Into what type of medium are you firing your bullets?
Over the years I have used old telephone books (dry and wet), newspaper (dry and wet), milk jugs filled with water, buckets of sand, probably a few others. Today the "standard" seems to be ballistic gelatin, with or without barriers of fabric, leather, etc (perhaps imitating the FBI laboratory testing procedures).
The best you can expect from any medium will be comparative data, how one bullet or load compares to another in that specific medium, on that day, in that particular firearm, etc.
I have used several hundred swaged handgun bullets from Speer and Hornady. I have also been casting my own bullets, including hollow-point styles, for over 50 years and using lead alloys providing a wide range of hardness.
Bullet expansion seems to be a mantra for today's shooters. Anything that doesn't mushroom perfectly in the testing media must be deemed insufficient for any purposes. That which expands to 1.7 times caliber diameter is deemed to be infinitely better than the one that only provides 1.2 times original diameter.
I have shot cast bullets in handguns and rifles at velocities from about 700FPS to 2500FPS (certainly not the same bullets or same firearms!), and I have taken a dozen or more game animals with cast bullets. In critters with fur, skin, bone, and muscle surrounding the vital areas very few bullets will expand usefully; if anything, too many will shatter or disintegrate, tumble, fail to maintain the intended path of penetration to do the necessary work.
Hollow-point bullets (whether jacketed, cast, or swaged) that impact on a living critter are much more likely to fragment, disintegrate, separate into pieces, and/or tumble than they are to mushroom out into a poster image for your scrapbook.
In North America soft-point expanding bullets have become the most popular, and many states require these for hunting use. In Europe, Asia, Africa, and much of the rest of the world solid bullets are the preferred choice (especially for large and dangerous game).
We can all choose what we want to use. Some choose based on advertising or published opinions (frequently those who make their living from manufacturers' endorsement contracts). Some of us choose to use what we know will get the job done without worrying about the tiniest details.
Just an opinion from an old heretic who has been down the same rabbit hole more than once.
