I have looked inside lots of game and if you put the bullet under the spine from my experiance it goes down and fast. Shock is what kills a animal with a bullet plain and simple. If that is not true then why do deer run away when I shoot them with my bow? I use broadheads with a 2 1/2 inch cutting diameter which is about 10 times the size of a 50 cal bullet so why do they run aways before they die? Simple not enough shock. Take a rifle most animals fall over on the spot why because the bullet shocks the body. If you are going to try tell me a bullet does not kill by shock I think you should just probably hang it up. Otherwise we should all be using a 22 Rimfire putting the Bullet through the lungs and letting the animal bleed out. As for the ballistics you were not clear on your muzzle velocity. Now I know I am going to burst some peoples bubbles but the so called hole under the spine where there are no lungs does not exist on a Whitetail deer as the link will show. As you can see the Lungs go right up against the spine and most people should know this if the have ever gutted a deer because you have to cut and peel them off the spinal cord.
http://www.nbef.org/deer_java.html

Now as for Elk I have never Field dressed one but if you look at the link below it looks the same as a deer, Lungs are up to the spine.
http://www.nbef.org/elk_java.html

Savage, that sounds like an admission of guilt if I've ever heard one.

Your confession is accepted!

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The bullet hit where there were ribs about two inches under the spine. The picture above is my first effort at picture editing so bear with me. I made a mark in red that's the shape of a bow tie.

In any case I was aiming just behind the shoulder and the bullet hit almost a foot back and high too. I attribute this in that the deer must have moved just as the shot went off and my let off must have been imperfect as well.

I did the best I could at the moment. I checked the rifle at the range and it was on so it's not the gun. The distance was 193 lasered yards but thats after the fact as I estimated it at 250 yds. My rifle was zeroed at 250 yds also.

It seems that the picture is not coming up at the moment. There have been some recent problems with the host.

The bullet hit at about the last rib.

After reading through all of this, my question is still how big a gun do you need to "destroy half the deer"? Wow!

I'm depressed! All those deer I killed with my 6.5x55 weren't dead enough? I can no longer hunt elk with my 280? What about BP season is my .50 not enough anymore? I suppose I could start working out and carry my .458 Lott as a mountain rifle. Would this be sufficiant?

Animals do funny thing when shot sometimes. I shot a feral dog that was chasin my horses at about 125 yds with a 30-06 with 180s and it ran for about 100 yards and then started running in circles. Come to find out, I'd hit him right behind the shoulder and blew out his vitals through a HUGE exit wound and yet he ran. Took the damn thing a while to realise he was dead.