Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Barnes 130 grain TTSX .277 bullets on large game

My thread about the 168 grain TTSX for deer got me wondering how the .277 Barnes 130 grain TTSX performs on large game. I do have some experience with this bullet out of a Winchester XTR Winlite 270. I have taken several whitetail of various sizes and one large old wild boar of around 300lbs. The bullet completely penetrated both shoulders of the boar at about 80 yds. He only made it about 40 yds before collapsing. The performance on the hog made me think this would make a pretty decent elk bullet even though it is only 130 grains. Have any of you all taken an elk, moose or bear with this bullet?

Shot this bull at 560 yards with a 270 and the 130 TSX. He took two steps and fell downhill flat on his face.

Looks like it wasted too much meat. There's none left!

You can kill just about anything you want with that bullet/cartridge combo

Lots of deer and other stuff, 3 cow elk, always flawless performance. Go forth and slay.

Looks marginal to me….

Need at least a 300 Win Mag for elk lol

Not the 130-grain .270 TTSX, but the 130-grain .30 TTSX, started at 2850 fps from Eileen's custom lightweight .308 Winchester, to reduce recoil. The range was around 250 yards, with the big cow standing quartering toward us. Eileen aimed for the near (left) shoulder, and that's where the bullet landed. The elk stumbled forward 20-25 yards and fell dead. The bullet landed just above the big shoulder joint, and we found it under the hide in the middle of the ribs on the far side.

This fall I killed another cow about the same size, at 200 yards with a 127-grain LRX started at 3000 fps from my Charlie Sisk 6.5 PRC. It was standing angling almost facing me, so I put the bullet just inside the near shoulder. The elk dropped right there and never moved. The bullet broke the bottom of the spine, then went through the lungs and into the guts--where I couldn't find it.

While personally I prefer a bit more bullet weight in the 270……these kill way above their “weight class” or “pay grade”! memtb

The 110 TTSX and 130 TTSX's from a 270 were my go-to bullets for quite a few years. I had great results on coyotes (110's), mule deer (110's and 130's), cow elk (130's), bull elk (110's and 130's), and a bull moose (130). I won't say that they're "the best" in all circumstances but they certainly work very well with good shot placement.

I haven't killed any elk with a .270 but Jack O'Conner has written about numerous hunts where he has taken bull elk with 130 gr out of his .270. Of course all of these were with cup-n-core bullets but it adds no doubt that the tougher TTSX 130 gr bullet should be fine for elk. Just FWIW...

They kill pigs very well, breaks both shoulder and keeps going.

That's funny right there!

I've taken 4-5 moose with a 270 and I cut down a M700 270 for kids of friends that draw the Youth Hunt tags to use. We've probably taken close to a dozen moose total with the 270. I started with the 160NP and that is impressive, but I found the 130TTSX to be more accurate and available, so we switched some years back. Moose shot in the lung/heart area die as rapidly as those I've shot with 375H&H or 9.3x62. I have had the 130TTSX exit on 1,000 pound cows.

Might other 130gr monos be good to go as well, such as the Hornady CX Lead-free or Nosler E-tip?

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dave

John
Isn't that OP the exact combo Eileen used when her and I were after bison ? Or was it a 140 grain bullet ?
Charlie

These 130 E-Tips came out of a bull elk, so you could say that.

My hunting notes say it was a 130 TSX, from a Federal factory load.

Whitetail,

Before we switched to the 130 TTSX in Eileen's .308, she used the 150 E-Tip, also at about 2850 fps. That's the rifle and load she used on a South African safari in 2007, taking plains game up to around 800 pounds. Recovered two bullets, the first of which had already penetrated a cactus before ending up inside a bushbuck that was facing her--and the entrance indicated it had already expanded. The other was from a big zebra stallion she shot through both shoulders. Both retained all their weight, and since then we've used several other E-Tips, ranging from the 90-grain 6mm in the .240 Weatherby Magnum to the 180 in the .300 Winchester Magnum.

Haven't been able to tell any difference in their field performance from that of TTSXs. But in general TTSXs (and LRXs) are easier to "tune" for small groups--though the same "seat 'em deeper" technique works....