Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 130 grn TTSX in 300 Win Mag

Absolutely...



jc

The question that might also be considered in this (since the bullet in question has been compared to a similar weight in the 25-06) is: can hairs be as easily aimed for, hit, and split at said distances with either? As has been pointed out by many on many occasions, what one gives up - among other things- when using lighter, smaller stuff is the ability to be a little bit off in shot placement. Smaller and lighter require greater precision. Can one expect that at said distances?

I'd take a good look at that 180 trophy bonded bearclaw. 1.25" at 100 yards with that big heavy strong bullet? That sounds like a dead elk to me.

Killed mine last year with 30 cal 200 grain trophy bonded bearclaws. 200 yards...landed right where I wanted them. That elk didn't care how fast those bullets were or weren't going.

Calculator Max Point blank range is 333 yds when zeroed at 287 yds.
Range
yds Path
in ComeUp
clicks Velocity
fps Energy
ft/lbs Momentum
lb ft/s ToF
sec Windage
in Windage
clicks Optimal
Game Wgt
Muzzle -1.5 Infinity 3469 3474 64.42 0.000 0.0 NaN 1058
25 -0.5 7 3393 3323 63.01 0.022 0.0 1 990
50 0.4 -3 3318 3179 61.63 0.044 0.2 1 926
75 1.1 -5 3245 3040 60.27 0.067 0.4 2 866
100 1.5 -6 3173 2906 58.93 0.090 0.7 3 810
125 1.8 -5 3102 2777 57.61 0.114 1.1 3 757
150 1.8 -5 3032 2653 56.31 0.139 1.6 4 707
175 1.6 -3 2963 2534 55.03 0.164 2.2 5 660
200 1.1 -2 2895 2420 53.77 0.190 2.9 6 615
225 0.4 -1 2829 2310 52.53 0.216 3.7 6 574
250 -0.6 1 2763 2203 51.31 0.243 4.6 7 535
275 -1.9 3 2698 2101 50.11 0.270 5.7 8 498
300 -3.5 4 2635 2003 48.93 0.298 6.8 9 464
325 -5.4 6 2572 1909 47.76 0.327 8.1 10 431
350 -7.6 8 2510 1818 46.61 0.357 9.5 10 401
375 -10.2 10 2449 1731 45.48 0.387 11.0 11 372
400 -13.1 13 2389 1648 44.37 0.418 12.7 12 346
425 -16.4 15 2330 1567 43.27 0.450 14.4 13 321
450 -20.2 17 2272 1490 42.19 0.482 16.4 14 297
475 -24.3 20 2215 1416 41.13 0.516 18.5 15 275
500 -28.9 22 2158 1344 40.08 0.550 20.7 16 255

Elk hunting can require shots in excess of 300 yards. If you are willing to give up shots past 300 yards then by all means shoot the 130 grain TTSX.
For me I would take a 180 grain accubond in the 399 WM

Anyone happen to have any of these Federal 130 gr TTSX bullets laying around collecting dust? I would like to buy 10, or so.

Thanks!

Reducing wind drift would be a top priority to me. You can laser to estimate bullet drop, not so for wind drift. I much prefer 180gr in my 300 WSM just for that reason.

Did you ever bag yourself a bull with those 130 T-TSX ?

I agree with the concerns over an elk sized animal, and wind drift. The BC of the barnes is .35......but the buggers do penetrate well for their size might be good for deer?

I'd really like to know how that turned out as well.

Looking at the OP's posts, it appears he never went on that elk hunt and sold his .300 WM back in 2010.

Wouldn't a 130 tsx moving that fast likely blow right through an animal taking much of its energy with it?

That is the unknown element to bullet penetration (at least to me).
If the penetration was made in the thoracic cavity the suction effect (Hydro static shock) of the rapidly exiting bullet could be effectively devastating to elicit effective harvest of the animal.
This effect in my mind would need a highly vascular environment to occur such as the lung field.
In essence there is a secondary lethal effect of bullet energy that does not need to be absorbed by the animal. However this Hydro static shock does not occur at slower bullet velocity's. My understanding is less than 2000 fps. But I by no means am an expert.

If it dumps half of its velocity, it dumps 3/4 of its energy. The cult of the non-exiting bullet is a crock.

I've not used them but my hunting buddy use's the 130TTSX in a -06 in WA, ID, and Africa and kills the crap outa animals! Not a 300win or wsm but it doesn't matter they still retain more weight than a 180 gr partition...And hit a critter going faster. I mean really? It's all just winter ballistic gack. The average hunter kills everything at under 300yds anyway.

What did I step in?

I am no means anything close to an authority, but I was under the impression that this subject matter was also related to the age old argument of .45 vs 9mm

Do you also disagree that a .45 moving heavy and slow, seems to have more knockdown power than a 9mm traveling light and fast?

Conventional wisdom on bullet weight flies out the windown when discussing monometals. There is no reason to run a midweight or heavy-for-caliber monometal, unless there's some sort of ballistic concern (with grooved bullets, not usually the case...).

45 vs 9 is irrelevant.

Awesome necropost reanimation!

Timely too.

I'm going on a 1st Rifle Colo. hunt this fall. My brother is concerned abt my using the CTR .260 as ranges on the ranch we'll be on can be up to 500+ yards.

He's wanting me to instead use an old Tang 77 .300 WM we've got in a McMillan stock w. 3.5-10x50 on top. I've only agreed to bring it along as a BUG so far.

Bought two boxes of Barnes VOR-TX 150 TTSX for $20 off retail at a local big azz sporting goods chain. Gonna clean the ol gal out & see how she prints. I like the published data.

If it shoots bug holes I might zero it dead on at 500, and have him pack it for me (he's guiding) while I tote the .260 for shots out to 400.

I have only shot 9 elk. 7 of those were with a 270. 150 gr. np. The other two were 30-06 and 180 gr. hornady. Having said that, I can't imagine a better elk load than a 165 grain barnes tipped in a 300 mag

Unless you are concerned with the ballistics part of wind drift.... and that can start to apply at 300 yards easily in wind. Most folks don't need a mag though, have no business shooting past 200 generally speaking if that far, and are overgunned for most parts. But I digress.

I run mono and still run fairly heavy for caliber and have yet to see a failure. At least in the larger rounds. Smaller rounds with mono, speed seems to help.