I'm sure this has been covered somewhere, but I want to get specific. I have used 240 grain xtp's for whitetail out of a 44 mag. I had complete pass thru, and deer went about 75 yds. I'm looking at either a 480, or 454, and have considered using cast bullets, because of cost, and increased barrel life. Correct me if I'm wrong, but cast bullets (hard cast) don't expand at all. They may fragment on large bone, but the wound channel would be much smaller than an expanding bullet. If I shoot a deer thru the shoulder with a hard cast 300 gr. bullet, its going down. Problem is, I don't like shooting e'm thru the shoulder. I try to save shoulder meat, and go for a rear lung/liver shot. Is a big hard cast bullet, lets say 45 cal., with the biggest metplate I can find, going to do enuf damage to drop a deer within a trackable distance from where I shoot it? I'd like to know more about wound channels on game with hard cast bullets. Thanks for any help!