Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Barnes 175gr LRX vs Moose

Last year I snagged a stainless Winchester 70 in .300 WSM for a price I couldn't pass. I already had my custom stainless Ruger MKII in .35 Whelen as my moose rifle but I figured I could justify the .300 WSM as my long range big rifle. I was trying to decide between the 168gr and 180gr TTSX just when the new Barnes LRX came out. A 175gr would be a good compromise and the LRX (long range X) would be perfect since this was going to be for longer range.

Just like last year, for this year moose hunt I brought out both the Whelen and the .300 WSM. Once we hit the gravel road, I reached for the gun case to get out a rifle just in case we would see something on the way up and it just happened that it was the .300 WSM that was in easy reach.

It was new area where neither of us had been before and we had a group cow/calf draw. The first day was more driving around exploring than hunting. At 5pm I spotted a cow and a calf on the other side of a small creek and just like that, our moose hunt was over before it had even started. I shot the big cow and my buddy the calf. Range was about 75yds , cow quartering away, she took one step and tipped over. Not much of a long range test!

During butchering, I found the bullet and two petals in the front opposite shoulder. Recovered weight with the two petals: 146.7gr.

Observations: - The lungs were a pudle of goo in the chest cavity during gutting. I have shot moose before with the TSX and usually what I have seen is a 1"-1.5" hole drilled throught the lungs not the jello often seen on smaller game like deer. May have something to do with the claim that the LRX is made to open a lower velocity for long range.

- The large shoulder bone (humerus?) was pulverised. Shards of bone and bone dust everywhere.

- Lots of bloodshot meat in the opposite shoulder. Not that surprising considering that bone was struck and the speed of impact.

I shot an elk with 165 TTSX at about the same range with my 300 WSM. All four petals we gone, but the core of the bullet was intact, my Dad had a similar occurrence with a moose last year at 80yds and a 300 WBY.

I think they need to get below 3,000fps before the petals curl up all pretty, anything fast and they rip right off. Still kill the same at that range though.

jryoung -

I dropped a 180g Barnes MRX into water jugs at 3032fps. 9 gallon-sized jugs later it had 3 petals left.

Don't know how many petals were left on the game we've taken as we've never recovered one of the bullets. Most game has gone straight down and none have made more than a few steps and that is why we keep using them.

Hard to say - I shot an elk with a 270 Wby and 130 TSX last year - distance was under 100 yds and muzzle velocity over 3500. Four perfectly peeled back petals and 100% weight retention. I didn't hit bone, so maybe that has something to do with petals coming off - velocity certainly wasn't an issue.

I'm amazed that you guys are recovering bullets fired from those distances and at those velocities. There is going to be quite a lot of trauma (ie blood shot meat) with the velocities your talking about regardless of what bullet you're using. 3K seems to be kind of a magic number for that. I've been using TSX's and TTSX's for a while now and have never recovered any. This years moose was taken at a touch over 350 yards and both rounds into the boiler room were complete pass throughs. just my .02

This bull was below me walking straight away and I waited for him to turn to give me just a little angle. The bullet entered high behind the rib cage and angled forward and down, and stopped low in the chest in front of the shoulder. We pulled the four legs off with the hide on and boned out everything else except the rib cage. There was no blood shot meat on anything we packed out. I suppose there could have been some blood shot under the hide on the rib cage but never noticed. I had a slab of brisket I boned out before packing out and when cutting and wrapping two weeks later, I found the bullet on the outer surface of the brisket. The meat around the bullet was perfect and required no trimming at all - I picked out the bullet and wrapped. The bullet looked exactly like BCSteve's avatar...

I shot a muley through both shoulders later that day with the same rifle. The shoulder meat around the bullet holes was soft and a bit mushy from bone fragments, but not blood shot at all. I did scrap most of that since picking bone fragments out of it was becoming more effort than it was worth, but it was suitable for burger if somebody wanted to spend the time picking through it.

This was my first time hunting with TSX'x and was quite surprised at the lack of blood shot meat considering the velocities and close range.

I'm going to give TSX a try (yeah, I am slow to change sometimes) and one of the benefits I will be looking for is less meat damage. Also going to try running cartridge/bullet combos with less velocity. Most shots are within 200 yards, though there have been several over the years out to about 400 yards.
Getting real tired of losing a lot of meat at times with decent hits (mostly deer). (we won't talk about the poor hits!)

It's funny you should mention that. I've recovered Barnes bullets in every moose (3) that I've shot with them.

A 160gr TSX from a 7mm Rem Mag Federal factory ammo (interesting fact: notice that this bullet is a boatail. Barnes doesn't make a 160gr TSX boatail!). Quartering towards shot between the shoulder and neck. Bullet recovered in the rear opposite quarter.


225gr TSX from a .35 Whelen. First shot was broadside and right through. The second shot was a finisher, head on. Bullet when through the head and lenghtwise through over a foot of spine.

Was the whole box of the 160's BT's? I've never bought the 160's since I've always moved down one step in bullet weight when switching to Monos from cup and cores since they rely more on velocity for proper performance. I've only run 150's in the 7mag. Never had a moose or bear stop those either. I also use the 210's in the 338wm and 168's in my '06.

So, from your experience, I'm guessing I'm good to go on Elk out to about 300 yds with the '06 180 gr MRX as put together by Federal. I was just wondering if there had been problems with the MRX and that's why Barnes changed to the LRX? I've got a hunt coming up in a few weeks and probably don't have time to check out some other loads. This one certainly shoots minute of elk.

Thanks for all the info guys.

Geno

Here is the bullet:

JGray, Isn't that a thing of beauty. Less meat destruction is one of the primary reasons I switched over to the monos. Sounds like that's what you saw with yours. One thing I've noticed is I'm much more careful about shot selection with them than I was with cup and cores. Since I assume it's going all the way through, head on shots (especially with bears) and quartering away shots on moose, caribou, ect... are ones I'm pretty careful about. Having a bullet tear up the guts of a critter that eats meat is bad juju and even though the meat damage is minimal compared to what you would get with cup and cores, I still hate shooting up the off side shoulder if it can be avoided. (pretty strictly a meat hunter and hate wasting any if I can help it)

After looking at this again last night, I was surprised how far down the shank the bullet peeled back - nearly to the lower driving band. Most pics of recoverd TSX's seem to look more like the 160/7 mag above that BCSteve posted. Using TSX's gave me more confidence taking that steep angled shot knowing I'd need to penetrate part of the paunch to get to the lungs. If he hadn't turned when he did, he might have got the 'ol Texas Heart Shot Because of the angle of the shot, I only got one lung. That combined with us taking up after him too soon ended up in a longer tracking job than I would have liked. If we'd given him a bit of time, he would have been down where he bedded 50 yards from where I shot him, rather than 300 yards away.

Bone probably is the key factor, even a rib could do it. I should admit that my 165 TTSX did go through her femur. I had a small window to shoot and she must have turned faster that I thought.

From my elk last year, 7mm RM, 145 LRX, 3,100 @ muzzle, 305 yards, 99.4% and 99.6% weight retention.



This was my Dads 180gr TSX from his moose. No petals, but plenty of mass that kept on runnin. My 165TTSX looked very similar.

Anyone have any more info with these bullets? (LRX)

Those LRX are looking interesting, looking to try the 175 grain, 30 caliber. I would like to try them in my 06 & 300 WM.
I just can't find any.

Thanks for any further info.



PS: This was a nice older thread.

Very hard to find right now.

The big issue is not really the bullets its the similarity of the animals because we will always find variation in recommendations from 150gn maybe even 130gn TTSX up to 200gn being recommended, but that only proves different people have experienced success using different bullets weights. The real message is that they all seem to work if placed correctly.

That simplifies the recommendations to use what your rifle likes best. I know, too simple a recommendation, but it does work. And, we all like to shoot an accurate rifle.

Thanks for the report.
All I shoot/load now days are either TTSX's or LRX's, they have yet to disappoint in cartridges from .243 to 300 H&H.

A very accurate and astute post. It won’t settle the most popular argument around the campfire (which bullet is best) but it’s as accurate a post as the TTSX is deadly. 😁

Good resurrection of an old thread.

I haven’t shot any animals with the LRX yet I’m hoping to have an opportunity with the 175 LRX next month. But I have shot a bunch of critters with TSX and TTSX and never recovered one for inspection.