Who has used these or worked up loads with the E-Tips? Nosler manual says to begin with starting load. Curious if you can get the velocity with an E-Tip you can with a Barnes TTSX or Hornady GMX? Also curious how the E-Tip on game performance is vs. the TTSX or GMX.

I don't have an apples to apples comparison with Barnes, but with 338 200 E-Tips I have not got quite the same velocity as with other 200s.

I would heed the Nosler recommendations. I've used the 30. cal. 150 TSX and TTSX and the 150 E-Tip. Same powder charges give about the same velocities for all the bullets. I use mostly H4895 in the .308, and occasionally Varget. As for the 150 GMX, I got about 50 fps more velocity with the same powder charges used for the E-Tip and the Barnes.

Seems I've also used the 165s in all persuasions, but my notes don't show anything on the 165 E-Tip. Barnes and GMX, however, show about the same velocities with the same powder charges.

In the .308, I've used only the Barnes 168 TSX BT on game; several bull elk and the bullets worked fine.

I've found all the bullets you mentioned to be reasonably accurate in .30 cal. However, for what it's worth and based solely on my limited experience, a good load usually comes sooner with a Barnes TSX BT (not the tipped bullet) than with the others.

My wife and I have used various E-Tips from 90-grain 6mm's to 180-grain .30's on a bunch of game from pronghorn and springbok to zebra, blue wildebeest and elk. Usually they shoot very well, but while velocities have been similar to TSX's and GMX's, the powder charge may have to be reduced a little, no doubt due to the ungrooved shank.

Most of the time I've found E-Tips pretty easy to get to shoot well, but if they don't, seating them deeper often helps, just as it can with TSX's.

On-game performance has always been very similar to the Tipped TSX and GMX, in both penetration and expansion. If my memory is correct, we have recovered three E-Tips out of maybe 30 shot into game. One was a 150-grain .30 Eileen used on a really nice bushbuck in South Africa. Bushbuck are only about the size of most southern whitetail bucks, but the bushbuck was facing her--and the bullet went through a big Spanish prickly pear before entering the chest, and was already expanded when it hit the bushbuck. The bullet was found in the abdominal cavity. The range was about 150 yards.

The other two were 180-grain .30's, one from a .300 WSM and one from a .300 Winchester. The bullet from the .300 WSM bullet broke the big shoulder joint of a quartering-on 6x7 bull elk, and was found under the hide at the rear of the ribcage on the opposite side. The bullet from the .300 Winchester performed exactly the same way, after the same hit, on an elk-sized blue wildebeest. The ranges were both around 100 yards.

All three bullets retained all their weight, minus the plastic tip.

Plastic tip musta melted in flight......




Glad you chimed in because I don't know of anyone with more experience with E-tips...

Well said, Poobs.

Just looking at the Etip, it puts me in mind of a Barnes X bullet, prior to the TSX treatment, but with the "T"Tsx treatment.

Admittedly, I have limited experience with the Barnes bullets, but IIRC, they cut the rings on the TSX to drop pressure.

Regardless, I am a fan of the barnes bullet, as long as the cartridge/rifle I am shooting it out of, can make it fly at 3000 fps or more.

The 270 WSM and 6mm Remington living here are a couple of examples of cartridges that work well with the solid copper bullets.

The advantage of the grooves on the Tipped TSX is lower pressure. The disadvantage of the grooves on the Tipped TSX is lower ballistic coefficient. So it depends on what you want. Right now I'm loading both in various rifles, depending.

My NULA .257 Weatherby shoots 100-grain E-Tips into little groups at 3550 fps I was amazed at how flat the .257 Wby. shot with 100-grain TSX's when I first started using the cartridge, before there were TTSX's, but it shoots noticeably flatter with the E-Tip than either of the Barnes bullets. I can basically aim right in the middle of the chest on pronghorns out to 400 yards with E-Tips, which can come in handy on the very hard-hunted (and checkerboarded) public land around here, because shots often have to be QUICK. Basically, E-Tips are Ballistic Tips without lead--which is how Nosler came up with the idea, and found they worked. BC's are similar to Ballistic Tips of the same weight, and at that velocity wind drift is also minimal, and from my testing I'd have to say at that velocity the BC is a little higher than Nosler lists.

But have been loading 100 TTSX's in Eileen's NULA .257 Roberts ever since they came out, because she basically doesn't shoot any farther than 300 yards, and they've worked fine on everything from antelope to elk.

Some of the images on Nosler's website look like they have a single groove in them. I've not bought any in a while so can't verify. Do they have a groove now?

As you know Im a big Barnes fan too. All your statements are spot on.....I had to go up in weight in one cartridge because pressure dropped so low it adversely affected velocity. The heavier ones shot noticeably faster....not always or even usually the case.
Don't think the same thing would happen with Etips.

One difference between E-Tips and the origional Barnes X's (aside from the plastic tip, of course) if the E-Tips are made of gilding metal rather than copper. Gilding metal is a soft brass, most commonly 90% copper and 10% zinc, so it harder and less "grabbier" than copper. It's the same stuff the Ballistic Tip/Partition jackets are made of, along with most other lead-core bullet jackets. Consequently the E-Tips don't create as much pressure as the pre-TSX Barnes bullets, and in my experience the bore-fouling problem of the old X's just isn't there.

I use them on deer. Not as broadly across the board as my use of the Barnes, but enough to say I can't see a difference in the wound channels. I do find them a little touchier to find seating depth for best accuracy than Barnes, but that might be that I have loaded enough Barnes for enough years that I am getting pretty efficient at sorting than problem out.

Once I have an accurate load with them or the GMXs as far as I am concerned they are all interchangeable. The loads work up to be so close that the difference is non-existent.

I can't compare velocities, but I've shot two cow elk with them 180gr out of a 300winmag. Broadside shots one at 300yds the other at 100yds. I spined the elk at 300yds and then finished her with a chest shot from the same 300. She died quick after the chest shot. The cow at 100 ran about 15 FEET and piled up stone cold dead. I hope that was of value to you.

This would be the important part. Once again I have learned from you and glad you chimed in.


How about the Hornady Monometals?

They're gilding metal too, with two grooves around the shank. Hornady says they're designed to produce the same amount of pressure as the other Hornady bullets of the same caliber and weight. I haven't handloaded them extensively, in fact have used them far more in factory loads, but in my limited experience the pressures (and velocities) so seem very similar to other Hornadys.

I was blessed with a batch of 180 gr E Tips from a old friend of Shrapnel's. Tried getting them to shoot from my old Remington and had fits, just terrible. Then sometime this past winter read where shooters were seating their VLD's deeper and getting good accuracy . Just a few weeks back I got out the E Tips and got to loading again. Bottom line was, in my rifle, bullets touch lands at OAL of 3.392, accuracy became quite good when seated down to 3.310. 7/8" out of my over fifty year old 725 is about as good as I get. In this shooting of around 90 rounds I did notice that I found 8 or 9 "bananas" in the dirt backstop. All other bullets recovered were perfect little mushrooms. Add me to the seat em deep crowd for these bullets. Load is 53 grains of 4350. Hope to test these on bear next week.

Ok Mr mule deer , If you were put on the spot and had to recommend either TTSX, E-tip or GMX which would it be ?

Whichever I could buy for the lowest price.

John,
With regard to expanded frontal area, what is the order? To me it looks like E-Tip, TTSX, then GMX, larger to smaller.
I had a number of TSX Bullets bend/rivet at the nose and fail to expand. Have the synthetic tips eliminated this? There was a mention of this happening with E-Tips.
Thanks

Can you shoot grooved and ungrooved E tips with same load?

I have loads worked up with the ungrooved E tips and now have the new style with grooves.

Rick,

I can't really tell any difference in frontal area. It would no doubt differ due to the particular bullet (not just the brand but weight/caliber), impact velocity, and what it hit. But I haven't seen any difference in terminal performance on game between the three.

Haven't seen any E-Tips GMX's fail to expand, but then haven't seen nearly as many used on animals as TSX's. However, I've never seen a TTSX's fail to expand. Do know a couple people who have, but apparently it's much rarer than with TSX's.

kkalaska,

I haven't seen any difference, but haven't tried all that many grooved E-Tips yet, as I have a large supply of the ungrooved bullets.

I have loaded the 180 gr. TSX and 180 gr. E-tip with the same loads ( using N160 & R-19) in my 8x68S. Both posted velocities within 20 fps of each other with both powders.
Accuracy was excellent in all instances.
I'm leaning towards using the E-tips this fall for Moose as I had signs of no expansion using 168gr TTSX's out of a 300 Win Mag shooting at Caribou @ 423 yds. (he wouldn't let me get closer). According to Nosler, the E-Tips are designed to open at lower impact velocities. We'll see.
As for kk alaska's question, according to Nosler, the groove was put there to promote expansion.

That was great info. Thank you.

I have a couple of decent shooting loads with the 150 ETips at 3250 from the 7mm Mashburn and the 168 ETips at 3350 from the 300 Weatherby. Haven't finalized them yet, but they like to be seated at least .100 off the rifling and most seem to do better further.

Thanks that was what I was hoping for all my loads were tuned to the ungrooved Etip hoping to stay in the Groove!

For Mule Deer in particular, here is a photo of some recovered bullets from the other days shooting.
The backstop is Montana Gumbo, piled up about four feet high and rather fluffy in the top several inches from the boys constant digging for range lead that we just keep molding pistol bullets with. I make no guess why one bullet will perfectly mushroom and the next will scarcely deform when shot into the same medium only inches apart. It is however not an uncommon occurrence at out range when shooting mono bullets.
Just for comparison I include some VLDs form the same day. Never seen one of them that did not expand, literally to pieces in the same backstop.
Both styles undoubtably have their proponents, simply passing on my limited observations.

Have seen the same thing with Barnes TSX's in dirt backstops: Some expand, some don't, some come out very peculiar-looking. I suspect part of the variation is due to sometimes hitting the dirt at an angle.

Have rarely seen 185 Berger VLD's come out of an animal that intact, except at much longer ranges.

Which seems to indicate gumbo isn't flesh and bones!

My 25-06 sure likes the 100 grain E-tips.

I sure wish Nosler would start making the .224 55 grain E-tips soon....

Mule Deer, the picture of the VLDs is mis leading. The biggest one, in the upper left, weighs 108 grains. It's about as flat as a nickel. The others, while very expanded, are paper thin also. ETips however, have close to 100 percent of original weight.
I bet you are right about impact angle having something to do with the seemingly high rate of failure to expand with monos in the dirt.
If I get a chance tomorrow, I"l try to catch a few ETips in a roll of wet carpet and see if they don't all expand correctly.

The 185 VLD's I've "recovered" from animals never retained anywhere near 108 grains of weight, and in fact never retained any of the core in the rear of the jacket. They didn't flatten out, they disintegrated--but always after they penetrated 2-3 inches, which is why they kill so well.

Most expanding hunting bullets start to expand immediately upon hitting an animal, and are fully expanded by the time they penetrate their length--which is why the most meat damage is normally around the entrance hole. With VLD's (and other very sharp-pointed hollow-point bullets, where the hollow-point is tiny or even closed) the entrance hole often can't even be found without parting the hair, and then resembles a stab with a knitting needle. There's almost no meat damage behind it, until the bullet finally expands very violently, 2-3 inches inside.

Would have to look at my hunting notes, but I believe the biggest piece I've recovered from a 185 VLD was the extreme rear of the empty jacket, which was found resting gently against the inside of the ribs on the far side of a big red stag. But it went through the stag's heart on the way, essentially turning it inside out, resulting in a strip of heart-meat about a foot long and about 1/2" thick.

Nope, John, as I'm sure you well know.

The medium has an awful lot to do with bullet performance. I shot a few 130gr cup and cores from a 270 into a piece of firewood once. Distance was maybe 10 yards. The bullets held together much better than I expected and much better than they did on game. I think the density of wood must have prevented the bullets from blowing apart.

Yep, have seen that a few times as well.

Some frequently used kinds of "test media" are pretty easy on bullets, including water-soaked newspaper and it's pulp-mill basic ingredient, known as "wet lap." Just about any bullet tends to come out of both as a nice mushroom, one reason wet lap was used as a "test" for many years by bullet companies. The bullets always looked perfect, so could be used in advertising photos.

One similar but inadvertent test media I encountered years ago was snow. One snowy winter a couple of feet built up on the "berm" (a hill) of my range. When the snow melted in spring I picked a bunch of perfectly mushroomed bullets off the ground, of several different makes. So snow apparently can work a lot like wet lap in providing photo-ready bullets.

The trick in picking hunting-bullet media is to simulate animals, which is tough to do, since animals made of stuff from bones of various sizes (and hardness) to hide, ligaments and internal organs that can be anything from pretty tough to very soft. The same can even be said of muscle, as most of us know from chewing meat.

Most test media, whether wet newspaper or ballistic gelatin, simulates soft tissue. It can provide an idea of relative penetration, but doesn't stress a bullet like bone, so doesn't provide an idea of how a bullet will hold up when it hits, say, an elk's shoulder joint.

The same is true of other stuff used by hunters to "test" bullets, including the common line-up of plastic jugs filled with water. Water-filled jugs are fun to shoot, but other than providing an idea of relative penetration in soft tissue, don't provide any idea of how a bullet reacts to bone.