Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Nosler E-tips vs. TTSX's

The TTSX's have provided very consistent and effective results for the last few seasons on deer and pigs, and they now are my go to choice for a hunting bullet.

The Shooter's Pro Shop now is selling Nosler E-tip blems for about half the price of TTSX's.

Are the E-tips as good, better, or worse than the TTSX's?

Hard to find any real first hand reports of folks using the E-tip, so thought someone here might have some reports.

Thanks.

I much prefer the E-tip...

Curious as to why?

Bit better BC, better wound channels, just as accurate IME...

YMMV...

Hope that turns out to be the case for me; I bought 300 90gr 6mms.

I've only tried them in one rifle so far, and then I bought about 300 seconds as well. They perform well at high speeds and the 90gr 6mm would be near the top of my list for big-game bullets in that caliber.

I've been using the 180gr blems in my my 300win mag on elk. The two elk I have shot with them died. One was a cow at about 100yds she ran the length of a pickup truck and piled up dead. The other was 300yds off. First shot spined her. Second shot put her out. Both elk were shot through the lungs.

I've got enough on hand that I'll never have to buy another elk bullet.

I've thought about getting the 100gr 25cal that SPS has right now but honestly, I don't need THAT much bullet for my 250 savage for antelope and deer. I keep telling myself I'll use up the Hornaday 100gr interlocks I've got on hand then go back to ballistic tips. If I ever build that 25 wssm though......

I am thinking/hoping they are about the same. Stocked up on a bunch of the .257 x 101 gr jobbers and will find out next season. If anything the E-Tips should foul less since they are cupro-nickle guilded metal but that has not been a problem with the copper TTSX's either. I am also thinking I will not need to change loads at all but have yet to put this to the test. But E-tips are harder so may run up pressure more, will find out soon. 106 degrees today so hard to get motivated to go test loads may have to resort to an indoor range.

What are you running those in tejano?

jeffbird,

Have posted this before, but here goes again:

I started using E-Tips on big game before they ever appeared on the market, in 2007 taking some 180 prototypes to South Africa for testing during a big cull hunt. A hunting partner and I took maybe 10-12 animals with them, from springbok at around 400 to blue wildbeest close up. They worked very well, whether farther off on light game or close up when hitting heavy bone. One of the wildebeest was deliberately shot in the big shoulder joint as it quartered toward me at about 100 yards. The bullet broke the joint and ended up under the hide at the rear of the ribcage, retaining 180 grains--because it actually weighed 182 grain to start with, since Nosler forgot to factor in the 2 grains of the plastic tip.

Since then my hunting partners (including my wife) and I have shot quite a few more animals with E-Tips, from coyotes and pronghorns to zebra and bull elk. The bullets ran from the 90-grain 6mm at about 3375 fps in the .240 Weatherby to 180's in the .300 WSM on big bull elk. Eileen also took a big zebra (about the size of a mature bull elk, with 150 E-Tips in the .308 Winchester, along with a male ostrich, a big warthog, and several other animals.

I can't really say the on-game performance is any different than other tipped monolithics such as the TTSX or Hornady GMX. All three have expanded well and penetrated plenty on game from under 100 pounds to 800 or so. How accurately E-Tips shoot depends on the rifle, but in over 90% of the rifles I've tried them in they've shot very well. If they don't at first, they often respond to deeper seating, just like other monolithics.

While I have not shot nor ever even loaded an Etip, I have killed a couple dozen animals with the TTSX from Coues deer and javelina, to Kudu and Elk. I am a huge TTSX fan, but they do have some draw backs. Their performance greatly improves when impact velocity is high, and bone is contacted, in my experience.

Interesting.... Ive not used the E-tips but Im a huge TTSX fan. I think I know Greg well enough to trust his judgement and definitely his experience.

Add to that what Mule Deer said, and it looks like 6 of one and half a dozen of the other!

Essentially, Nosler designed the E-Tip as a lead-free Ballistic Tip, partly because they also sell a lot of bullets in Europe, where lead-free regs are more common than here. The E-Tip was developed before the Tipped TSX appeared--but they happened to both be announced at the same NRA convention show.

The cavity behind the tip is deeper in the E-Tip (or at least it was when they first appeared), and in my initial tests in various kinds of media they opened up wider, so didn't penetrate quite as deeply as standard TSX's--which were all I had then, since TTSX's weren't available until a few months later. But the difference in penetration wasn't much, at most 10%. And as noted earlier, I really can't tell any difference in on-game performance between E-Tip, TTSX's or Hornady GMX's--and have now seen plenty of animals shot with all three--so tend to pick whichever shoots well in a particular rifle.

indeed.

I shot both in a side by side comparison during a cull hunt in Namibia with my 6x62R Freres, a cartridge of identical performace to the .240 Weatherb.

In the ones I recovered, about the same number of either one, the ETips showed a bigger frontal area, after penetrating a bit less, and producing a slightly wider wound channel.

Differences were small, though, and in no case you could tell any difference in the animal reaction when sooting one or the other.

Agreed. Wish there was better/more reloading data out there for them.

25-06 should be a good one.

I have not shot enough of either to say but am thinking the E-Tips may not shed petals as much as at least the old X bullets did. But I don't think that is necessarily a disadvantage and I have filed a cannelure on the ogive of some Barnes to encourage them to act like the raptor bullet which they do. In fact this works well enough for me to consider getting a cannelure making setup. Or as spell check has it a cannelloni machine.

I think they'd be a good fit in the 25-06 or the 257 weatherby or the 25wssm. Maybe even the 25souper on the low end. I'm sure they'd work just fine in the 250 as well but I just don't see the need in such a mild mannered cartridge.

Calvin,

Use your chronograph with "standard" data.

Hodgdon's .257 Weatherby data lists 78.0 grains of H1000 as maximum with Speer 100-grain boattails, for 3575. I worked up to 3550 fps with 100-grain E-Tips in my rifle, but the charge was only 76.0 grains. Accuracy and brass life are excellent.

Haven't shot the GMX, but in my 26 Nosler, I can't tell any difference between 120 gr. E-Tips and 120 gr. TTSX. They shoot same POI, the same speed with identical loads, both half MOA. Terminal performance on deer and hogs is indistinguishable.

DF

I much prefer the Etips performance on lower velocity impacts....My wife has killed 2 elk and 2 deer in her 7-08 the past 2 years shooting the 140 Etip at a very pedestrian 2675 MV. All her kills were over 300 yards and I was very, very impressed at the wound channels and critter reaction with an impact under 2200...

All died within 30 yards with massive blood loss...

I'll just say I've not experienced the same results with Barnes...