James asked what bullet failures I've had and I answered it. So you take that and the bit about the longhorn to mean that I have no handgun hunting experience??? That's an interesting conclusion you reach on very, very limited information.

No, I said accepting such limitations must be a "jacketed thing".

Since you decided to draw a conclusion and make an accusation rather than asking a question, I'll tell you. I've been handgun hunting for 30yrs. Since long before I was old enough to buy a firearm, let alone handgun. Got my first .44Mag at 16 and started hunting with it shortly thereafter.

I don't hunt with single shots so the overwhelming majority of my bullet failures have been with rifles. Why? Because I have always used cast bullets in handguns and found that they work with boring regularity. No picking and choosing my shots, no worrying about bullets failing due to excessive velocity, no worrying about angles or any of that. Most of the jacketed bullets I've used in handguns have been Speer's bonded variety and I found that they work very well. The separated XTP I posted the picture of was recovered from SIMTEST. I have never used XTP's on game because I heard of more failures than I was comfortable with and saw no reason to deviate from cast bullets. It wasn't until I started shooting 1500-2000lb animals that I discovered for myself the shortcomings of cast bullets. Which I still prefer over your average jacketed bullet for the task.

On the longhorn, yes I remember your rhetoric when it happened and I had the same response then as I do now. No, it didn't take so many shots to kill the damned thing. It was dead on the first shot, just like the two water buffalo last year. We could've easily waited for the animals to expire but this wasn't your typical hunting situation, we were there to test bullets. So the most bullets we could get into each critter before its heart stopped pumping blood was the goal. More bullets = a more data. Fortunately, a 2000lb bovine has a huge heart that pumps slow and it takes a long time for them to bleed out. Therefore, most shots were possible on the live critter before it gave out. Unlike anything possible with deer or hogs.

Yes, I would use that load again. The bullets did not fail but were recovered under the hide on the opposite side. Considering what they went through, they did very well.