Originally Posted by Steelhead
About right. Of course I'd be slinging 110gr TTSX's out of that rig if going for speed.


This^

I have run a lot of TSX/TTSXs through stuff to see what happens at what speed. The bullets I have seen expand well at lower velocities have been those specifically designed for lower velocities, The 150 grain 30-30 X bullet, the 150 grain 30-30 TSX and the 125 grain .357 bullet.

I tested the 30-30 Barnes bullets down to 1300 FPS and I tested the .357 bullet down almost to 800 FPS. I shot them into a bunch of water jugs in a 2x12 trough so I could tell how many gallon jugs were penetrated and I wasn't using the far end of the trough to stop the bullets. All of the bullets tested expanded fully and looked like advertising copy bullets when recovered. The 30-30 and .357 bullets have a whopping big hollow point. I would not be at all surprised to see the 30-30 also expand fully down below 1000 FPS. Of what I tested, I used velocities up to 3600 FPS in both 25-06 and 300 WM. I saw no sheared petals. My suspicion is that until you hit pretty hard bone at pretty high velocity you won't shear petals. Of about 75 deer killed with monos that I have examined, the only one in which I know at least one petal was sheared was with a 300 WM at 25 feet and I hit teeth first before it proceeded through the Atlas and exited the deer. That one was an older style X (XLC-150) That one sheared a petal and it exited the back of the neck going sufficiently fast to penetrate the hide & 3/4 inch of tallow and embed itself in the vertebrae just above the pelvis.

I have recovered a lot of Barnes bullets that went through drier materials like wood, tires, and dirt. They surprisingly (or maybe not) had poor expansion. Sometimes little to no expansion. I never tried then into dry newsprint or dry phone books. I would expect their performance into dry paper to be erratic at best with poor expansion being common to typical.