Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Africa and Barnes

For what its worth this is from Barnes FAQ.

Is the 168-grain .30-caliber TSX the same as the 165-grain TSX? Is it really a match-grade hunting bullet?

These bullets have different ogive geometries. The 165-grain TSX incorporates a shorter tangent ogive in the nose profile. It’s designed for cartridges with short magazines such as the .300 WSM and .300 Win Mag. The 168-grain TSX BT has a secant ogive which lengthens the nose profile and has shown superb accuracy downrange. It offers the best of both worlds because it’s also a premium hunting bullet offering exceptional terminal performance. It is best suited for cartridges such as the .308 Winchester, .30-06 and .300 Weatherby

Well said and precisely why I prefer lead core bullets. The coppers may look pretty and dig deep, but that's about all they have over lead cores. For shorter tracking jobs and good blood trials, I'll take lead cord bullets every time.

The 168, as you mention, is a sleeker bullet that tends to smallish opening:





The bullet penetrated this spruce log in profile after striking a water-filled plastic bottle at around 200 yards; 30-06.



This ogive shape has typically opened wide and flat when I've recovered them. I think this is the shape that is referred to as 'tangent'. Few TSX iterations use such a profile.... unfortunately.

No issues with the 300 TSX on leopard from my limited perspective. my hunting buddy & I both used 300 TSX on leopard. Worked fine.

I'm thinking "how does it get any better than this?"......but what do I know?

buffy, cool deal on the leopard. Great trophy and great picture. Congrats.

You obviously hit him in the right place!

Beautiful cat.

High velocity has a very devastating effect on cats and all predators actually. Much more so than it does on heavy antelopes and buffalo

I've seen some rather small cartridges with blistering speed just flatten some rather big predators in my life!

spot on, as usual

Shock is what kills cats and drops them at the base of the tree. You want shock over penetration in this department.

The quickest elk kill that I ever made was a big 6x6 bull that I shot in one of the Montana Unlimited Bighorn Sheep areas just north of Yellowstone Park. I had backpacked into the unit hunting sheep, so the rifle that I took was my .257 Ackley shooting 117 grain Sierra GameKing bullets.

By the last day that I had scheduled for that hunt I hadn't seen any rams, so when this bull came toward me through the timber bugling, I couldn't resist. He stopped broadside about 75 yards from me and I put one of those little 117 grain Sierras just behind his front shoulder. The bullet went through a rib bone and shredded his lungs, and didn't exit his chest cavity. He simply collapsed dead in his tracks.

The first bull elk that I killed with a Barnes bullet I shot with a 168 grain TSX from my .300 Weatherby. I had spotted the bull and some cows feeding up a hill. I stalked around the hill to about 100 yards to the side of the herd. When the bull stepped into the open, I put the TSX bullet just behind his shoulder and it exited behind his opposite shoulder. At the hit, he spun around 180 degrees, jumped two steps and fell dead.

When I walked up to where he was standing when I shot him, there was blood splattered all over the snow for 15 feet out on both sides of where he was standing and where he ran.

On these two elk, the little cup and core bullet made the shortest tracking, and the mono copper bullet made a 30' wide blood trail.

In the picture that I posted of my Mozambique leopard, the big spot in the center of his right shoulder is where the 168 grain TTSX went into him. It exited just behind his other shoulder. When we went in after him at 12:30 AM, we didn't really see a blood trail, but that was moot as he was lying dead in the open creek bed only 19 paces from where I had shot him.

I think the length of tracking has more to do with bullet placement than bullet construction.

Me too.

I have never gotten good blood trails with the 100gr 25 caliber TSX or the 180gr 30 caliber TTSX. Exits are very small.
Last season I actually shot a very large cow elk with a 300 ultra at close range with good shot placement. The cow reacted to the shot, so I knew she was hit, but proceed to run 70 yards with no blood trail at all. There where a few specs on the snow where she stood when shot, but that's about it. If that had been a Nosler 180gr BT, which I have used alot in the same rifle I do believe it would have either been a bang flop,or in the least some significant blood on the ground.

Exactly my point. Shrapnel causes body trauma. Look gentlemen, all the bullets we have discussed here, kills.

My argument is not that one kills an animal faster than another one, or whether one will make the animal go straight down as compared to being able to penetrate it from the chest through the back legs. That is not my point.
I've grown up, so won't try and change your mind about what works for you, or denounce another bullet. If a guy comes down here with TSX/TTSX, great. I think they are excellent bullets. Maybe the best.
All I'm saying is, that lead core bullets create more body trauma than an expanding solid. I shoot both sets of bullets. Lead core bullets and expanding solids. They each have their place.

When tissue get's destroyed, it sends signals to the brain to tell it, that something is broken, which either creates shock for the animal, or the animal stops to limit the damage. This is just nature doing what it does best in trying to survive.
My dogs will take care of the rest.