Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Barnes 30 Cal 168 grain TTSX on deer

Similar experience here--with cartridges from the .30-06 to .300 Winchester Magnum.

I had similar experience with the TSX from my 300 Weatherby. Mine penciled through a shoulder and top of the heart. Two more shots took him down. First bullet looked like he had been shot by an arrow with a field tip.

Switched to the TTSX and it is devastating on deer.

Barnes told me that the 168 gr tSX/TTSX was designed for 30=06 velocities and the 165 gr TSX/TTSX was designed for .30 magnum velocities.

I've used the 168 grain TTSX in both the .30-06 and the .300 Win Mag and it's worked very well on elk and African plains game up to Kudu. I haven't used it on deer as I usually use smaller calibers for deer hunting. However, I shot a reedbuck and an oribi with it in a .30-06 and they were DRT, so it works fine on smaller animals.

It's the internet. People can say whatever they want with zero risk of it ever being verified.

I've twice spoken face to face with Barnes representatives, including a design engineer at SCI Conventions. The 168gr TTSX was in actuality the first LRX. It just wasn't labelled as an LRX. Subsequent bullets designed the same were labelled LRX.

We all know that an LRX works in magnums. I load a 270gr LRX in my 375H&H. My buddy used the 270gr LRX in his 375H&H on 4 cape buffalo bulls in Namibia's Caprivi Strip. He had no complaints. The chiefs (the buffalo were all shot on chief's permits) were happy with the meat for their feast.

Not for not but my favorite deer bullet has long been the NP. No thread drift just offering a counter point. However, if the OP has a load and a rifle that shoots then he ought to use it and tell us about it.

Most of my deer hunting shots have been around 100 yards, +/- 25 yards here in the SE. I've found the plain old Hornady 165 Spire Point to work very well for deer, even the two large bodied deer we shot in Kansas the past two seasons with a 308. My son shot his deer in the chest straight-on at 100 yards last year, found bullet in the hind quarter, mine was similar. If I were hunting something larger, I'd use the TTSX but maybe overkill with the 30 cal for deer sized game.

As much as I like the Nosler Partition, last price check was $69 a box compared to $32 for the Hornady Spire Point.

Have you never seen weird totally differing results with those and other SBT game kings? I have seen quite a few.

The TTSX has never given a weird issue.

Of course you might have to go look for them a bit. But never lost a deer to a ttsx. Can't recall that either with tsx. Or even the old X.

We have lost a couple to cup and core, even with a dog. Somehow the bullet didn't do something correctly. In fact only a few years back we had one survive a Berger wound from 6.5 creed moor through the heart lung area. Killed it with a barnes ttsx 223 round about 3 weeks later. It had been very sick. Lost weight etc...

If I NEED to know a bullet will work its gonna be a barnes TTSX every last time. Hammers have frags coming off and it may help but its not my cup of tea.

Oh sure, but the Sierra Pro Hunters and the heavier for caliber SBTs did fine. I had a Hornady 180 IL act weird on my first cow elk. I was shooting the Hornady Light Magnum 30-06 at 2910fps. I hit her running around 135 steps, first shot in the spine, she rolled, and tried to get up. I then popped her high lung shot. First one broke her spine but wadded up right there. No pass through. Second blew through lungs but fragmented, left marks against the far ribs. I felt it was the starting speed. The Hornady 150 going 3000 in my handloads acted like partitions on deer, I think that 180 just had a thin nose/lots of soft lead up front. I too have always enjoyed total success with Barnes, on anything with anything until ... "one weird Barnes incident."

Shot a Black Hawaiian Ram around 30yds with a 100 TSX/257 BEE going 3500 or so from muzzle. It hit "keyhole", screwed up the ram for sure, but I had heard of that before. Upon leaving the bore, a long for caliber bullet has a bit of "yaw" and it was still unstable upon entrance.

Jim Knight, I've had one unexplained anomaly with the Barnes 168TTSX. It was on a bull blue wildebeest that was coming out of the bush quartering to me at about 200yds. I aimed just in front of the right shoulder. At the shot, the bull was down with legs in the air. I felt a couple of congratulatory back slaps, just as the bull jumped up and took off like a race horse.

The brush was fairly thick and I could only spot it every few dozen yards, I could not get on it. It was sick enough that we recovered it. That first shot entered where I aimed, but it came out dead center through the bottom of the chest, not far behind the legs. Only the onside lung was damaged, no significant damage to the heart and arteries.

Why did the bullet take a 90° turn in the middle of the body? In my experience, the Barnes goes straight through an animal. We"ll never know. I had the scope on 4x. Neither I, nor the PH with his 8 or 10 power binoculars noted any branches in the way. But that is my only hypothesis, there was an unseen branch close in front of the bull and the impact with the branch caused the bullet to tumble before hitting the bull. It continued tumbling in the bull and made an abrupt turn before exiting.

Crap happens sometimes.

IMO, the only bullet I've used that I would trust as much as a Barnes is the discontinued Winchester Failsafe. What a wonderful bullet. Just too expensive to make. Federal has some similarly constructed bullets like the Terminal Ascent etc. If you don't handoad, those might be worth a try.

Never have been much of a Partition fan. Especially watching my Dad shoot a WT buck right behind the shoulder at about 150 yards. The onside ribs and the entire shoulder was destroyed (meat was bloodshot/jellified). I left the shoulder for the coyotes, it was not salvageable. What a waste.

I know the front of a Partition is soft and expands rapidly and the rear keeps penetrating, but a main reason we hunt is for the meat. If it excessively damages the meat, it is not for me, especially when the Barnex doesn't.

Yeah, I guess I've turned into a Barnes pimp.

BTW people, it looks inevitable that lead free bullets will be mandated in the next 10-20 years. I'm trying to get every big game caliber I have shooting a lead free Barnes. FYI, for varmints like fox and coyote, i'm a VMax guy. (FYI, hornady rep at SCI says they have a new Varmint bullet coming out this year. It is not replacing the VMax).

They will work in spades for all critters big and small........................................................

I started using the 168 TTSX when it came out, have used them exclusively in my 300 Wby ever since. Deer and elk, near and very far with superb results every time. I was also a Fail Safe user all thru the '90s, several calibers used from lower 48 to Alaska to Africa. Great bullets although not as accurate as the TTSXs have been.

Ditto on those Failsafes. I shot alot of the factory Winchester 270 140's from an old Belgium made BAR. I couldn't beat their accuracy with handloads! Also took a few head of PG in S. Africa with Winchester Factory 375 H&H/270gr Failsafes. Wicked. I also like the Barnes LRX bullets, just a tad softer up front. I'm a little bit leary of the mono's made from "Bullet Jacket Material"...never had good accuracy with them in what few I've tried.

Which brand is that?

I believe the Nosler ETip is made of gilding metal. Or was? Their website says it is all copper. https://www.nosler.com/products/bullets/product-line/expansion-tipr.html

The newer Hornady CX says it is all copper. https://www.nosler.com/products/bullets/product-line/expansion-tipr.html I do not believe the original monometal from Hornady was made of gilding metal.

I believe my memory is right, the original Nosler ETip was made of gilding metal, or a mix of copper and gilding metal. It would appear they changed it.

To my knowledge , Nosler has made only one version of mono bullet and that is the "E-tip". They have always been made of a Copper alloy - not pure Copper


The first mono-metal Hornady bullets were called the "GMX". What do you think GMX stands for?

I also just checked Hornady's website and by their own words, "CX" stands for "Copper ALLOY expanding".
By definition, an alloy is not pure .

Yep.

But have had great results with the E-Tip, including the 90-grain 6mm from a .240 Weatherby, 100-grain from a .257 Weatherby, 150 from a .308 Winchester, and the 180 from both the .300 WSM and .300 Winchester Magnum--on game from pronghorns to elk-size. Started using them in 2007--which was the same year Barnes introduced the TTSX. So far haven't seen any vast difference on game--but then can say the same thing about various monolithics since around 2000....

The 168 gr ttsx has a lower velocity on the bottom end of expansion window than other ttsx’s I was told. It should work well for deer sized game. You might have to track some a hundred yards or so, like many other bullets.