Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting More bullet gack - elk in the timber

Most of the tests I've seen don't show the TSX/TTSX doing less damage, but rather the shape of the damage column, or wound cavity, being more of a large cylinder compared to a cone shape as with more frangible bullets.

My experiences are similar to Jorge, and I've seen Phil Shoemaker, JJHACK, Rick Bin, and others report excellent results with TSX/TTSX/LRX bullets. I've also seen a bunch of credible posters, yourself included, report less than stellar results with various models of Barnes bullets, so I'm not quick to discount your observations, though they don't match my own. Brad and yourself have reported trouble with .308" 150/180 TSX/TTSX bullets, and MD has mentioned having a couple of instances of poor performance with the .257" 100gr TSX. I've killed with, and witnessed, all of these bullets in use a fair bit with no trouble, but that doesn't mean it can't happen to you guys.

In fact, on average over hundreds of kills, I've seen longer travel distances after the kill shot with frangible C&C bullets than I have with monos. That seems contrary to what a couple of other credible guys (like MD) have reported, but never-the-less it's what I've observed...

One should be able to discern the difference between credible, honest reporting and zealotry.

Fair bit of irony there.

Noshitsherlock, There's a lesson in there, somehow I doubt you grasped it.

It's three words, and Sherlock is a proper noun so it's capitalized.

You can be uncivil, but let's not make grammatical errors, eh?

Jorge, your a poser pure and simple. By your own admission you have very limited time to hunt. And when you do it involves someone holding your hand, a game farm or something else along those lines.

Paper, wet or dry, is not a replicant of tissue and what you see in it is not an indicator of what a bullet will do in flesh. Neither is water for that matter.







It is always interesting to me how hunters (and shooters) think that terminal ballistics is somehow "mystical", or what bullets do in tissue and how they do it is "up for argument".

Here's reality: before the late 80's no one really had a clue how/why bullets destroyed tissue (save Fackler, etc). All the same nonsense that's repeated here a thousand times about "energy", "momentum", etc was used then.
However, in the last 20 years, and especially in the last decade plus, millions of dollars have been spent with tens of thousands of test shots, tens of thousands of wounds examined, and reams of data collected by a few really switched on places to scientifically know why bullets do what.


A bunch of posters would learn a whole heck of a lot just by googleing- "Doc GKR terminal ballistics".

And nothing you've spewed above is relevant to the discussion, so as always you take this fork in the road, because. It's always fun to get grief from neophytes. I've never said or claimed to be anything I'm not, and an "elk hunter" is not one of my claims. That said, being called a "poser" from someone like you is so laughable it defies explanation.

Of course not, but when using THE SAME MEDIUM to test two or more projectiles to test ONE VARIANT IN THAT SAME MEDIUM, it is a valid measure of effectiveness. Neither newspaper or as you say water jugs are a valid MOE v animal tissue but for a penetration comparison using the same medium is sure is. I was merely trying to counter the purely empirical and anecdotal "absolute" posited by some that C&C bullets cause more internal damage (or penetrate as well) as monometals, specifically the Barnes TTSX, when there are clearly just as many empirical and anecdotal presentations such as here: TTSX performance Where TTSXs not only penetrate but cause massive internal trauma as well.

I've hunted most of my life with C&C bullets, with Hornadys being the most used, as well as Swift A Frames and Partitions including two African safaris with game ranging from Cape Buffalo, down to impala, and stateside, as well as many deer Including axis), LOTS of hogs, bear and one (1) elk and Scimitar Horned Oryx. About the only think I can say without reservation is this; the TTSXs left more exit holes (all larger than caliber indicating expansion) than any other bullet I've used AND have been consistently more accurate across all most calibers than any other hunting bullet I've used. Whether the hunts were Guided (aka hand-held) is really not relevant and in my experience the Barnes Do penetrate more than any other bullet I've ever used.

Which has nothing to do with the fact that Barnes TTSX are the best bullets ever made. They work on any game any way you hunt it.

Three observations:

1) If you're interested in seeing how far various bullets penetrate water-filled jugs, then by all means water-filled jugs are a valid test medium, and depth of penetration is the variable you're after.

2) If depth of penetration was the most important variable in determining effectiveness in killing big game then hunting bullets and their manufacture would be greatly simplified--they'd all be non-expandable.

3) They're not.

I don't recall ever mentioning water jugs, but ok. As two your second hypothesis, it does I think come with a couple of caveats: elephant, rino and hippo on land and in the case of the TTSX and the Partition, you get both..

One thing about it, the partition is a damn old bullet with old technology. But that doesn't mean it isn't still a bullet in which all others are judged. We've all heard the story, but damn the partition is still getting chit done since its introduction in 1947. Yeah, some guys will argue, bullet design has changed a lot since then. But for hunting, did it really need to??? Moral of the story is if you like keeping it simple, use a partition... Life will be much easier.. Hint..

Partitions I've caught in large game, though later on JB told me that 180 partitions are not the cats azz on penetration I should have been running 200 partitions... I was not aware of that at the time and in the meantime had found Barnes so problem was solved.

I've shot quite a few partitions over the years, they are better than standard cup and core for sure. But there came a new game to town thats better, IMHO, and i'm not scrimping on bullets when it comes to game, even if you can control your shots, you can't always control the angle of the bullet after impact and I simply want one that holds together the best, while expanding. Barnes does that.

Lehigh is a specialty company in the same realm dealing with subsonic stuff... its why I run them with a can subsonic ... they perform the best and most consistently.

Nilgai is what got me searching for something better than a partition, after I had 2 180 partitions penetrate enough but not much on whitetail... one whitetail stopped the bulllet in his neck against the spine. Evidently it sheared it but it was up against the spine on THIS side of it... on a DEER.... then some issues on nilgai and that was that.

Further down the road a couple of deer had caught 180 partitions from 300 wtby, not all that fast, 3100 IIRC ballpark. Lengthwise. And the bullet would not even exit small deer on the order of say 160 pounds live weight. While transistioning to X, I shot a couple of deer frontal shots with them, including a couple with an 85 tsx that were a bit over 200 yards, and from a 6/6.8 SPC round that was quite a bit slower than a 243... exits on all of them.... heck the lehigh sub sonic at the same distance as some of the partition shots, frontal, has been found in the hindquarters so far... same pentration as a partition from a mag....

By as always YMMV.

We don't still ride horses to work. But we do drive different vehicles as we all have different tastes.

The medium is beside the point. Substitute your medium of choice, be it wet newspapers, ballistic gel, etc. and the observation still holds true. It's why bullet companies test their bullets on actual animals, as well as media.

And I don't recall anyone mentioning dangerous game, or killing animals that will stomp a hole in you if you don't put them down with a CNS shot through a thick skull. Talk about a hail Mary.





Both? Good recovery. Above you were talking about testing a single variable (penetration) and now you've doubled that. You're moving in the right direction.

No they don't. In your post above you acknowledged that by saying you use a different bullet for subsonic speeds. And you don't need to go all the way to subsonic to get TTSXs to fail to open.

OF COURSE THE MEDIUM IS BESIDE THE POINT. The issue is penetration when all other data points are equal, including animal tissue where Barnes will usually outpenetrate partitions. Dangerous game is not the issue either, rather penetration, and your theory was obviously not absolute. You might want to read more on dangerous game (or even hunt some and they also include the cats where solids are eschewed) the reason for solids on the animals I mentioned,have little to do with skull penetration but rather the thickness of the hide and depth of the vitals. In fact, hippos have very thin skulls, that is why WHEN IN WATER, a frontal shot between the eyes with a soft point works wonders. On land, most hippos are heart/lung shot with solids. Same for rhinos as they are almost NEVER shot in the head and the overwhelming majority of elephants are heart/lung shot with SOLIDS. Getting a clue beforehand usually helps in discussions.

I was talking about elephants, dipschit.

Get a clue? The subject here is killing elk, remember?

For that matter, how many elephants, rhinos, and hippos have you killed?

We'll add reading fail to your attributes. You mentioned "dangerous game" and "skulls" to which I responded most elephants are heart/lung shot with solids. As to the elk issue, it's just another 600-800 pound animal and either bullet is more than adequate. I only took issue with the absolute theory that Partitions penetrate as much and so more internal damage than TTSXs. Might be true in some instances but to claim it as an absolute, like yours posts, is absolute bullshit...dipshit

Edit: none, but two buffalo but again irrelevant...

Not much of a hunter either, considering your hankering for shooting livestock in a pen. But you can at least brag to your SCI buddies how you conquered the wilds of a farm and killed a big bull..
You can sometimes fool the coaches, but not the players. Quit posibly you are the biggest poser on this site and that's saying something.