Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles 6.5 & 270 with Barnes TSX bullets

You success with these bullets mirrors what me & my hunting friends have had. Absolute success with deer & elk. If those skeptical shooters would try these bullets they would understand why they are gaining such popularity. When I can take a large mature muley buck with my 260 Rem & the Barnes 100gr TSX with complete penetration & my friend can do the same with his 270 & the 110gr TTSX year after year that tells you some thing. When we get complete penetration on elk with the Barnes 6.5 TSX 120gr or the 270 130gr TSX that also tells you some thing.. Bullet technology continues to evolve.Some embrace it some ignore it. Prior to 1948 when the Partition came out it was a heavy bullet for cal. at a moderate velocity which still works. But technology with the mono's now allows high velocity. super flat trajectory with super strong bullets .that out penetrate the slow much heavier lead core bullets or the Partitions. You for sure have the right to pick one or the other.

If you cannot get accuracy with the monos it's not the bullet that's the problem it is you! I have solved more than fifty rifles for monos and have yet to find a rifle that won't shoot them well.

That said, I have seen some rifles that were extremely touchy about seating depth, like .010 too long or short being the difference between 8 inch groups and sub one inch groups. I have seen one rifle fould so unmercifully with them that accuracy, even 3 shot groups, was impossible. That was solved with Dyna Bore Coat. I own a 25-06 Sendero that will shoot the Barnes 100 TSX or TTSX into sub inch groups at 3225 FPS but with that 26 inch barrel it w, ill handle 3450ish without excess pressure and I cannot find a powder that will give me accuracy up there, 2-2 1/2 inches is the best I have yet been able to manage.

It can take some work to find seating depth with a mono and a given rifle. The E-Tips and GMXs seem to me to be a little more trouble than the Barnes. But... once you have them solved, I find them to be the best bullets I have had for killing deer since I started in '56. By a considerable margin. 130 grain in 30 caliber,53/55 grain in .223 and 110 grain in .270 are just about the ideal.

I can't address the 6.5 as I don't have one, but I've killed lots of stuff with a 270 with Nosler Partitions including moose & elk & with those bullets, the 270 performs exactly as it should.

The Barnes bullets are great & I use them, but the 270 didn't, & still doesn't, need them to kill moose & elk.

MM

I absolutely agree with you, but there are those who can say they kill moose & elk with cup & core bullets. Which they can. It''s just the partitions are more dependable than C&C bullets. The mono's are also more dependable than the partitions in particular on heavy game like elk . I can use a `120gr 6.5 Barnes TSX to cleanly take elk year after year with complete penetration.. A hunting buddy & his son use 270's with the Barnes 130gr & get complete penetration on elk. I've see a friend with his 308 & 130gr Barnes get complete penetration on elk. I see the mono's as just having an extra edge of dependability . I want that extra edge.

Never had a Partition fail, period.

And I've had complete penetration on both elk & moose with 150's out of the 270.

And the ones I've caught have been as perfect as perfect gets like the ones below.

But as I also, I do use the Barnes bullets a lot now as well; they perform well & are generally accurate in all the gun I shoot them in.

YMMV

MM

[img][img]https://s25.postimg.org/7mkex0l63/6.5_N_B_001.jpg[/img] [/img]

The bullet on the left is a Nosler Partition 125gr recovered from a muley buck fired from about 80yds. . It expanded to about 32 cal & weights 83grs. It struck no bone but yet did not completely penetrate.. OK for deer but not what I want for elk.
The Barnes 6.5 120gr TSX on the right recovered from the dirt back stop behind my 100yd target has expanded to 50 cal & still weights 120grs. I have found the Barnes 120grTSX to out penetrate the Nosler 140gr 6.5 Partition. We have been using these 120gr mono's since they first came out as the "X" bullet & now the TSX. I don't have any to display as they have all given complete penetration on elk even thru heavy bone. I want complete penetration on elk. Keeping in mind these are only 120gr bullets.. As stated before my friend & his son use 270's with the 130gr Barnes & always get complete penetration even from acute angles. This is the extra edge of dependability these bullets deliver. I see no need to use cal's larger than 270 on hoofed game because of the utter dependability of modern mono's.
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Yes, I agree with that completely.

But I have seen a few pics here & there of Barnes that have not expanded well & were oddly deformed, but I'm sure there are the exception. I think you need to drive them hard, hence somewhat lighter for caliber bullets work best.

Friend of mine (died before his time) was an outfitter in the U.S. & a PH in Africa & was a friend of Randy & Connie who owned Barnes, & he used a lot of Barnes bullets in Africa with really good success on all manner of plains game, buffs & lion.

There's no doubt they are great bullets; but just saying I've never had a failure with a Partition either, but they do not fully penetrate at the percentage rate that the mono's do, for sure.

MM

Anyone got any load data and/or tips for loading with the following??

Tikka T3 Lite in 6.5x55, as per factory. 120gn TTSX projectiles? Loaded up a handful a while ago, were about .8 or .9 MOA which is easy good enough for me as I'm after deer/pigs for meat, so only out to 200metres or so. No idea how fast, from memory I used 46.5gn of AR2209.

Cheers