Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles lead free < 150 grain bullets in the 308 and 30-06

curious as to your loads and experiences with lead free bullets below 150 grains in weight in the 308 and 30-06.. I suppose the 130 TTSX first comes to mind. are there others?

130 TTSX from my 30/06 with 54.5grs H4895 was very accurate and reliable on whitetails.

Dogger

I think it was Rickbin that had great results in Africa with 110 Barnes in the 270. Perhaps he will chime in here

Thanks

Onerifle

130 TSX and TTSX at about 3000fps on deer and antelope. Never recovered one, never had one not open well, never lost a critter with one from 35 to 435 yards.

130 TTSX is great in a 308. My hand loads do about 3050 fps. (49.5 g of RL 15 I believe, but I'm not near my notes). Have taken 2 elk with complete pass throughs.

Mines running a little slower out of a kimber adirondack... but it stacks them up the DRT collumn.

Very accurate both suppressed and unsupressed. Supressor pulls the POI 2.5” low at 100 yards.

Personally I am a 6.5 shooter living in SW Colorado. Have been taking elk for years with no problem with the Barnes 6.5 120gr TSX, but I have a friend who uses a 308 & the Barnes 130gr TTSX. At ethical ranges he has no problem taking elk with complete penetration. You just have to forget what you know about lead core bullets when using the homogeneous copper. They out perform C&C bullets dramatically.. I believe if using the 150gr weight you could take KING KONG. These bullets penetrate

Just bought a test box of Barnes Vor-Tx 130 TTSX for my 308’s. If they’ll shoot then I’ll know I can load them with good results. Looking forward to testing them in my four 308’s.

" at ethical ranges" please explain .

In my experience, as a rough estimate, the 130TTSX functions about like the 180 CoreLokt in my 30-06.

Meaning--what I used to be able to do with the CoreLokt, I can do the same with the lighter TTSX, when it comes to penetration, bone-breaking, wound channel, etc.

I load the 150 TTSX's for two M70 30'06's, it been a great choice in both accuracy and on game. If I ever do get a .308 I'd load the 150 TTSX for that as well.

My observation as well.

I load the 168’s in my 300 Win mags. Accurate, deadly!

130 TTSX

Don't forget the Cutting Edge choices. They work differently, but are lighter, lead-free, and quite deadly.

Not cheap, though.

E Tip...

What velocity are you getting?

I’m working with a max load of 748, at just under 3300 fps in a ‘06. I wouldn’t worry about shooting anything up to elk out to 300 yards or so. After that I am more worried about my shooting ability in the field than the bullet.

With a 24” Barrel that should be about 3200fps per the Barnes data.

22" barrel was around 3150fps.