Again, I can respect and accept that you have your experiences and that of friends you trust. But I also have a reasonably significant amount of experience with Barnes bullets (as I said, very close to 150 head of big game), and that doesn't take into account the handful of trusted friends, family members, and hunting buddies that have also used Barnes bullets to some extent without me being present. None of us have experienced what you describe with regards to failures of Barnes bullets. Even when they perform as designed, monos don't always do as much damage as other bullets, but I've never seen one fail to expand at all, based on wound channels. You say you've never had a lead bullet fail, but I have witnessed a few. Sort of the inverse situation to this Barnes discussion. I really don't think either of us is drawing on a large enough sample size to make any definitive claims, considering that we are making observations of results with many variables at play in an uncontrolled environment.
The original X bullet and TSX had a fairly small HP opening, but that is not the case with the TTSX and LRX. Actually, the tipped bullets have a fairly substantial cavity.
As far as embracing a "belief system" goes, I'm not partial or loyal to any brand or type of bullet, and in fact, I currently use a few different bullets on game. If a bullet comes along that meets my criteria better than what I'm currently using, I'll gladly switch. To the contrary, I choose to embrace statistically sound scientific analysis, which neither of us has done, and that is why you don't see me making any bold claims like yours. I'm not claiming any sort of universal behaviour or failure rates of the current offerings of Barnes bullets (or any others), and simply stick to reporting my observations based on a reasonably substantial, but certainly not definitive, sample size.
I am also okay with disagreeing with others, even people that I very much respect, based on a difference of observations and experiences. Conversation would be pretty dull if everybody just nodded their head all the time. I'm not sure how much experience Pat has with Barnes (I know he's seen a ton of Scenars on game), but he certainly falls into the category of people that I highly respect. That doesn't change the fact that I've seen quite a few head of game killed with Barnes, and the conclusions I've made based on my observations may differ with other people who have also seen a number of game killed with the same bullets.
Plastic tips and the resulting larger cavity in the nose of the bullet helps them expand. However, the fact remains that they are still much harder than a lead and copper bullet.
