Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 6.5 or 30

The LRX is a tipped bullet. BC .468 MV 2880 at elk altitude. It is still doing 1800 at 800yds. I doubt failure to open on an elk-sized animal is even a factor, even at insane range. As I said, in the normal scope of elk hunting, that bullet is going to open. There is no reason why it won't.

I don't like monometals. I don't use them. They are too expensive to work with, IMO. That doesn't mean that I don't know how, or why, they work. I like big, soft bullets that do a lot of damage, fragment, exit.

Anyone else want to try and explain why a 6.5 127 LRX won't work for elk? Silly.

Might be seeing a rehash of this previous thread.
VanZwoll, 6.5 Creedmore, 129gr Hornady, 603 yd shot.

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/4401608/1

I've shot a truckload of elk over the years, about 1/2 with a 270 and 1/2 with 300 WSM. I can honestly say that I haven't shot a single one with the 300 that the 270 wouldn't have put down about as well. That said, I sure like the way the 300 WSM shoots.

You'd be wrong, it happens. A good friend of mine used my handloaded 168 TTSX's (also "a tipped bullet") to shoot a whopper of a bull at under 100 yards. He hit it in the heart, which was a good thing because the bullet looked brand new, except for the missing tip.



Yes, it actually does mean that.

Your friend shot an elk with a 168 TTSX at less than 100yards and recovered an unexpanded bullet minus the tip?

What rifle/load? Where was it hit? Where was the bullet found?

David

No.



Yes



I think rather than rifle/load, velocity is what you're looking for. MV of 2,650. Bull was broadside, and the shot through the ribs, through the heart. The heart muscle could've slowed it down some to help keep it in the chest. The bullet could've also turned broadside. Can't recall where he found the bullet, but since it apparently hit little if any bone, under the off-side hide is a pretty good bet.

300 with 180 TTSX
on recovered bullet with only tip missing
did your friend dig it out of dirt? if so...I call B...S....
Ive shot 2 elk with just regular tsx out of 06. 3 shots. never found one bullet. one destroyed the shoulder and never found. finished with a neck shot and didn't care about the bullet in the dirt.
one made the lungs look like I just put them through the blender.

So I assume you've never shot an elk with a rifle using "monometals", but you've "heard stories."

I'll leave it at that.

150 TTSX from my 300 WSM has accounted for several deer, elk and bears from under 50 yds to a lasered 487yds. Always shot broadside and all were 1 per customer. All exited with good apparent expansion and jello in the chest.

Lots of guys have killed tons more game with them but never had one fail myself, friends or family in what is likely approaching 100 head of game.

Well, you'd be wrong then. Puker.

Did he dig it out of the dirt? I already answered that question.

You "call BS?" If you're gonna call someone a liar, you really should take the 10 seconds to read what they've said beforehand. Especially if you're gonna base your opinion on a sampling of 2 animals. Success with 2 animals means a lot less than you think it does.

As far as Barnes bullets "always exiting" on elk, no they don't. I was standing behind my son when he shot a cow with another 168 TTSX that I loaded for a .308. Range was about 40 yards and it didn't exit.

As far as not opening, I'm not the only one with examples of this. Brad, who used to post here, quit using them for the same reason. There's another guy, BWalker IIRC, who used to have an avatar with a photo of a Barnes that didn't expand.

Barnes bullets are great, most of the time. Especially when pushed fast. My mistake in loading them for my friend's .308 was in going heavy/slow with 168's. I should've gone with 150's, or better yet, 130's.

Two animals...but 3 bullets!

Kman, you may want to walk the scale down to a box of 168 Nosler BT to see if accuracy improves before dropping down any further--worked for me in an 06...fwiw

The lightest .308� LRX is 175g so �lighter-for-cal bullet� would mean a TTSX in the 130g to 168g range if keeping the bullet design as similar as possible. According to Barnes:

110g .308 TAC-TX = .166 SD / .289 BC
127g 6.5mm LRX = .257 SD / .468 BC
130g .308 TTSX = .196 SD / .350 BC
150g .308 TTSX = .226 SD / .420 BC
165g .308 TTSX = .248 SD / .442 BC
168g .308 TTSX = .253 SD / .470 BC
175g .308 LRX = .264 SD / .508 BC
180g .308 TTSX = .271 SD / .484 BC

I�m not sure what �slower velocities� means, but my hunting compadres and I have killed quite a few animals over the last few years with Barnes TTSX and MRX bullets weighing 100g to 180g and have yet to recover one. Most animals dropped straight down, others have taken a few steps at most. Ranges have varied from about 25 yards to hair under 400. During that time I�ve learned to trust the tipped Barnes bullets.

Any bullet can fail. Some will do so more often than others. I worry more about bullets coming apart at high velocity than failing to expand at low velocity.

Tipped Barnes bullets open at relatively low speeds. The 110g .308� TAC-TX are designed for the .300AAC Blackout which start out at around 2400fps. Videos show them expanding at 1900fps, not so much at 1300fps. Other photos on Barnes� web site show a 7mm 150g TTSX that expanded after impacting at a little over 1700fps. My own informal testing with water jugs leaves me with little concern about TTSX/MRX/TAC-TX expansion, but even so I prefer impact velocities above 2000fps as a rule of thumb for pointed bullets.

Using that admittedly arbitrary and conservative 2000fps limit, a 127g 6.5mm LRX , if launched at 2750fps would have an effective range of over 500 yards. If the velocity limit is lowered to 1800fps, the range increases to just under 700 yards. In 32 years of hunting Colorado big game, my three longest shots have been ~350 yards, ~400 yards and 487 yards. The vast majority of the rest have been under 300 yards. In short, I wouldn�t worry about a 127g 6.5 LRX expanding at the ranges at which I would use them.

So about the rare event when the bullet doesn�t expand at low velocity? In that event hydraulic displacement and temporary wound cavities will be minimal and the difference between the wound channels created by a .264� or .308� will be even more so. The 127g 6.5 has a higher SD than even a 168g .308 bullet. Whether that would translate to similar penetration or not only testing would tell. In any case, both would penetrate soft tissue pretty well and if heavy bone was encountered both would probably expand.

The 110g TAC-TX bullets from my .300AAC Blackout start out a bit under 2400fps. If launching a 127g 6.5 LRX at 2750fps, it will drop to 2400fps somewhere around 250 yards. Even hunting elk, deer and antelope in open sage, most of the shots my partners and I have taken have been under that range.

In short, the difference between a 6.5 127g LRX and a �lighter-for-cal bullet� in a .300 isn't something I would worry about

Nailed it. Velocity and RPM's.

theres a guy on here from colorado that uses a 260 rem sometimes for elk,and is quite sucessful.when i compare the the SD of a 30 cal and a 6.5 its easy to see why ya dont need a big caliber,but thats speaking for myself

Thanks for the information!

David

The OP's question was not limited to Barnes bullets.

To answer the OP's question, what's the twist rate on your barrel? It may be twisted such that it won't stabilize the heavier bullets. And there's no need for 200's or 180's anyway; if you're going to shoot the rifle much, do yourself a favor and go with 165's or 150's.



I can't follow your logic here in not wanting to hunt with a .30 caliber 150 or 165 at a higher velocity than a 6.5 127-grain bullet. The 150 or 165 will do fine on elk.

If I were in your shoes, I'd use the bullets that shoot well or if you don't want to use those pick a few different bullets in that range and see if you can get them to shoot in the WSM. No harm in doing that.

But elk season is getting close, so if you don't find a good combo for the WSM, hunt with the LRX and don't look back. Confidence in your shot placement is worth more than anything else. Shot placement is the most important thing, followed by bullet construction, then headstamp. The crappiest bullet (I'm not saying the LRX is crappy) will succeed with good shot placement.

As far as the LRX failing to open up, you could hunt for years and not have it happen to you. That was not my point.

The only reason I brought up the fact that monometals sometimes fail to open was the blanket statement by someone who's never used the bullet that there is no situation where the bullet wouldn't be as good as another bullet.

As with most sweeping all-inclusive statements, it's just not true.

smokepole �

Correct, the OP�s original questions was not limited to Barnes bullets. Nevertheless I specified �keeping the bullet design as similar as possible� and Barnes bullets to eliminate design and material variables as much as possible.

I don�t trust non-tipped monos to expand as reliably as tipped versions, nor do I expect copper and gilding metal monos to perform the same. Etc.

It's a 10 twist. The 165's are speer spitzer flat base bullets loaded to 2725fps and are a soft bullet. They regularly do not exit on white tail deer unless it's a perfect broadside shot. I would not use those on elk. The 150s are just a simple cup and core bullet and they are clocking 3250fps. Again, on anything but a perfect broadside shot with no ribs I wouldn't trust those on elk. They make enough mess of white tails.

I will give the 150gr ttsx in the vor-tx ammo a try and that will be my final attempt to take the 300 hunting for elk. My concern with the 150's is that them starting at 3300fps and shooting something close up petals will blow off. I've had that happen with 243, 257, 7mm bullets before pushed fast and hitting bones. I can see an elk taking an awfully long time to die if the petals are gone in the first few inches and the solid .30 cal shank keeps on going. I'm very confidant that the 127gr lrx starting 450fps slower will not have this problem.

Ideally I wanted a 200 part at 2900fps or a 180nab/btip at 3050 but it ain't going to happen.

I have killed over a dozen white tail (bucks up to 300lbs) and 3 black bears (300+) with barnes bullets going back to the original X in 243, 257 and 7mm and I've never had one not open. It happend, especially with the x and even tsx but since they put the tip on there that virtually eliminated that problem. I have zero doubts that 127 lrx will open out to 500 yards. I am just not 100% confident how deep it will penetrate especially if bones are hit. If that 150gr ttsx doesn't shoot then I'm bound to find out how the 127lrx will do as I'm out of time and patience with the 300.

Congrats! Ypu almost did it yourself!