Tom:

As mentioned by Daryl, the 225 Horn is stouter constructed than the 220 Horn or 200 Sierra. I am not certain that meat damage will be much different from a .270, and probably worse, if the velocity of the Sierra 200 or Hornaday 220 is 2400+. The 225 looks better for the higher velocities.

I used the 235 Speer on some deer years ago and at 2800 it was ruined a lot of meat. I asked the Speer tech if changes were made to that bullet over the years since others have mentioned excellent results and deep penetration on elk. The speer tech said that the technical spec's have changed to the bullet, but since most occured years ago, the data is not easily retrieved. Needless to say, it appears that bullet, core and jacket construction were beefed up.

I plan to work with the 225 some and will post penetration tests here.

For some testing of the 220 Hornady, see here:

http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?t=1253

The 220 appears like it would be a real killer on deer at 2450 fps, but may not give the "eatin' right up to the hole" performance some heavy-bullet, full-power loads give.

When both are shot into my test media, I will be interested to see what a full power 225 Horny looks like, compared to the same bullet shot at 2450 fps. A "controlled expansion" level of performance of the 225 Hornady in the .375 H&H when shot at 2450 fps may just be a perfect match for our elk and deer here in my country, giving good 250+ yard trajectory and terminal performance with .30-06 recoil. This 225 Hornady looks promising.

Having said all that, the Hornady tech says expansion is estimated at a low of around 2300 fps, so maybe my 2450 load is pushing it for outer-range expansion performance on deer. Won't know till I test.