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

I am just curious, with Winchester's new Power-core bullet, and the Power-Max bonded, why people are still paying premium prices (over priced?) for Hornady GMX,Interbond, the TXS, and Accubond.

Serious question.

Are those Winchester bullets available as components?

No, I don't believe so. So that explains some of it. Power max bonded sell for only 2/3 as much as the Hornady factory loaded Interbonds.

I'm more curious as to why folks would pay for factory ammo.

It's possible that other bullets shoot better in some rifles than others,for one thing.

What is this "factory ammo" you speak of?

Although not exactly what you asked, but I bought some Winchester/Olin Power-Max 130 grain 270 ammo to shoot in my CLR and have found it to be very accurate. I haven't shot anything with this factory load, but I am confident that I can hit where I'm aiming.

To shoot a cartridge that you don't currently reload for? I'm new to the 270 and bought five boxes of Winchester/Olin factory ammo to try the cartridge and as a source of brass to reload if I do decide I like it enough to make that commitment.

We who are rifle loonies sometimes forget that the majority of people who are casual hunters/shooters don't reload and everyone, loony or not, who shoots a rimfire, shoots factory ammo.

Then why do they need to question WHY, when they haven't got a clue?

LOl, I get that people reload. The question is, if you didn't...what makes the Interbond so much better than the Power Max?
What makes the TSX or GMX so much better than the Power-core, that people are willing to pay such a premium.

Looks like Barnes Vor-Tex ammo is about $11 a box more than Winchester Power-Core in 30/06, I don't consider $11 a premium. That's $0.50 a round more. I'm sure the Power-core is good, the TSX/GMX is proven good. I can spend $11 for proven.

Thanks Bearcat.

I can't answer the question. I'd have to shoot both into game a number of times various distances and angles and game size to answer the question

In the meantime, I pay for Barnes, since its the closest to perfect performance I've ever seen in my life, for the results I desire. Hence I'm not looking at others and likely will have to read some astounding results to even think about trying others at this point.

I do have other bullets and use them for specific other uses, but can and do run TSX or ttsx in the same calibers I play with other bulelts.

Typically the only time I go away from Barnes is to Berger and that only for long range shooting....like 308/185s expand nicely so far on game out to 732 yards and while I'd do it with a TSX the 185s are a bit more accurate and expand a bit more than the TSX does at that range and have a better BC..

As far as cost, ammo is the LEAST of my worry cost wise, especially in hunting ammo. I don't think I've hunted any year where I've shot a full round of 20 shots. That includes the optional pig/varmint these days while deer hunting.
Just not enough to worry about.

And when I practice, I do it with a 22 anyway if at all. I don't shoot as much as I did... but many years of 20,000 rounds of 223 through the loader and guns, well its kinda natural to shoot well today without practice. Not that practice hurts but I've not seen me failing enough to worry about.

And if I were factory and needed to practice, I'd do like I did with a bow.. shoot field tips all year, resight for broadheads a few weeks out....shoot cheapest ammo and sigth for premium before season....

Saskatchewan, I'll certainly not say, they are inferior. And in fact are probably a very good bullet, but when all things are considered in our hunting expenses, the cost of premium ammo is a small price to pay!!!! memtb

Copper bullets penetrate MUCH better than comparable standard lead bullets. If someone is using a caliber normally considered borderline for the game hunted they can make a huge difference. For someone who normally only deer hunts with a 243 and gets an opportunity to hunt elk or bear it is cheaper to upgrade the bullets rather than buy a bigger gun. And there is a good argument to just using the same bullet and load for everything even if it isn't needed all the time.

Cost is a relative thing. I hand load. The cost savings between 200 of the cheapest bullets I can buy, and 200 premium bullets won't pay for a tank of gas in my truck. 200 bullets will last me several years. The cost of 1 tank of gas a year is nothing in relation to the rest of the money I spend on hunting.

JMR, fair enough. Power core by Winchester is a gilding metal bullet.

Simple explanation.......
Bullets of common construction fall to bits on impact. The practical was to make longer bullets which also increased bullet weight.

As bullet integrity was conquored through bonded cored and homogenous designs, longer and heavier bullets became "less necessary".

The market however, is not savvy in general and old ha its are hard to change so we still have long bullets where shorter tougher designs would do the same job with less recoil and generating flatter trajectories.

There is a thread on here somewhere where a 165TSX will do the same job as a 200gn Partition in a 300 WM.

This is a true statement in my experience yet there us still a perceived need for even a 200gn TSX.

The Federal Fusion is where its at for factory ammo. Winchester is trying to match up with that, and has to lower the prices to get there.

I agree, this is the golden age of factory ammo.

AGW, my quaetions - how is the Interbond better than the Power max, a very similar (bonded) bullet.

How is the Tsx OR gmx BETTER THAN THE Power core of similar construction?

My subtle point is, are Hornady and Barnes scooping cream off the top due to reputation?

Glad you mentioned that John. As you know I shoot a lot of TSX and TTSX in my centerfire .22s My favorite is a 55 TTSX and I still hear from many here that I should be trying or using the 62 or even 70 grainers. The 55s have been superbly accurate and completely penetrated everything I ever shot with them. How could more be better?

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.

+1--unless you're a gun writer who HAS to test new stuff.

Of course, if nobody bought factory ammo loaded with new bullets, not much factory ammo would have been sold after the advent of smokeless powder.

Translation: "There is nothing unwitting about the shameless advocacy, even promotion, of the best of things which come along."

If you ever see me at SHOT collecting gun scribe autographs on a T-shirt, it's because I'm getting signatures of the guilty parties involved in my progress along the path to homelessness…………….and what could be a funner way to get there?!

You, of course, get it all free, right?😄

These days, finding one box of ammo is a challenge, let alone 2-5 boxes of the same lot number. Yet another reason to roll your own

Those who choose not to reload are the same people who may buy a particular rifle brand chambered in a cartridge that was recommended by a friend or magazine article without ever doing any research for themselves to see what else might be available. They'll typically buy a 270 or 30/06 because that's what their buddy had success with. Or, they will take the word of a less than knowledgeable person at a gun sales counter who thinks they know because they work there.

The same goes for bullet choices. So, they may choose the bullets you mentioned in commercial loads based on the same input as mentioned & never once give a second thought to what's better....or worse.

In the 70's, Remington offered Bronze Point ammunition. In my hunting circle, if you weren't sporting bronze point loads you needed to get a clue. For commercial loads, Remington Core Lokt's worked without fail every time I pulled the trigger. But, I didn't hunt Texas WT's with a 300 Wby stoked with bronze points so I was not invited back. They didn't approve of my Norma ammo nor my 220 Swift.

A good bullet is a good bullet. Don't matter who makes it.

I'm beginning to wonder if the OP has a dog in this fight.

never seen it, ask WW to send me 10 boxes in 60ish grain for the 5.56 for evaluation and I will let them know.

Edited to add their 150/308 win. HOG HAMMERS don't shoot thru a small pig.

It's not cream skimming (scooping) because Winchester has always been free to offer ammunition of any quality it wanted, and for the most part, decided on the low end. The Fail Safes, which THEY decided to discontinue, is a notable exception. Other companies decided to offer premium stuff, knowing serious folks would be willing to pay for it. Now the big boys are trying to catch up, perhaps a bit late.

Cream skimming is like when public schools are mandated to educate everyone in their districts, but private schools can pick and choose the best and brightest and the most athletic and even offer scholarships to promising students. That's why scholls like DeMatha and Montrose Academy have killer basketball teams AND great scholastic creds, while public schools have to make do with their local base. The telecomm situation some years back was similar, with Baby Bells hobbled by regulations and the mandate to serve everyone, while new outfits were free to "skim" the profitable business market and ignore POTS service to Joe Blow and other ordinary folks.

John, I have to slow down when reading these threads. At first glance I thought you said you had a few hundred Canadians squirreled away. Thinking that would require an awfully large freezer...

Not if you pick small Canadians....

Will we be seeing the Canadian Cookbook soon?

I always planned on buying one of Eileen's cookbooks, but now I think I'll pass.

"Canadian Bacon" just took on a whole new meaning.

You read my mind.

I believe Remington makes Barnes brass, as Remington loads their ammunition and Remington owns Barnes.

Incorrect. Freedom Group owns both Remington and Barnes bullets. Remington does not own Barnes.

Fair question. I DO reload, and I DO reload Interbonds and have Accubonds, Partitions, Rem Corelock Ultra on hand. But this new stuff may prove to be as good, at less bucks. I guess if they don't offer it in components, the point is moor for a handloader, but maybe not for others.

I don't Pappy. Just making conversation, and picking brains.

It's been a while since I checked, but I've noticed that Big Green and Winchester want a pretty price for some of their rather ordinary bullets, i.e. Core-Lokts and Power Points. Since I've never gotten the accuracy from factory ammo that I get from my hand loads, I've never devoted any development time to the bullets they use in it. I haven't hunted with factory ammo since about 1998 or so, and apparently factory ammo has come a long way since then, but I'm in too deep now to go back.

These days, I seem to be using mostly Nosler products, largely because of their good performance, but also because Nosler offers really good support in the form of load data and even a ballistics app that makes it really simple to figure trajectory and energy for their bullets. My recent discovery of the availability of blems at really good prices is icing on the cake. I still buy selected bullets from the other guys, but Nosler gets the majority of my business.

Yeah, Remington especially. They have gone nuts.

I still find Winchester a little cheaper when I look. I am going to end up using only a premium in my son's .243 soo. I have used Hornady IL, with good luck, but that is such a tiny bullet/cal, I will eventually settle on Interbonds, Partitions, or the Rem CL Ultra. I have some of each.

Once it warms up here I will start loading.

If someone could possibly point me in the direction as to where I could purchase Interbonds I would greatly appreciate it since I am no longer able to locate any that I use!

If you will list what you're looking for, it would be helpful. I look at a lot of on-line suppliers, as do a lot of other folks here, I'm sure.

.308 165 and 180 grains

I have checked ammo seek, on-line retailers etc., and can't find them anywhere. If you find any please PM me.