I've used the ELD-m and sst to take a handful of deer. Each one had massive internal trauma and left a good blood trail. I haven't hit anything solid like a shoulder, just organs with a rib. This year I decided to try out a bonded bullet and loaded the 120gr Speer Gold dot. It's only moving 2300fps out of my 12.5" upper, but still delivers 1200ft/lbs of energy at 100yds. I took an average size AR doe this past Sunday at 100yds. She dropped like a brick and I thought to myself, looks like I found a winning bullet. When I got up to her, she didn't appear to have an exit wound. Once I gutted her, I was even more confused, bullet hit a rib on entry, took out both lungs and the top of the heart and took out a rib on the exit side....but did not exit the skin...the front shoulder had serious trauma and we think it might have been lodged in there, but didn't examine further...really wish I had and even taken pictures. I'm not sure how I feel about that outcome, but I'm going to use it on a few more this season and see how it does with a larger sample size.