Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 200 grain Barnes LRX .308 bullet?

I am taking a hard look at the Barnes 200 grain .308 LRX bullet and if any one has any experience with this bullet in a 30-06 or .300 Win. Mag. I would like to hear about it. I only hunt in Alaska and use other Barnes X bullets and like them and this one looks interesting to me.

I can comment on the bullet, but not terminal performance as I have yet to take any game with it.

I have a nice load for the 200 LRX in my Winchester Model 70 300 WSM doing a little over 2800 fps. It has proven to be very accurate in my 1:10 twist 24" barrel at those speeds. I have always found Barnes Bullets to be very accurate in whatever caliber I have tried them in.
( 5.56mm, 7mm, 7.62mm )

I can also tell you that I have heard from several sources that this particular bullet was previously called "200 TTSX" and they simply re-named it to "LRX". For me, that calls into question whether or not they will expand any more readily than the "TTSX" line as has been claimed.

It has a nice BC and is accurate and if kept above 1800 fps should do what it's supposed to do.

Any updates concerning this bullet.
Any confirmation as to it simply being a renamed TTSX... and it's minimum expansion velocity.?

And heck, while I'm in the asking mode, is there any validity to its posted B.C. value of .546.?

I shoot it out of a 300 win mag I like it its a good bullet but not magical. Im 99.999% sure its a TTSX renamed LRX

I have shot it 200gr LRX went right through a cow elk. Never opened up hit a rib on exit and left a perfect hole. I shot the elk at top of a ridge and the only good thing she ran all the way down to bottom by the field where my truck was parked and expired there.nerve wrecking tracking an animal that far. I have dropped down to the 175LRX and love it every elk and mule deer dropped within 50 yards. All my shots have been between 200 to 300 yards. My nephew uses 80gr ttsx in a 243 and dropped his big 8 pointer white tail last year. I just got my 260ai and loaded the 6.5 Barnes 127 LRX. Can't wait to test that. So in conclusion my experiences with an all copper bullet so far is lighter grain than you would with lead . And also my custom 300wm didn't come alive till I was .100 of the lands. I am .075 off in the 260 ai and it is tack driver. But only have 30 shots through it.

“VERY” long! Wouldn’t leave much room for powder! But, once you get it moving.....it should “full-length” a Pachyderm! Should be great in a 30/378 Weatherby or similar!

With the weight retention of the Barnes bullets, a 165 or a 180 will have greater weight retained than most of the “other” Bullets, starting out at 200 grains or better! memtb

I just got a box of Federal-loaded 200gr Edge TLR bullets for my .300 WM. They supposedly leave the barrel at 2,810 fps, and many Federal loads I have shot recently chrono faster than the Federal specs. I haven’t gotten a chance to try them out yet, given that I am in Karachi for the next 10 days before heading to Colorado to hunt. I am a big Barnes TTSX fan, and have had great success with them, but I think I like the concept of the TLR better than the TTSX bullet for a 200gr .300 WM load. It looks really stout and has a .625 B.C.

The more I think about it, the 175 grain LRX TTSX .30 caliber bullet is a better choice for me, considering what I want to do with a .30. Win. Mag. rifle.

MarineHawk,

Interesting bullet that TLR. Federal states that it will open at velocities as low as 1350 fps. Even the 175 grain version boasts a pretty high B.C. of .536

UncleFish,
Nice of that animal to run toward the truck. Hopefully he bred a few cows with those same accommodating genetics.

I have a box of 200gn .308 TTSX's on the shelf.
The length is 1.625" +/- so perhaps someone can measure a current LRX for comparison?

I also did a visual comparison on the Ogive compared to the 168gn TTSX and the 175gn LRX.

Both the 168 and 175 grainers look identical in their shape and length with both bullets also being identical all the way to the 3rd relief groove so that only the shank length is of any difference.
The 200 grain TTSX is not the same, as the Ogive looks wider and more rounded and the relieve grooves do not align with the lighter weight versions.

John

There are differences between the standard TTSX and LRX bullets. First, the LRX's are annealed differently on the front end to open at lower impact velocities, and in fact the petals tend to break off at closer ranges.

They also have longer boattails that are smaller in diameter at the rear end, and longer ogives. Both increase ballistic coefficient over equivalentTTSX's.

JB,
This is interesting, I cannot qualify the annealing difference but measuring the bases turned up some other interesting sameness based on the original query of whether the TTSX and LRX in 200gn weight are the same bullet rebranded.

Firstly, the 200gn TTSX and the 175gn LRX had identical elongated boat tails compared to the 168gn TTSX.
Secondly the base diameter at the end of he boar tail is also identical at .270" for the 200gn and 175gn whereas the 168gn is .285"

With sameness for BT design and length, I can understand why the original question was asked, but without having a 200gn LRX in front of me, I cannot qualify sameness in ogive shape or OAL. The annealing is a separate spec and the internet can challenge that one.

If the OP had a 175gn LRX and a 200gn TTSX on hand, I could understand the reason for his question, but being a 28 year user of Barnes X bullets, I don't believe anyone would notice a difference in the field. Also, because the TTSX version is now officially obsolete it really doesn't matter.
John

John,

Yeah, I don't have any 200-grain Tipped .30's of either "brand" on hand, so can't testify if there's any dimensional difference. But there are definite dimensional differences in other similar-weight TTSX's and LRX's, which is what I cited, partly from the measured drawings in the 3rd edition of Bryan Litz's fine book BALLISTIC PERFORMANCE OF RIFLE BULLETS.

The annealing information came from two sources, the first a person with the present Barnes company who stated the LRX's are designed to open at lower impact velocities, so do tend to lose petals more often than TSX's and TTSX's. The other source was Randy Brooks himself, who as I've noted elsewhere, told me 15 years ago on a mule deer hunt that his original X-Bullets tended to lose petals, partly because of the annealing process. He thought this probably enhanced "killing power," and knew it helped expansion, but hunters started complaining when X-Bullets lost petals, mostly because it reduced retained weight. This wasn't too long after far more hunters became aware of retained weight in big game bullets, largely because of Bob Hagel's book, and they started believing more retained weight enhanced killing power.

So Randy started annealing X's differently to retain petals, at least most of the time. (I haven't found any version of the X immune to losing petals, sometimes all four.) He did this to please customers, because any smart businessman knows pleased customers buy more stuff.

Obsolete? How?

As in supersceded by the LRX version.
Also have some .338 265gn TTSX which so are no longer listed with the LRX version only being listed in the reloading data.

The difference between these 2 and the OP's query is that for the .338 versions in 265gn weight, I do have both versions so can see that the LRX version is a different bullet.
John