I grew up shooting a Remington 7600 in 30/06 so the choice of my Whelen was easy enough. Besides I shoot left handed so my choices in a left-hand Whelen in a factory rifle were zero. As stated above we can use a 35 caliber or larger single shot rifle with an exposed hammer in our "primitive weapons" season in Louisiana so I also have a CVA single shot for that.
Does anyone have any experience with the Barnes 200gr TTSX and white tail deer? I've killed a fair amount of deer with a Marlin in 35 Remington and a BLR81 in 358Win. The Marlin sees nothing but hand loaded 200gr
Core-Lokts and the 358 has been used with 200gr Hornady RN, 220gr Speer FP Hot cores and 225gr Nosler Partitions. While I love round nose bullets the partitions have become the favored load...not that they're needed for white tails but they shoot good and will penetrate from any direction.
I feel like the Hornady RN are too soft to run at max speed in the Whelen or I would have already tried them on deer. I know the Barnes TTSX will out penetrate anything else but wonder if our smallish deer offer enough resistance for it expand without hitting bone. I've never used a Barnes bullet so I would like to hear real world experiences of the Whelen and the TTSX. Any expansion or should I shoot something softer?
