facilitated quite nicely by a solid shank. Without a longitudinal axis to spin around, stability is lost. It requires a relatively soft core that is bonded to the jacket to facilitate full expansion across a wide velocity spectrum, and reduces the long bullet's inclination to precess (yaw) upon impact. You might recall pictures of Knyoch solids from years ago that had squashed bases; this was evidence of those long bullets' precession.
You might have been interested in the bullet testing I did with the 380 gr Rhino in my .375 Ultra. The wound volume from the 380 at 2300 (later 2350) was double to 3 times the wound volume of the 270 XLC at 2900. I say 2-3 times more because the 380 repeatedly demolished testing medium container making it impossible to measure the wound volume, yet penetration for both bullets was 32". What caused this to happen? Because the 270 gr Barnes expanded to seven-tenths of an inch while the 380 expanded to nine-tenths of an inch. The more severe damage of the heavier bullet had nothing to do with velocity, as the impact velocity was 600 fps slower! The advantage of the heavy for caliber lead core bullet is that it has more expandable length than a lighter bullet or a mono-metal bullet like a TSX whose expandable section remains the same within caliber and weight is determined by the length of the shank. A longer core results in a wider expanded frontal area which creates a larger wound while the additional weight results in greater momentum to ensure deep penetration.
