Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Why Interbond or TSX?

Saskatchewan, In summary"NO"!!! memtb

I think more is better. I think at point blank range.....and at farther distances, the superior sectional density, and increased ballistic coefficient of heavier projectiles would distinguish them selves from the lighter ones.

Skatchewan;
Top of the morning to you sir, hopefully this finds you well and if you're living in or near your handle then hopefully you're keeping warm.

I'll note that it's "only" -13° in Yorkton - near where we farmed - this morning.

This year I needed to pick up a box of factory ammo for the first time in decades - long story but the gunsmith rebarreling a rifle asks for it. Anyway the cheapest box of 6.5x55 I could find in Kelowna was a cool $46 plus, plus of course - so it was $51.52 all in which means $2.58 every time the trigger is pulled.

If I could have found Winchester ammo for 2/3 that I most surely would have sent that to the smith, but it still would make for $1.71 a shot.

So if we're going to continue looking at this from a purely financial angle, I can still reload either TTSX or GMX for the Swede for right about $1.32 per round. While it's maybe not a huge savings at $0.40 a round, I still get a "free" shot every 3-5 rounds depending upon how I want to figure in the cost of my time and equipment.

Speaking personally though, the largest plus of handloading our own ammo is that we are able to produce larger lots of it - tailored to specific rifles - which of course by definition factory ammo can never be.

Anyway sir that's just one former flat lander's thoughts on the matter this still Sunday morning and as always only worth what it costs to read.

All the best to you this March.

Dwayne

I think you have a valid point for big bullets on big game, but Im shooting deer/antelope/pigs inside of 300 yards. Cant see any difference on anything Im doing at the present.
For bigger game and especially for dangerous game, Im all in with all the performance I can get.

I have no use for Factory Rifle Ammo when i can load better or equal myself

Skatchewan;
I'm not John and hopefully can be forgiven for throwing out another opinion on this segment of your question.

I'm not certain who makes the brass for Barnes factory ammo and have not so much as held a round in my hands - so I can't make any comment on them.

The Hornady brass that I've used has been - broadly speaking here - a cut above the Winchester/Remington bulk brass one buys on this side of the medicine line. It's not Lapua or RWS, but it is nice brass and perhaps the unit production price is higher.

As to whether or not the new Winchester bullets work better or not - again I can't comment because I've not used it.

However I can say that our family has shot more than a pickup load of local BC whitetail and mulie bucks with TSX,TTSX and GMX bullets and they do work as advertised - or at least in the diameters, weights and speeds we used them at.

Here's a pair of 130gr bullets recovered from second or third rack mulie bucks. TTSX on the left, GMX on the right - if I've not got it backwards again.



They each lost about 1 grain and as stated - worked as advertised.

When or better said if Winchester decides to offer their new monometals as components I'll be first in line to try them, but until then we'll keep shooting what's available as components up here.

Hopefully again that makes some sense sir. All the best to you this March.

Dwayne

BC 30 Cal, Indeed I am here. -34 celcius last week, and I had to work outside in it. Brrr.. We don't pronounce it Sasakatchewan, it's Skatchewan, lol. As you know. Hence the user name. Thanks for your replies.

I see the topic is drifting into handload vs factory.

Let me clarify with this scenario:

If you have to buy factory ammo (for whatever reason - humor me please) why would you buy TSX, GMX or E-tip over Power-core, Razor Boar XT, when the last 2 cost 30% less?

If you want bonded why buy Interbond, Accubond...over Power-core, Fusion, etc...at 30% less.

Hope this helps. Just bored on a Sunday morning.

Skatchewan:
When I was growing up there in the '60's it was pronounced Sskatchewan - sorta 2½ S's up front.

We left there in '84, so they might could have made an official change since then....

On the factory ammo front, here in the valley from what I've seen if you don't shoot a .223 or 7.62 Russian you'll take the lone box of ammo you've actually found on the shelf and then like as not run to the nearest purveyor of 649 tickets because this just HAS to be your lucky day!

Seriously, we only see Federal blue box for the most part and that'd be .243, .308, .270 and '06. As I said in my first post, I think I bought one of 5 boxes of 6.5x55 factory ammo in all of Kelowna.....

What is this choice thing you speak of????

I suppose next you're going to tell me you can buy Varget back east?

Dwayne

If forced to buy factory, I would buy ammo with TSX's or AccuBonds, because I've found those bullets tend to shoot more accurately than the other bullets listed. All will shoot accurately sometimes, whether in handloads or factory ammo, but TSX's (which includes the Tipped model) and AccuBonds tend to shoot most accurately, either in factory ammo or with less dinking around in handloads.

Dwayne,

Sorry to hear factory 6.5x55 costs so much up there. But as one of my good friends in Alberta often points out, when we head up there to hunt: "Hey, it's only Canadian dollars!"

I too have noticed that those darn TTSX's and GMX's (and even E-Tips) have always lost at least a grain in weight when recovered. The manufacturers should figure out a way to keep those plastic tips from leaving during expansion!

All the best,

John;
Top of the morning to you sir, hopefully this finds you and Eileen well and keeping warm enough.

Thanks for the laugh this morning John - sounds like a typical Albertan...

We used to kid the tourists from across the big hills that we'd take Alberta money at par.

My goodness our Loonie is flailing lately too - maybe it'll mean you folks make it back across the medicine line for a hunt or even better some "cheap" Okanagan wine, eh?

Thanks again for the laugh and all the best to you both this March.

Dwayne

Glad to help!

We're heading to Alberta to hunt waterfowl with that very friend in mid-September. We have a few hundred bucks in Canadian squirreled away, so should do OK with the exchange rate, if not the geese....

Have you found this accuracy advantage to be true vis-a-vis Federal Fusion also? What Fusion ammo I've been around is by far the most accurate factory loads that I've witnessed in numerous people's rifles. I've gotten to the point that if it doesn't shoot with Fusion, then I assume something is wrong with the gun.

I agree with MD. If I had to buy factory ammo, which thankfully I don't, I'd choose ammo loaded with TTSX's or Accubonds because they're a proven commodity to me. I know they'll shoot well if loaded right, and I know how they're going to perform on game. The others are an unknown. I've never shot anything with the new winchester bullets and unless they become available as component bullets I likely won't ever shoot anything with them. Slick marketing can make anything sound good, until I hear some reviews from people whose opinion I respect then they're unproven to me and won't be used for hunting.

What several others have said on here is true too, cost of bullets is mostly a moot point to handloaders. I shoot a lot of cheap bullets at steel and paper, but when it comes time to hunt I load up the best I can get for the job and don't care about the cost. A box of TTSX's might be $40/50 and hornady interlocks $25/100 but who cares? They'll likely last me several seasons and an extra $20 for good bullets sure is small in the big scheme of what we spend on hunting. I'll spend more for one meal on a hunting trip than what it will cost to shoot good bullets instead of cheap ones, and the bullet is the one thing that ultimately connects you to the game and determines the success or failure of your hunt.

I have a couple of pretty accurate 270s, a CLR and a Husqvarna built S&W Model A, that I have only shot factory ammo in. I haven't shot either one a lot, but found the 130 grain Winchester/Olin Power Max Bonded and Hornady American Whitetail to be MOAish. I am particularly pleased with the 300+/- rounds of Hornady factory ammo that I've shot in the 6.5 Creedmoor and the 40 shot just today in an RAR Predator in 204 Ruger.

I don't know if I'll set up to reload for the 270s, as I just don't see myself shooting that cartridge enough to spend the time working up more accurate loads, but time will tell.

LOL< tips must not weigh a grain on 210 ttsx... moose recovery weighed 210. But I'm betting might have weighed a hair more if I'd have weighed it before shooting. Not bad for tip of shoulder, broken neck, and hole in scapula.

Actually, the first E-Tip I recovered from a big game animal, a prototype 180 .30, weighed 180 grains, even though the tips weigh about 2 grains. That was because the boys at Nosler forgot to subtract the weight of the tip when figuring out the total weight!

The production models weigh 180 out of the box, and the only one I've recovered weighed 178.2 grains.

I've found one or two tips in the meat over the years. Never thought to weigh them though.

I can tell you this from experience, a 75 amax, without a tip, fired out of a 223, at 600 yards, will hit 22ish inches low.

I was amazed at my 257 wtby though... ttsx zero'd at 200, and shot one with a missing tip, hit in the group...

That's because it's a .257 Weatherby!

If I may answer your question with a question:

Why would you use a newish, unproven bullet design (in the case of the Winnie stuff) over one with a proven track record, just to save 30%?

It often takes a while for manufacturers to tweak new bullets to where they are reliable and accurate. Barnes bullets had some issues early on, but now are considered one of the very best. As someone else remarked, if you know something works, why piddle around with new stuff, potentially wasting your money and risking poor performance in the field, when you are happy with what you use now, again to save a couple bucks.