Originally Posted by T_Inman

I am not making any judgments concerning Barnes, because I've had some good results with them, but have had enough bad experiences to give me pause.
80 yards. Impact velocity roughly 2800 FPS. Only reason I recovered the animal was because I put a second bullet into him. This was from a deer, not an elk so please don't chastise me, but you know how many words a picture is worth...
[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

Hopefully I've just had abnormal luck or bad lots of bullets from Barnes, but I've found that sometimes they work awesome, sometimes they don't.


I have a fair number of TSX/TTSX bullets recovered from trees behind my target that hit the target paper and the plastic sign I use for a backer that look just like that! Some bent, some not. The ones not bent were stuck in the most straight butt first. They make a good case for the bullet tumbling after minimal upset and sort of restabilizing because of the drag of the partial expansion.

My guess is that all it takes to cause the partial expansion is a target backer, juicy weeds, small brush etc. I have seen enough caliber size holes both in and out accompanied by massive internal damage that I put no stock whatsoever in entrance/exit holes. But... I can see the case for a mono hitting butt first and "penciling" through. Additionally, I have seen monos shot into dry sand and dry wood not expand. Moisture seems to be important to good expansion.