Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles 130 TSX in a .270

(Disclaimer, im not gay lol) I decided to keep the 700 270 Winchester that I had listed in the classifieds. Figured I'd just work up a load for it and shoot a deer with it.

Maybe this has been beat to death idk. Does anyone have any experience with the 130 TSX on whitetail? Got a box of 50 for 10$ today. Figured I'd give them a shot. Just curious what kind of on game performance I should expect. Thanks in advance

If they are new production, they will probably do very well. However, you may not be able to the reach top velocities shown in the Barnes manual, if that is important to you. If they have some age on them, they may not open reliably on deer or other light-boned critters. Barnes supposedly has enlarged the hollow point in the tip to solve that problem.

They were sitting on the shelf at the LGS........how would one tell the new from the old?

I'm not so much worried about velocity as much as I am accuracy......as long as the open up reliably.

Forget about problems with them opening! Very damn few ever claimed that problem to begin with and I don't think any that I have heard about were thoroughly checked out to be certain it wasn't the shooter/reloader who caused the problem. There's been a hell of a bunch shot with a lot of calibers I have loaded for them and not a single one has failed yet.

4350 or Varget are excellent powders to start with. 4451 might be a better choice. Start the work up at .050 off the lands. If when you get close to max they aren't below an inch and a half bump out to .010 off and work back in .010 increments. Seating depth can be quite critical to accuracy.

Thanks Miles ..... I have some 4350 and 4831 (both IMR) on hand. Varget is rare around here. Saving the 2# I have for other things lol.


I'm gonna throw some togther tonight. May get around to shooting tommorow. Been so dang hot. Hard to do anything.

I'm shooting rl22 with 130 ttsx's and getting 3035 fps out of pre 64 my model 70 fwt.58.5 grains (disclaimer start low and work up) very accurate load in my rifle

Re19 works well.

I shot a red stag (frontal chest hit @ 110 yards from down to uphill) with a 130 grains TTSX.

No other opportunity on big game with that rifle since that shot, but it delivered perfect expansion, instant killing power and impressive penetration.

I gently load them @ 2960 fps in a Sako 22 " barrel, with Vitha N160 and get 0.6 MOA grouping at 100 meters. My most accurate hunting rifle / caliber combo so far.

I'm presently hesitating a lot keeping the .270 as my all-around caliber for European stalks and drives but still can't decide how good is the idea compared to 30-06 and .308.

I trialed the TSx along with the Etip, both were very accurate. My loads were around 2900fps. I went with the Etip, and have take quite a few whitetails with them. Seem to kill every bit as well as Partitions, but with far less bloodshot meat.
If I could not find Etips, I would be perfectly happy with the Barnes bullet, but would prefer the tipped version.

I've shot 7-8 Kansas whitetails with a 130gr TSX (4831SC) out of Win M70 SS Classic 270WSM. Never had any issues with the bullets making a clean kill. Accuracy was excellent for a factory rifle (tuned trigger and McM stock were only mod's).

I started using the TSX prior to the TTSX, and had no reason to change.

My lone experience with TSXs was a large feral hog that I shot twice at about 60 yards with 120-grain TSXs from my .270 Winchester. The first shot behind the shoulder didn't faze him, a second shot to head put him down. Both bullets exited and neither expanded. It literally looked like he had been drilled with a quarter-inch bit. This was sometime in the mid-1990s, probably about 1996.

I have never used the TTSXs on game, although I have them loaded for several of my rifles in different calibers ranging from .257 up through .338. I may try the 185-grain TTSX in my .338-06 Improved on elk this year, if I get the chance. The only reason that I haven't used them is that I have always found more accurate loads in my rifles, using Nosler ABs or Partitions.

Were they already Barnes TSX, not Barnes X ?

I loaded up a few this am with 4350SC and IMR 4831, Various charges with the same seating depth. This ain't gonna work lol. Gonna play with seating depth some but 3" is about the best I got with any of the loads thus far

Did you record velocities ?

No sir. Didn't have a chronograph with me......

I did however go back and seat the bullet to 3.300 and 56g of RL22 and shot much better groups. Hovering right around 1" at this point.

Going to play with the powder charge some more. It got better the hotter I pushed it and I'm not up to max yet, if that doesn't do anything I'll play with seating depth some more. But the RL 22 loads shot way better than the the other powders I tried.

Like I said, claims of Barnes failures are often as not something else. In the case of a 1996 Barnes TSX failure it's undoubtedly the shooter, since TSXs didn't exist then. Might possibly have been one of the original Xs, but the TSXs were 2003 and later.

Early Xs had metallurgy issues, hollow point issues and may have not opened well, Although I still shoot some and have never seen an original X fail either. In Fact, I have some XLCs that I much prefer in my 300 WM. I still shoot XLCs in one .243 because they are really, really accurate in that rifle, but haven't killed enough animals with it to say that I absolutely trust them like the 300 WM, or the TSX?TTSX in my other .243s

My best accuracy was close to max and very close to the .050" off the lands that they recommend starting with.

OK, so I went back to my reloading notebooks and my Barnes Manual No. 1. The bullet was the original X-Bullet. Mea culpa! Apologize for the mistake.

I started at .050, with several differbt powder charges and 2 differnt powders. It may have been the worst groups I've ever shot at 100y with a rifle lol

I've tried many bullets in my Cooper .270 and have used the 130 TSX BT exclusively for several years now. Reloder 19, H4831 SC,and H4350 all give good accuracy, but I have settled on a near-maximum load of H4350; muzzle velocity is 3,050 fps.

I don't know how far off the lands I seat the bullet but overall cartridge length is 3.29" to accomodate a worn throat. OAL was originally 3.25".

I don't hunt that much but took one Colorado bull elk several years ago using this rifle and load. While I've read the stories (and don't doubt their veracity) on this forum about how the TSX doesn't open reliably, I've had great success with them on a few elk using a .308 and a 7x61 Sharpe & Hart.

Never recovered a bullet and always used the plain, untipped version of the TSX.