Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Another Partition Failure

bluefish,

Yes, the concept of the Partition's design has been previously explained to dawgin'it on this thread, but apparently he'd reading impaired.

jorge,

I've had a lot of one-shot kills with Barnes TSX's (and Tipped TSX's) too, and some spectacular kills, especially from the .257 Weatherby. But once in a while one of them doesn't open correctly. Have seen that with other petal-type bullets as well. It doesn't happen often, but when it does it can make for a very long day....

I've yet to see a soft-point fail to open. Have had some not open quite as widely as the might have, but a quarter-sized hole through the lungs beats a .25 caliber hole.

Jon, fortunately I've escaped that TSX malady and I've since switched to the TTSX in the hopes of avoiding that. Given the small opening in the >30 cal TSXs I can see where that can be an issue. As to the rest of your post, I agree completely but one thing I'll NEVER use again are Hornady Interlocks in anything above a 2700 MV.

Bluefish you are correct but with a little work and research you can often-times find the doubles' sweet spot without re-regulation. For example, my double was regulated with factory 480gr Hornady DGX/S and it shoots them superbly. I picked that because Hornadys are the only current manufacturer other than Kynoch that loads the 450 NE 3 1/4. With Kynochs one has to floar a loan to shoot and Hornadys are "reasonably" (90/box) affordable. I called Horndady and obtained their load which incidentally was very mild and started from there as well as using Greene's book and of course the internet. I came across the Combined Technology bullets on another forum that's very Africa oriented and they develop less pressure and barrel strain than the Hornadys which as a result of their design are very high pressure/strain loads. The end result was a charge of 100gr of H-4831 and a 215 Fed primer and voila! regulation.

If anyone remembers,Noslers first bullets out were hollow points.They worked okay but people around here could not get used to using a hollow point on Elk same as Ballistic Tips to old timers although what I saw,the 180 Nosler(hollow point) did just fine.

I have used just about every bullet made in factory ammo and always come back to the Partition.

Jayco

62gr TSXs from Oryx and Warthog


150gr .284 TSXs. recovered from Blue Wildebeests and Zebra (the one on the right). The other bullets are 139gr Interbonds recovered from Blue Wildebeests


120gr .264 TSXs recovered from Oryx (2), Hartebeest, and Wildebeest.


If you shoot them enough you may even recover Lutz M�eller's KJGs... These two were shot with my 300 Weatherby and recovered from two Blue Wildebeests.


Here you have two that did not expand and tumbled upon impact. A good friend of mine recovered them from an interior Grizzly bear. They are 180gr TSXs and where shot from a 300 Winchester.


And here are some 350gr .416" TSXs. recovered from Hartebeest, Buffalo, Nyassa Wildebeest and Buffalo (L to R).


As I said.

BBerg

BBerg good stuff thanks for posting!

Great post BBerg makes me feel even more confident about continnuing to use the T/TSXs. jorge

As I noted earlier on this thread, I've recovered a higher percentage of TSX's than Partitions, and the percentage receover is higher for the Tipped TSX's.

My guess is that's because the tipped model tends to open wider than the original, especially in calibers from .30 on down, due to the bigger hollow-point under the tip. This has also been my experience with the Nosler E-Tip.

This doesn't mean the Tipped TSX and E-Tip don't penetrate plenty. They do, but in my experience not all that much deeper than Nosler Partitions.

"Here you have two that did not expand and tumbled upon impact. A good friend of mine recovered them from an interior Grizzly bear. They are 180gr TSXs and where shot from a 300 Winchester."


These two have a more brass/bronze color to them then the other more copper colored ones. Probably doesn't mean anything. But they do look like the Barnes bronze solid bullets.

I have not heard any rumors of inconsistent metallurgy since the earliest days of the X Bullet.

I have also never had this happen to me or at least where the bullet could be recovered.

Tejano,
It is just an effect of shooting the camera under a yellowish artificial light. The bullets are the regular copper TSXs.
BBerg

Thanks for the clarification. It's easy to make erroneous speculations from internet info. Good post.

Not sure if I still have it but the only Barnes "failure" was from an old 7mm 160 grain X that took out a couple of ribs and a shoulder on a smallish bull Elk. The bullet looked like an expanded wad cutter. Same bullet may have mowed down a 100 yards of grass too before it hit the Elk at about 325 yards.

The only negative I have ever heard about the Nosler Partitions was on a Giraffe where it took a bunch of .375-270 grain bullets to bring it down. Apparently they didn't track well (straight line penetration) and I suspect some bad shooting was involved too.

I haven't heard any rumors either but I have heard it straight from the horses mouth just 4 to 5 years ago. In a Wolf publication Brooks stated he had problems in buying copper. Different lots brought different results in bullet performance.

That is what I consider perfect performance.

693 yard, pass thru with a 140 ttsx out of a 280ai.
Ill stick with Barnes bullets thank you. It was a drt.


Exit.

I got a started box of 180 grain partitions from my local gun shop. I loaded them in my .300 Win mag and went hog hunting. I shot 2 hogs behind the ear at about 200 yards. Both of them rolled over in their tracks. Not an "oink" out of either one of them. When I walked up to them, neither bullet exited. I thought they would. They say a pig's head is hard. Like shooting a log I guess. Well, they had a commercial meat saw and "inquiring minds want to know," so we split their heads down the middle and there were the bullets. The front half of one bullet had disintegrated and the back half had been squished flat. The other broke up and the base was in tact. I thought the bullets took it quite rough. Not like in the pictures, you know, the perfect mushroom. They did their job though. I never shot anything else with them though. I shot all my deer with Sierra Gamekings and Nosler Ballistic Tips. They come apart too though. I don't know. If I ever rifle hunt again. I'd so some work with the new Barnes bullets.

rob p,

You may end up being surprised. I have seen TSX's stay inside pig's skulls.

Hola, John.
We once found one at the back of the skull of a Nyala that one of my clients shot in the Eastern Cape. I was a 300gr .375 TSX, and the shot was taken from 170yds or so, to a perfectly broadside animal with his head turned on to us.
The nyala fell down like a ton of bricks and when we got there and after the photos I started looking for the bullet holes, for the entry hole at least, and no matter how harde we all looked we just could not find it.
Later on, at the skinning shed, out skinner unveiled the mistery finding the bullet sticking out of the skull when taking the cape off. It had entered through the lacrimal, in the corner of the eye and dailed to break the skull wall and skin on its way out.
Alvaro

Hi, Alvaro,

Interesting! Especially considering the size of the bullet and an nyala. They aren't any bigger than mule deer.

I've had one verifiable "failure" of a TTSX. I say verifiable because I recovered the un-opened bullet (elk). I've seen others un-opened recovered from friends animals.

I know I've had other mono failures by just observing the wound channel, ie a pencil hole in and out. Both animals died (a mule deer with original Barnes X, and elk with Failsafe), and both didn't go very far, but each were lung punched as well so that's usually a dead animal regardless.

I wonder how many of these expanding mono's don't actually expand, but because the animal dies and the bullet isn't recovered the hunter doesn't give it much thought?

What I do know is I've never had an expanding lead core bullet fail to open... count me as Partition fan. As I said before, not the best at any one thing (penetration, frontal area, shrapnel effect), but the best compromise of those three.

Because when you have a caliber sized entry hole and an exit that is significantly larger, it would be intuitively obvious expansion occurred, not to mention "jellied" interior damage.