The Indiana .24 and .30 cal limits for the test period are not about ballistics IMHO. It's people management.
The HP rifle stuff passes, when it failed before, by having perceived limits.
Not every outdoors fan is a hunter. Not every hunter shoot deer, and not every deer hunter is cool with rifles.........and even a bunch that are, remain pretty darn ignorant on real world ballistics.
The legislature passed the law, without DNR approval. Initially it was 5 listed cartridges, but not by proper name. DNR steps in with clarification after it became law, so now it's min 1.16" case length, any .24 or .30 cal.
10mm auto was also to be legal (not meeting handgun spec of min 1.16"). They botched it too, so DNR clarified any 10mm.
So yeah, expect a fair number of tacticools losing deer to .40 S&W.
FWIW handguns only made 1% of the deer harvest last yr.
"drop em in their tracks"............well with a spine hit anything will do that.
I've killed a fair number of deer, a few with .44 mag revolvers. It works, but is NOT magic.
I'd use a long slide 1911 in 10mm, just for fun. But loaded with heavier bullets, gobbles case capacity........and I shot my bud's 1st edition Delta and I didn't think it "all that".
Like what another posted...........about killing and finding dead deer being two different things.
A bunch of folks are gonna find out.
But then, if tacticools lose 2 deer for every 1 they recover, maybe that plays into the deer reduction strategy of the state.