Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters TTSX Shot placement for deer.

I decided after finding lead in my venison several times over the years to look for a less toxic alternative. I plan on using the Barnes TTSX in my 7mm-08 this season for whitetail and black bear. My load pushes a 120 gr TTSX @ 2950 FPS and accuracy is outstanding. My question is about shot placement with the TTSX. I usually take behind the shoulder shots with cup and core bullets to limit meat loss. With a harder bullet like the TTSX should I aim for the shoulder or will my traditional behind the shoulder shot work well?

Either or.

The lead scare in meat is complete bullschit FYI.




Travis

I am a confirmed shoulder shooter with most and often the rifle carried is my 7-08 with 120 gr TSX (or TTSX). That being said, I have also shot them in the front quarter and recovered bullets from the back end. Frankly, I'd shoot them as you can.

Here's a couple results.

Pick an exit wound location, aim for that, and strive to break bone.

I'd shoot for the same spot, no need to bust up the shoulder in my eyes. We have had great luck with TTSX's on deer, antelope and elk, my go to bullet for 7 different calibers.

I try to involve a shoulder. I have found it gives a better chance of DRT. Here in the thick southern woods where most of my killing is done after sunset, if a deer does a 40 yard death dash into the tangled briar hells, you may not find it 'til the next morning. When overnight low temps are in the upper 40s or 50s, that equals a spoiled deer. I try to anchor them and don't worry about bloodshot shoulder meat.

no reason to bust up the shoulder.
only reason I would ever consider busting up the bone with TTSX is if i were 400+ yards away and questioned the velocity for proper expansion.
to each his own

In my experience, TTSXs do better when you take out some running gear and get bone shrapnel involved. Lungs only don't seem to kill as quickly as lead cored.

I have almost completely swapped back to lead cored bullets too...take it for what it's worth.

Well, As a kid I probably bit hundreds of lead split shot onto my fishing line and it didn't kill me but now I know better. Over the years several times I have and once a guest of mine has actually spit small hunks of lead out while eating game I have shot. I bet I've killed a few of my brain cells with lead over the years but I'd prefer to keep the rest of my family and friends a little more lead free.

Obie,

I use TTSX fairly exclusively, and at higher velocities they do just fine in the high shoulder - which is also the spot I shoot for.

Last year I piled up 3 does with that exact same shot, none of them got more than 40 yards.

Spot

That is my exact tactic w/ monos.

My experience with TTSXes is the animals run farther on average before expiring than they do with lead cores. Although I've had several bang flops too.

I bit hundreds of split shot on too. I still kill all of my deer with lead projectiles - cast bullets in Iowa. I butcher all of my own deer and I'm careful about it. Ask me about the lead levels in my blood that I get regularly tested every year because of my casting hobby and I get blood tests regularly for an autoimmune disease and the meds I'm on for it. (mysasthenia gravis) My lead levels are waaayyyyy below the recommended threshold. I asked my doc about it. "You can swallow split shot or lead fragments and you'll pass it right through your system with no effect into the blood stream. It's vapors, dust, and water pipes you have to worry about for lead contamination/poisoning." It kills birds because birds grind it up in their gizzards, thus making it possible to absorb into the bloodstream and kill them.

Vitals, front shoulders, neck, whatever suits your fancy I guess.

Minimize meat damage provided it's a solid quick kill.

Hitting a shoulder bone just makes more of a mess.

I aim 3/4th of the way up the back of the front leg.

Yeah, I've never had any trouble killing animals with behind-the-shoulder TTSX placement. Usually they'll travel farther before falling than with bullets that lose more weight, but not vast distances. Shot a pronghorn doe two weeks ago with a .25-caliber, 100-grain TTSX started 3100 fps. The range was 345 yards and I mis-estimated the wind a little, so the bullet landed in the rear of the lungs, but the doe still only went about 50 yards before flopping.

As for TTSX's ruining less meat than other bullets with shoulder shots hitting bone, sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. It depends on impact velocity, and how much bone is shattered and serves as secondary projectiles. Lost half the shoulder of another one, shot with the same bullet at around 300 yards.

Well, I got my buck today. 130 lb dressed, had 6pts left but both main beams were broken off just past the widest part. Shot with a 7mm-08 and 120 TTSX. The shot was about 60 yards and off hand. I was aiming for my normal behind the shoulder shot but I hit high and caught the bottom of the spine. The Buck dropped like a rock as expected from a shot like that. The bullet was not recovered and left a caliber size entry and little more than 1/2" exit. I was hoping to see how the bullet would perform on a behind the shoulder shot but oh well. I got a buck and that's what I was out there for. Thanks everyone for all the information.

Congratulations on getting your buck. Thanks for the update. Good luck with your future testing of this rifle/cartridge/bullet combination.

I shot my second buck with the 7mm-08 and 120 TTSX the other day. We get an inch of snow the night before so I decided to try tracking. As luck would have it I bumped a buck after about an hour on my feet. The buck only ran a shot distance and spun around to get a look at what was behind it. That was my chance. Quartering toward at about 70 yards. I pulled the gun up took aim and fired a quick off hand shot. At the shot the buck took off running and I was hoping that my aim was true. I slowly made my way to where the buck was standing and saw some brown hair at the spot so I knew I hit it but where. I went about twenty yards before finding first blood. From that point I only found a few pin droops of blood here and there but I was getting nervous about the shot. I followed the tracks in the snow for about 50 yards before backing out and giving it some time. I went back an hour later and the melting snow had exaggerated the blood trail a bit but still only a few pin drops here and there. Well about 30 yards from where I stopped the first time was my buck stone dead. The shot landed just behind the shoulder clipping the heart, catching one lung, liver and stomach. The bullet excited at the back of the ribs. The inturnal damage was impressive and overall the buck went about 80 yards from the shot. The terminal performance was good but the lack of blood had me concerned. I would have had a hard time tracking in these thick woods without the snow. I think next time I’ll shoot for shoulder.

I posted this on another thread but its applicable to your's as well... We hunt many acres of private farms and ranches in Western Nebraska with very diverse topography consisting of flat wheat fields,rolling corn and bean fields plus deep canyons...I shot this young Mule last week to remove him from the gene pool with a shoulder shot that stopped him in his tracks on top of an alfalfa field with deep canyons on both sides. I'll gladly sacrifice a little shoulder meat for a long bag drag out of a wooded canyon any day! ..The Barnes 6.5 127gr LRX from my Swede performed exactly as I expected at 310 yds. The surrounding tissue damage was minimal even after breaking both shoulders...These days the TTSX,LRX and NPT's are all I use or ever require.

The smartest man on the whole dam forum.

This year I switched to Hornady GMX 130 gr. for my .270. My wife got her blacktail with a high behind the shoulder shot at 40 yards--bang flop. Pencil hole entry, quarter sized exit. Perfect meat shot--got the lungs without damage to heart, liver, or shoulders. I tried the same shot on my buck, about the same distance. I hit a little lower behind the shoulder. Similar sized entry and exit, clipped the off shoulder. My deer ran about 30 yards, leaving only tiny droplets of blood. The off shoulder sealed the exit wound. The lungs were totally trashed, but very little blood escaped the cavity.

I like the shoulders also, I don’t like looking in the cactus, dragging deer back through the cactus to the road. There is rattlesnakes in there too. Some guys were sprayed by a skunk looking for a deer one night. Shoulders are the way to go.

I swapped to 130gr TTSX in a .308 kimber adirondack this year.

2 deer DRT on opening morning by putting them in the lungs, folllow the leg straight up on a broadside shot and plant them, both bullets exited, neither deer moved more than 3 feet squirming on teh ground.

I got some lead ground up in some burgers last year which is the reason for my switch... I'm not worried about it for me, but I've got 2 kids under 6 and the only red meat wee eat comes from the field. Getting some chickens next year, but just for the eggs (unless they piss me off)

I allso found a helluva deal on 338 federal 200gr trophy copper and bought alll they had. Can't wait to see it work on pigs.

When I started shooting deer with Barnes copper bullets I experimented to see if they were any different in performance on deer. I carefully picked shots to damage different parts. Anything hitting bone that's well constructed enough to make it through seems to be the same. Copper or lead no difference in killing capability, but... lead makes more mess typically. Running bullets through at steep angles the difference is that the Barnes made it through 100% of the time whereas lead core bullets were much less predictable. The major difference I noted was that the copper bullets, Barnes TSX/TTSX, E-Tips, and GMXs all were much much more prone to straight line pass thru whether bone was involved or not than lead core. Since I am shooting at a target inside Bambi that is a decided performance advantage.

I shot one doe at just shy of 300 yards with a .270 and 110 grain TTSX. It was very late, last minute of legal time and she was in a cut hay field which is hard to find blood in, so I wanted her down on the spot and high shouldered her. She was at a quartering away angle. Onside scapula had a fist sized hole in it. Four ribs close to the spine were cut edgewise. A fist size chunk of spine was missing from the bottom half. Two more ribs edgewise, then a quarter size hole in the off side scapula and an exit. Scapula and spine are not real hard bone like ribs, but the wound channel being arrow straight really impressed me.when that much bone is involved. Having never seen much deflection at all out of the copper bullets, that is performance that I now expect. I have seen well more than enough lead bullets hit a hard springy rib at an oblique angle and never make it into the chest. That kind of deep straight line penetration alone is reason enough to use only copper.

Miles, straight-line penetration in expanding bullets is primarily due to the length of the remaining shank after expansion, not what the bullet is made of. This has been proven many times in testing.

Monolithic bullets do tend to have longer remaining shanks, but so do many lead-cored expanding bullets, such as North Forks and Trophy Bondeds, because they have solid shanks with a small amount of lead in the nose. The heavier Nosler Partitions that have the partition further forward also tend penetrate very straight, because they end up with longer shanks, and so did the Fail Safe bullets, which had a lead core in the rear end protected by a steel cap. I've seen all those bullets penetrate several feet in a straight line in large animals like elk, moose and Cape buffalo. But occasionally have seen even long-shanked bullets deflect, whether monolithic or lead-cored, after hitting very heavy bone.

Brother shot a 250 lb buck in Missouri this year. 165g ttsx. You never know what a bullet of any make will do.

300 WSM, 165@ 3150.

Bullet hit the shoulder, angled up the spine, and was under the hide just behind the skull. Buck was laying in it's tracks of course which is all that counts for us.

We found the 6.5 ttsx one of the very easiest of all tripple shocks to tune in three different calibers. 6.5x47L, 6.5 Creed, 6.5 Sweed with R#26 and fed 215 is unreal accurate and fast. I formed brass out of Rem 22/250 for the 6.5x47L so we could use the 215 which the #26 likes.

I think I should be seeing more deflection in monos actually. The are not infrequently marginally stablized due to their length which at first blush should make them more prone to tumbling and deflection. Don't know why I have never seen it, but I just haven't. I have definitely seen unstable and marginally stable monos in load work. I have seen a lot of monos tumble after hitting the target usually on plastic election signs. I just have never seen evidence of one tumbling in Bambi.

Miles,

As an old friend who spent decades in the shooting industry once noted, "All bullets tumble! Some just tumble less often!

The weirdest one I ever personally witnessed was a 300-grain Trophy Bonded (the soft-nose Federal version, not the present tipped TB) from a .375 H&H that hit a Cape buffalo in the shoulder. The bull stood broadside at about 100 yards, and my hunting partner placed it perfectly--we could even see the dust fly from the spot. The bull bucked like a rodeo bull as it disappeared into the nearby brush. We waited almost an hour before following up, hoping for a death bellow that didn't come. The buffalo was jumped about 100 yards away, and two PH's with a .416 Rigby and .458 Lott followed it up, putting 10 more bullets in the bull before it succumbed--luckily without a charge.

Turned out the 300-grain Trophy Bonded had expanded perfectly while breaking the shoulder, but apparently the bone started it spinning. It only went through the near lung before ending up in the ribs on the SAME side it entered--the reason the bull was still so lively. Never have seen anything like it before or since.

The ones That tick me off are the oblique angles that hit a rib. I can't begin to predict where they will go, but I have seen more than a couple that never made it into the chest. I like those shot presentations where you can just line up just above the heart and send it out between the front legs just above the brisket. I shot a fawn a few years back. It had been wounded the night before. I jumped it at 20 yards and as it was clearing a dead fall I put a 160 grain Factory LeverEvolution on it near the last ribs so it should have come out in the vicinity of the front of the opposite shoulder shoulder. Didn't faze that little sucker a bit. I took off after it because I didn't want it escaping into a big piece of thick woods that didn't belong to us. I hurdled the dead fall (almost) went down on the 336 and cracked the stock. After I got up I put one behind it's head and found the entrance hole right where it should have been but couldn't find an exit. After skinning you could see it just followed the rib up, went through part of the backstrap and exited almost straight up.

I couldn't imagine how much easier it would be to put a round into a cape buffalo angling from the back and have that bullet deflect off the rib and slide around under the hide.

Cape buffalo have unbelievable bone structure, including the ribs, which are not only thick but wide, and overlap slightly. The one buffalo I've seen shot from that angle was taken in Botswana, and shot on the left side at the rear of the ribcage as it angled away. The 400-grain Partition from the .416 Rigby penetrated very straightly, ending up under the hide the opposite shoulder, probably six feet of penetration. That bullet's one of the Partitions designed to retain a higher percentage of weight; that one retained 83% of its weight, and the other (from a water buffalo) retained 95%.

FWIW on critters less formidable that Cape Buffalo, when Im shooting the TTSX, even from the little guns, I picture a straight line where the bullet is going, and make sure theres nothing important behind the animal on that line......

^^^^^^^^^^

Probably a good idea for most north american hunters, if you go shoooting at flesh tanks, thats a different conversations.

In my experience with TSX and TTSX Bullets from 270 through 375 hit them anywhere in the vitals from any angle and the results are predictable. They kill extremely well in my experience.

I agree, and especially like monos in the smaller chamberings. They may not completely wreck the vitals like some cup/cores, but "only somewhat wrecked" still kills pretty dang well, and you have great odds of them actually plowing through to the vitals when angles are bad. A lung-shot 50yd death run vs a 30yd death run is still a dead and recoverable deer.

Exactly.

The only real problems I've seen with monos is when they don't open up, but that problem has been almost totally eliminated by the addition of plastic tips.