Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Mule Deer & All... Winchester Fail Safe Bullet experience

Hello Everyone

Recently I went through all of my very good supply of bullets. I found five boxes of Winchester Fail Safe 140gr .270 bullets. I had totally forgotten about them. I purchased them for a African hunt in September of 2003. However, I used Barnes 140 TSX instead. What is everyone's experience such as expansion, problems with the moly coating, etc., etc. I may hunt on a military base where my older son is is stationed for elk. All experiences are appreciated. The molly complaints bothered me twenty one years ago.

Eileen and I used Fail Safes a lot before Barnes solved all the early problems of the X-Bullet with the introduction of the TSX in 2004. Between the two of us, we used the 140-grain in the .270 Winchester, the 165 in the .30-06, 230 in the .338 Winchester Magnum, and the 300 in the .375 H&H. The game ranged from deer, elk and moose in North America to a variety of plains game and one Cape buffalo in three African countries.

In all instances it worked very much like the TSX later did on the same variety of game. Accuracy was also similar in most instances. The only "problem," if you can call it that, was the build-up of moly in the bore, which caused some weird stuff when we used non-moly ammo in the same rifles without thoroughly cleaning them first. Both group size and point-of-impact were affected.

Since there was no real reason to use Fail Safes on, say, pronghorns I eventually decided to remove as much moly as possible from the Fail Safe bullets. I used a then-common product designed to remove moly from bores offered by one company (can't remember the name). It removed most of the moly--yet the Fail Safes still grouped well and didn't copper-foul bores, and "standard" bullets shot well in the same rifles while using the different bullets.

Ross Seyfried found this interesting, since he'd encountered the same problem. (We talked about it some during a black bear hunt we--and several other "gun" writers--did on Vancouver Island with Jim Shockey's company. Ross did some more experimenting and found a more common solvent also worked to remove most of the moly. It might have been acetone, but am not certain, since we talked about it in person or over the phone over 20 years ago.

I have had success removing moly using walnut media in a vibratory tumbler. Used that method on a box of 7mm Failsafes. Did need to handtwist a small drill bit to remove media that got into the hollowpoints.

Many years ago I was using the .270 with the 140 GR failsafe bullets. Had two elk, both cows under 100 yards, got full penetration. Always killed the elk I shot with a single shot. Killed around 10 total elk with that combo.

Used a lot of them back in the day, from 375 down to those 270-140s. All of mine had WW’s Lubalox coating which did not cause the problems that moly did. I still have good supply of them and intend to hunt with them again at some point. Never had a problem with accuracy or expansion on game, they act much like the TTSX for penetration and expansion.

Yep, the later Fail Safes with Lubalox worked fine....

The early ones did too, and were Lubalox coated. Later the ones sold under the C/T label had moly coating.

The Failsafes I saw used on elk worked great. Excellent penetration, good expansion. I think somewhere I have an old photo of one recovered from a client’s big New Mexico bull.

Too bad they’re not available anymore, suspect they were very expensive to manufacture.

Which is exactly why they disappeared after Barnes introduced the TSX....

Never used them but seem to remember an article where they shot a few Australian buffalo with the 270wsm and that bullet….they killed quite well according to the article.

One of the experiences I had with them was a King Ranch nilgai hunt in Texas, where 15 hunters took both a bull and a cow nilgai. Nilgai are elk-sized, though with thicker hide, and had the repuation of being very hard to kill. A lot of ammo/rifle companies were throwing "gun writer" hunts for nilgai back then--and some Texas outfitters were recommending nothing less than a .300/.338/.375 for them.

When we showed up with .270 WSMs and 140-grain Fail Safe factory ammo, both the outfitter and the guides predicted disaster. Apparently ".270" was a nasty term to them, but by the end of the hunt (and the end of 30 nilgai) they were saying the .270 WSM was one of the best nilgai rounds ever.

Of course, the "difference" was in the bullet--along with some people who could shoot. Both of which are often the major factors in so-called killing power....

I remember that article. It was written by Wayne Van Zwoll, if memory serves

I tried them in several calibers and cartridges but mostly on smaller animals like Fallow deer, feral billie goats and pigs in Oz and Pronghorn in the US.

They worked fine and performed similarly to Barnes X bullets as others have noted. Complex in bullet design, it's no wonder they were not financially viable to produce when competing against the X bullet.

I used the 180’s in my 300H&H. They were great. No deer ever walked away from one. I also never caught one. I have exactly 4 loaded rounds left.
That is 4 more dead deer.
I put a WTB in the classifieds a while back hoping to get lucky. Never got a reply.

I used one of the early batches of 30 cal 180's on a cow elk in a 300 WSM. I picked her out of a group traversing a steep hillside and shot her at 350 yards. She didn't react, took a few steps forward again and stopped so I gave her another. Again, no reaction. She continued walking forward about 20 yards and then suddenly fell over. The shots were 6" apart and both through the lungs, exiting the offside. The autopsy revealed absolutely no expansion, just pencil holes in, through, and out. Otherwise, I did use the 165 on an antelope from a 30-06 and it worked as advertised.

I used the Fail Safe Bullets and then cleaned the bore of my 26" inch .270 with JB Bore Cleaner. It seemed to work as I have shot one half inch groups with Hornady AND Barnes 140gr bullets using Norma brass. However, using Winchester brass the groups opened to 3/4 inch groups on a good day. I'll use some acetone to get the moly off my supply of 250 bullets. You guys killed a cape buffalo with the Fail Safe? Nice. Thanks for replying with this valuable experience.

Thanks John. Your post is 100 per cent identical to some stuff I've read about these BIG Indian transplants. I remember Finn Aagaard telling of the humble, low powered .308 Win. successfully taking a big bill, one shot. Shot placement!

Amen from the back row!!!

I have 3 bullets I recovered from front on, full length raking shots, when culling brumbies. Each bullet was under the skin visible at the back of the rump making them an easy recovery. The were 160gn Failsafe bullets loaded just under 2750fps using 46gn of Rel 15 in my old John Rigby .275.

Back in the day, I used to load hunting ammo for two friends: "Roy" and "Ralph". Ralph had just bought a new 300-378 Wby Mag, with a muzzle brake, and he and Roy were going on a New Mexico elk hunt. He brought me four boxes of the, then new, .308", 180gr Fail Safes, along with his .300-378 Wby to work up loads with. Roy was going to be using a .300 Win Mag, so I worked up loads for that one too. Roy was an excellent shot, Ralph, not so much. I had to wear earplugs plus 32 db NRR muffs when I fired that Wby and it still rang my chimes.

In NM, Roy got a nice 6x6 bull, walking across a "park", but headed towards a fence, on the other side of which was no hunting. His first shot was a killer, but the guide told him to keep shooting until the bull was down because he didn't want it to make it to the fence. Roy shot twice more and the bull collapsed. First two shots were raking from about right rear rib, forward and exiting, one from front of left shoulder, other through left shoulder breaking bones on the way. Third was Texas heart shot, and that Fail Safe was recovered.

Ralph hit his bull several times (don't remember how many times), wounding it. Guide had to finish it off. Ralph complained that the Fail Safe's didn't expand, but penciled through. I don't know. None were recovered. Roy shared with me that the exit wounds on Ralph's bull really were not as large as the ones on his, and also that at Ralph's first shot, the guide's eardrums were nearly shredded. Guide said don't bring him back with that rifle.

Skeezix,

It's always interesting when somebody complains that bullets didn't expand. Have two good stores about that:

Was on a multi-hunter "industry" pronghorn hunt many years ago, and one of the other guys was a magazine editor using a 7mm-08 with Hornady factory loads featuring the 139-grain Interlock Spire Point. He took several shots--all hits--to kill his buck, and claimed they weren't expanding. His guide later informed us that he was hitting the buck around the edges of the heart-lung area. (Might also mention that editor is no longer in the business.)

Another was a guy I ran into at a local sporting goods store. He was with a guy I already knew, and when we were introduced the new guy immediately went on a rant about how a 180-grain Nosler Partition hadn't expanded on mule deer buck he'd killed that season. The range was 35 yards, and the cartridge the .300 Winchester Magnum.

I asked him how he knew the bullet didn't expand, and he said the exit hole was .30 caliber. I then asked him how far the buck went after the shot, and he said around 50 yards. I then asked if he'd field-dressed the buck himself. He snorted and said of course. I asked if the lungs were shredded. He hesitated, and then admitted they were. I said, fairly firmly, that the bullet expanded. He didn't say anything, just shook his head very slightly....

TSX & TTSX quickly made the Fail Safes obsolete...................got a few if anyone wants them, cheap.

277, 338, maybe some 284..............would have to check.

MM

I thought Winchester denied they were molycoated. They called the black coating something else. Lubalox I guess.

Your description of how the Failsafe worked the same as the TSX is my exact experience with the 230gr 338WM load.

The Failsafe was a damn fine bullet.

I have used them in my M70 338 Win and 416 Rem and they consistently shot under a MOA and gave superb penetration

JB,

I agree. The gentleman, "Ralph" could never understand that muzzle energy doesn't trump bullet placement. I wasn't there on that NM elk hunt, so I have no idea if the Fail Safes expanded or not. But, my belief is that they did just fine, but he didn't hit his elk in the vitals and just wounded it, because I do know that his guide had to finish the bull. I also know that the other gentleman, "Roy" was a yes-man to him and especially on this hunt because Ralph paid for Roy's hunt. So if Ralph fussed that the Fail Safes didn't expand, more than likely, Roy would back him, even with cantaloupe sized exit wounds.

But, I was on the same piece of property with them a couple years after this event, when Ralph fired seven shots with his .300 Wby at a whitetail doe starting at about 60 yds away in a wide-open green field, broke one of her legs, she ran off, he looked for her for about 20 min, got pizzed off, and left. That was the last time I hunted with him.

Tim

The 3 I recovered all expanded and lost petals, consistent with the Barnes X performance of the 90"s. They retained the majority of their weight though I haven't weighed them

I have two boxes of 308 Win fail safe 150gr. I bought them years ago but never had a reason to use them. They may be collectors items now. Good tough ammo !

Weren't the "Failsafe" bullets formerly known as "Black Talons"? I had a friend who used them in a 7 mag on an elk at around 150 yds. Took 3 shots to put it down, pencil sized exits. He may as well have used FMJ ammo.

Except in my case it actually happened, and it turns out the .308/180's I used were part of a bad batch that apparently had been recalled.

While I understand people that complain about "non-expanding" bullets often don't have any evidence for it, some of us actually know what we're looking at in an autopsy lol.

I call it a “bullet necropsy”. And yes, I’ve seen plenty of critters die despite poor bullet performance, but it was still poor performance on the bullet’s part.