It's amazing, while reading these posts, that everyone wants to blame the gun or the ammo. Nobody wants to own up to making a bad shot. There's not a rifle or ammo made for deer hunting that wont kill deer everytime, if you make a good shot. Shoot the deer thru both lungs and he will die, and most of the time he drops right there. A 7mag is a fine gun, and is an excellent choice for whitetails. You only have delayed expansion, if that's the type bullet you are shooting. Bullets designed for whitetail hunting are rapid expansion. Winchester silver ballistic tips come with different xp bullets. Xp2 is for deer, xp3 are for elk, and so on. Not a big fan of ballistic tips, they kill deer, but if you do make a borderline shot, sometimes, there's not much of a blood trail. BTW, don't confuse polymer tipped bullets with ballistic tips. Just because a bullet has a polymer tip, doesn't make it a ballistic tip.