If they're too brittle, solid points will do that exact same thing too when they hit bone. In fact, air-cooled straight WW at 2100 fps will dang sure do it in .30 caliber. The little buck I killed a couple years ago was sort of like that story, but the deer didn't go far. I punched him quartering (more like 7/8) away behind the third rib on the right side thinking it was a gimme liver/lung/heart shot that wouldn't bugger either shoulder. He jumped, stumbled, and fell behind some brush. So I thumb the hammer back to half-cock, shoulder my pack, and make my way over to him....only to find him standing a few yards from where he fell, just looking at my curiously. My first thought was "Another one???", I had two tags so I shouldered the rifle and shot him again, this time as he turned on his heel away from me and I tried the same shot again, but had to pull it into his ham as I was a split second too late and he had turned too far away. It was in fact the same deer who had suffered five or six broken ribs from the first shot which had turned on the first rib slightly and exited the right side of his throat, leaving a neat .30 caliber hole in the hide that was rather difficult to find. The bullet never got into the chest cavity, just raked through all those ribs and didn't expand at all judging by the exit hole, and there wasn't a drop of blood at either end. The second shot shattered the right rear thigh bone up high, somehow missed most of the the guts, and stopped behind the left shoulder blade, breaking one rib. The recovered bullet was half gone with virtually no expansion, in fact what was left looked exactly like one in the picture above except it was a 311041 solid. I saved most of the bloodshot ham and ate that right away, but no more ACWW bullets for me out of that one. In the past I've had better luck using ACWW plus about 2% extra tin, and shooting them at around 18-1900 fps, but still they didn't mushroom like I wanted them to. Now, water-quenched 50/50 will do very well above 2K fps.