Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles TSX failure or???

Tinman...I posted in theAI thread on this but in case you didn't see it yet...here goes. Two things:

1) Speed is your friend with Barnes...the 62 grainer wont necessarily give you that in a plain vanilla .223 a 50 or 55 grainer would be more better.
2) Just say "No" to TSX and go strictly TTSX

Good on you for a 500 yard antelope kill, but with the little bullet in a little gun, it was a fluke. The BC just isn't there to expect long range results out of the little gun.I feel comfortable with clean kills at 300 yards...but wouldn't want to try further....JMHO

Because as poobah noted, they need the extra speed to perform best.

The fact that you recovered that bullet is the clue. I have never ever recovered a Barnes bullet from an animal whether it was shot at 50 feet or 375 yards. The bullet hit something and was tumbling before it hit the animal or was tumbling for some other reason. A 223 Barnes launched at near 3000fps at a deer that was less than 100 yards down range would pass through end to end unless it went right down the spinal column and destroyed half the vertebrae. Also the fact that you had a lot of damaged meat would indicate tumbling.

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This

Bullets tumble frequently inside animals. We just don't see it, but tests in clear ballistic gel show tumbling happens even in a very consistent medium now and then. Throw in something like a bone, especially with a bullet that's marginally stabilized, and stuff can happen.

One reasonable guess about TSX's not opening has been the hollow-point being battered shut (or partly shut) by hitting the front of a rifle's magazine during recoil--or for some other reason during handling. This is based on the majority of recovered bullets that didn't open (or partially opened like the 62 shown here) are between 6mm and .30 in caliber. These bullets have relatively tiny holes in the front end, as compared to over-.30 TSX's which have bigger holes. Plus, 6mm-.30 cartridges also recoil more than .224 cartridges. In fact, this is the first .224 I've heard about being recovered without expanding correctly.

This can happen with plastic-tipped monolithics, but in my experience is pretty rare. In fact I've never experienced it in a bunch of animals taken by me and my hunting companions, whether using TTSX's. Nosler E-Tips or Hornady GMX's. But it's happened to other people, though not nearly as often as with hollow-points. If I'm using TSX's at moderate velocities, I much prefer the BIG ones, over .30 caliber, because the bigger hollow-point definitely seems to help. Otherwise I use TTSX's, and even then like them zipping right along.

On these threads somebody always comments that they've never seen a TSX or TTSX recovered. I have quite a little collection of them, some from pretty small big game animals. In fact two years ago my wife recovered a .25 100-grain TTSX from two consecutive animals, both clean one-shot kills. One was from a cow elk, which might be expected, but the other from a pronghorn doe. It does happen if you shoot enough animals.

My guess here is the bullet just didn't open as much as usual. Have seen similar TSX's where the bullet never hit anything except the animal, so would not leap to any assumptions about the bullet hitting a branch. Would guess the dent near the base is from hitting bone as the bullet tumbled.

I appreciate the OP sharing this and the resultant discussion. That bullet does look rather rough.

For those of you who have used the 0.224" Barnes bullets extensively, what bullet would you recommend to the OP instead? The 55g TTSX? Or would the lighter/higher velocity of the 50g TTSX be even better?

I ask because I'm in the same boat, a standard .223 Remington with a 1:9" twist, 22" barrel. I was planning on buying and loading the 55g TTSX but now I'm wondering if the 50g TTSX would "more better".

Thanks.

The 55 TTSX would be your huckleberry. I shot the 50 grainers in my .223AI and they killed game but when I actually got around to chronographing them I was getting 3200fps.
I surmised that was due to very little bearing surface, which in turn produces less pressure...which is already lower in a Barnes due to the alloy and the driving bands.. Anyway, tried EXACTLY the same load with a 55 TTSX and voila! 3500 fps...which is where the AI ought to be.

The other shot (presumably the 2nd shot, which dropped the buck real quicklike) did exit and yes, it was another 62 TSX with the same loading..

Wyoming law dictates that if I use a .224 bullet for deer or antelope, it has to be at least 60 grains...which is why I went with the 62 grainer.

I may play with the TTSX next, just to see WTH...May even spit it out of a faster round too.

I say again....label your hand loads however you like...the game warden isn't going to pull a bullet and weigh it....


and chances are nothing less than excellent that he wont know what he's looking at anyway.

The bullet in question failed, multi-layered equivocations aside.

If something doesn't expand when it's designed to do so, that's a failure by any logical standard. If a guy wants FMJ results, he should just buy those as they're substantially cheaper. Legality aside, they'll tumble just fine, and kill a deer quite dead.

T, I have never shot a Barnes bullet in my life.. I have killed about 60-70 head of big game with everything from the Hornet though the .22 Cheetah.. Got a bunch with old 55 gr. Sierra HPBT.. It and the 55 gr. Horn.. Were my favorites when I was playing this game.. I believe I have a 55 Horn. taken from a whitetail that mushroomed perfectly.. It was killed with a .223.. The Nosler BTBT's killed a couple head for me, and the 63 gr. Sierra worked well also.
Good luck with what ever you decide..

TInman,

Ah, yes, Wyoming finally legalizes .224's for big game hunting, but simply has to dictate some other limitation, because some experts in the department are still convinced bullet weight is essential to killing power.

When I started hunting in Montana there was a minimum .23 caliber regulation, to keep people from shooting deer with ".22's." A .23 minimum was common back then, and mostly directed at the .220 Swift, because so many game department experts (many of whom had never even seen a .220 Swift, much less shot one) knew it wasn't adequate for big game. Eventually, however, the regulation was changed to allow, with a few exceptions, any rifle cartridge to be used on big game, even rimfires. They somehow figured that hunters would use something that worked, rather than something that didn't.

I've had great luck in Montana and Idaho with 22 CFs and basic C&C bullets...especially the various 55 grainers. I even killed a great mulie a few years ago with my .204 Ruger and the Hornady 45 grain bullet. All of them worked just as well as any more accepted round/bullet.

I am not giving up on monos just yet, but I sure am not impressed. The velocity thing may be the kicker...but I can't imagine the monos I have flung at critters were going too slow. Its not like I am shooting them out of a 25-20 or anything.

This is very true (and I personally know all of the game wardens here locally due to my work-they are ignorant in regards to bullets/rifles) but it being shady wouldn't make it right...

The plastic-tip monos like the TTSX definitely open more reliably and, usually, wider in smaller calibers. This is because the hole where the tip's inserted is a LOT bigger than the tiny hollow-point in small-caliber TSX's.

In 7mm-08 they have worked well for me so far.

Guess I haven't shot enough yet?

I personally saw one recovered this last moose hunt... out of four bulls shot with them. Only one and it was a finisher at the base of the skull at staplegun range and a long angle to the spine. 210gr 338WM and the bullet looks beautiful!

While I see complete lengthwise pass-throughs on big Kodiak bears, both shoulders taken out on big bull moose, and the rare very light bullets in very big critters the standard use bullets just do not get caught in my experience.

Of course I am only shooting box after box over the course of many years... maybe if I shot more...

Thanks Ingwe, I appreciate the feedback. And now that you bring it up again, I recall reading about your experience with the two previously. Which is probably one of the reasons why I decided to go with the 55g TTSX in the first place!