But Snakeskinner, are you judging the adequacy of a rifle round by whether or not it it leaves an exit wound? I guess I've never heard of that before.
Most rounds do not create an exit wound, and you don't want them to. All of the energy that comes out of the other side of the deer is totally wasted. You wan't your projectile to mushroom, and stay inside the game, hopefully flattened out on the inside of the meat on the far side of the animal. In my experience, except for magnum calibers, most big game cartridges, including the .30-30, .270, .308 and .30-06, do not exit the animal unless you hit them in the neck, or with a broadside lung or lower torso shot. I've shot al least two deer broadside, through the shoulder, with a 7 Mag, at about 100 yards, using a 145 grain soft point, and not had them come out the other side of the animals. If you are using the proper bullet weight, and bullet design, they're not suppose to.
Yes, you do have to track some deer. That's part of hunting. But I've never had a deer hit with a powerpoint go more than 50 yards, so it never took me more than 3 minutes. Pretty easiy to follow the blood trail created by that half-inch hole. :-)
Regards,
Mannyrock