Hello Changeling....Good to hear back from you! I don't know Pearce, his background, or his qualifications.....so I can't comment on his article. We do know that stabilization is a relationship to bullet length and velocity, not weight. We also know that rotational spin is not affected by air resistance to any great degree, therefore a bullet with a large meplat maitains rotational spin as well as a spitzer. Once maintaining rotational spin by the velocity/barrel twist at bullet release, the bullet loses very little spin in its flight. It is true that a wide meplat does cause more forward air resistance, therefore a faster loss in velocity....But, quite frankly has little loss within normal handgun ranges. As you know there are many factors in whether or not a bullet leaves the barrel with full spin, etc..undersize bullets, proper size for chamber throats, voids in the bullet, and many more.
I don't subscribe to th ultra heavy handgun bullets (but, thats another story) as I want enough velocity to cause the large meplat to give a large wound channel. I think the LBT 265 gr WFN GC may well be the best actual game bullet. No...I don't shoot sticks and boards, wet paper, etc....We shoot game and look at the balance between penetration and wound channel. We don't shoot Griz, Moose, or Elk...But do kill many wild boar hogs in the 400+ pound class.
As for the Meat Shoot Tests....We are shooting trapped and free running wild hogs on a South Florida Ranch, as well as along the Swannnee River. We are in the process of testing some 13 different Beartooth .44 calibre bullet weights at various velocities. As nothing is absolute, due to all the shot angles, etc...only time and careful analysis will give some ideas on bullet perfomance. It my hope that the forum would contribute to the database, but we have recieved only one reply. From this I can only surmiss that the forum is interested more in the techo side of handgunning than actual hunting performance of hard cast bullets.
Best Regards, James