My first experience with Barnes bullets on big game was in '08 or '09 with a pronghorn in Wyoming using the 100gr .257" TSX out of my Ruger #1 .25-06 loaded to around 3300 fps. I shot the speed goat from about 350 yds. It was almost perfectly broadside to me and I hit him just behind the shoulder (should have drilled the shoulders). It took off running and ran into a grove of cottonwoods and ran three or four laps in there before running out and falling over. Straightened out, that run would have been about a half mile. Bullet drilled both lungs, went right above the heart - pencil sized exit wound. I was not impressed.
A few weeks later, opening day of Missouri whitetail season, I was hunting with my Ruger 77 RL tanger in .250-3000 with some of that same batch of 100gr TSX's, loaded to about 2750 fps. I was urinating in some fresh scrapes as I walked to my stand. I was standing there urinating in the third scrape (the last one before my stand), when suddenly I heard a buck grunting loudly and it was charging me, head down to gore me with its antlers! I barely had time to get my rifle off my shoulder and yelling like crazy and trying to jump to my right, I fired from the hip when it was literally less than two yards, maybe one yard, from me. It reared up and fell on its back, jumped up and ran about 40 yds into a bunch of thick brush and died. It took me a bit to regain my composure and process what just happened. I was shaking like a dog pooping peach pits. The buck was a 140's class 10 pt., weighing about 280 lbs. The TSX had hit him square in the chest, and there was about a 4" diameter patch of hair missing around the entrance wound. The TSX did not exit, but I was unable to find it when I dressed the deer. I really wanted that bullet because I believe it saved my life.
Last edited by Skeezix; 03/14/24. Reason: correct error and add info.
