I've seen first hand what a shot thats off just a little with a hardcast and an expanding bullet do, normally the cast bullet you end up with a long tracking job or a lost animal but the high quality jacketed bullets give you hydrostatic shock which will kill an animal quickly and many times even if you make a poor shot. Hard cast used properly should hit the shoulders and break the animal down and while a shot into the vitals with one is fatal it normally ends up running a ways before dropping, not always but most of the time. Here in oregon solids are illegal but you can get around it with hardcast because it's written as full jacketed ammo but a hardcast will act just like full jacketed ammo especially if they have the same style meplat. I'm all for hard casts on big animals with guns that don't have the ability to push a quality jacketed bullet deep enough. The 44 and 45's benefit on large game such as elk or moose and the big boomers, 454 on up can go either way depending on hunting conditions and range of shots. The two x frames I had I used the 260gr Partition in the 460 and the 400gr sierra in my 500 and I have no doubt either gun would have smoked and elk and done it more efficiently than a hard cast. I think Mark Hampton was right on the nose when he said a broadhead kills more efficiently than a hardcast, and the reason for that is you have 2 to 4 blades causing massive hemmoraging as they pass through. The hard cast have a place but they are not the best answer all the time and with bullet quality and the power of our new cartridges they are the right bullet even less of the time. I'd consider elk huntig with my 475 with hardcast since I would expect to shoot out to 100yds but I'm not convinced my 400gr XTP Max won't do the job just as well and my short 475 back up gun carries the XTP's because if I get in trouble with a cat or bear which is not that uncommon around here I want the hydrostatic shock to stop the charge first and foremost, I don't want to put a 475 cal hole from one end to the other and have him die after he's done chewing on me.