I feel that 2200 is a good 'threshold' for TSX/TTSX bullets. I just do not believe a Barnes rifle bullet on average will expand enough to MY liking at 1,800.
Klik - what I do know is the older Barnes bullets are perhaps inferior in consistency and/or proper hardness/softness, etc. as IIRC those were older gen bullets. Agreed, copper is harder so it's a whole other ball of wax.
I agree with your idea of minimum needed speed to reliably expand.
As far as the old versus the new, I am not convinced that the new have improved on the old in anything except accuracy. If they have improved in consistency it is only that the new ones seem to open less widely than the old which perhaps helps them hold onto their petals nearly 100% of the time. The very first Barnes bullet I fired at an animal lost a petal or two on impact. It is one of only three, less than 10% of the moose I have been involved with the killing of which tipped right over on impact, a fact that was unavoidable given the fact that the bullet broke the top ends of both humerus bones. Quite frankly, I don't have a problem with these bullets losing petals. I much prefer a caliber-wide flat face to a four-spoked claw which never opens much. Obviously the caliber-wide, petal-less slug was open to a wide flat face at some point in the expansion before the petals came off. Copper is a difficult medium to work with when it comes to bullets, there is no doubt, at least relative to lead and cup and draw brass alloy. The success of the Barnes monos was achieved largely through the improvement in accuracy and fouling minimization. Expansion characteristics overall have not improved as near as I can tell. If they had Barnes would capitalize on it just as they have with the accuracy and fouling. It's not that they haven't constantly tried to improve expansion, but they try to avoid making it an issue since they still haven't achieved their goal. Perhaps the TTSX will be the tool by which they achieve it. My thoughts and opinions on the matter, and it may not be worth two cents.
