For what it's worth, years ago I did some informal testing on the 168gr 30 cal matchking and it really changed my thinking on them. I shot them and also 30 cal hornady interlocks through heavy phone books at 100 yds. It was surprising to me that the MKs just poked right on through without expanding. Basically the same size hole coming out as going in. The hornadys on the other hand had a small hole going in and blew out the back side dramatically with a huge hole. I had expected the MKs with their light jacket to hit and basically blow up inside but that was not the case at all, with numerous shots.
Here is my experience with SMK on (small) game animals. I have not posted it because it is limited to 224 caliber SMK bullets used on chucks and prairie dogs.
I hunted with a guy that shot them next to me for a short while. I was shooting the SGK 1390 & 1365 and was tearing dogs and chucks in half up close and killing them decisively at longer range (out to 550 yards plus or minus a few) using my 22-250. He was loading the SMK in both his 22-250 & 223 and I personally witnessed the type of performance you are describing in the field.
When spotting for him I would see center chest hits leave a blood spot and the same with hits in the gut and watch chucks and prairie dogs just stand there or scramble down after being well hit. I have seen a lot of chucks and prairie dogs just sit there until they fell over dead.
With marginal hits he was leaving cripples all over the place. To be up front this was decades ago and I cannot remember how the ones that expanded performed, but that did not stick with me.
If this straight through performance had not been so common it would not have stuck with me all these years.
On a trip to Eburg & Royal for coyotes he shot one coyote a bit far back and although we found a six inch piece of intestine after tracking it for a half mile with only little droplets of blood to follow. That coyote was not recovered, the blood stopped after about another quarter-mile. The shot was at about 120 yards and I saw the impact through my binocular and the coyote did not slow down.
But, I am comparing apples to oranges in extrapolating that experience to using the larger caliber SMK bullet on larger game.
I don't have any experience with their use on larger game, I am shooting the same "blemished" 308 Nosler 180 Partitions, that I got from Jack Slack, at big game that I have shot for going on four decades and still have a half dozen of the heat sealed plastic bags of fifty left from the eight bags I started with.
My routine is to go to the range with my Mod 70 300 Wby Winlite early in the season and shoot a three shot clover leaf at a hundred yards and then clean it, shoot one more (that is about a half inch out of the group) and put it away until hunting season.
Then I take out my Kimber of Oregon 30-06 and repeat that process. I honestly don't feel the least bit handicapped not ruining the barrel on my 300 because I send north of five or six hundred rounds of 243 downrange at various and sundry varmints from my Mod 70 and as far as having a pretty darn good idea what the trajectory and wind drift of my 300 Wby is because it is so similar to the 22-250s, 17 Rem and 243s that I shoot at varmints all year out to their respective range.
My buddy who was shooting the SMKs at varmints does use various big game bullets and he has the exact same Winlite I have and that works very well for him (he is on his third barrel). He caries trajectory tables that he changes all the time. Mine is the same trajectory and drift table I taped to my stock back in the 1980s after shooting my 300 wby out to 600 yards after developing my load.
To be certain, he feels comfortable taking shots at ranges that I do not, but I am fine giving up a hundred yards or so even though we are roughly equivalent in shooting ability.
My purpose in posting the link to Sierra's site is to point out that although the accuracy may be something that you know you can depend on out to.... way out there, that bullet performance
may be something that you need to consider and be aware of.
To the best of my knowledge, some who have done extensive testing have concluded that within a window of ~2,000 to ~2,700 fps upon impact that performance is acceptable and reliable. So what does that say about them being acceptable at 308 velocities as performing like a Genva Convention bullet as a "sniper round?" Hell, I don't know.
All I intended in posting that admonition that Sierra published is that the SMK has limitations that you should take the opportunity to consider, and use that bullet within the limitations to what YOU are comfortable with, should you decide to proceed.
