Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Barnes bullet... are you completely sold?

Me neither! AFrames, Partitions and Interlocks, go figure!

I have only shot 1 animal with a Barnes. A bull elk at 290 yds with a 168 ttsx out of a 300 wsm at 3130 FPS.
He is in the freezer!
Am I completely sold ?
I don’t know yet.
I do know they shoot a bit more accurately than the 180 partitions for me.
They also carry a bit more energy out to 525 yds over the 180 partition.

My thinking is that the monos are at their best when launched over 3000 FPS , and used on elk or larger sized game.

I have only ever shot one animal with a Barnes TTSX. I shot a smaller whitetail buck broadside through the ribs at about 40 yards. It was 150 grain and fired from a 308. it punched right through but apparently did not expand. The exit hole was about the same as the entry. It is possible that it did not even hit a rin bone. There was little or no blood trail but I saw the buck drop after walking about 40 or 50 yards. This was probably unusual and a deep-penetrating bullet was not necessary for what I was doing. It did make me a bit leery of using them on deer under most circumstances in case a deer wanders out of sight.

I recovered the buck so it was not an issue. The reason I was not using a Ballistic Tip as I used to use all the time was because I also had a bear tag. I have a Browning BLR Takedown, though, that I continue to use them in exclusively. it is also a 308 Win. The only bullet I have found that shoots accurately out of it is the 130 grain Barnes TTSX. The extra speed on it might make a difference if I finally get another deer.

Anyway, that is my experience with Barnes. If I was elk hunting, I would not hesitate to use one. Deer might be a bit light for rib shots.

I am curious as what the vital organs looked like on this deer when you dressed him ?

They bullet went right through the lungs but they looked pretty much like they had not been touched. The organ damage appeared minimal.

After I shot, I watched the buck walk off with it's tail down. I was waiting for it to fall. It stayed on its feet for a good 30 seconds to a minute and I started thinking I had somehow missed it. Then it dropped after slowly walking (stop and go) about 40 or 50 yards through thick woods. If it had run instead of walking, I probably would not have recovered it. I still find it odd that it didn't try to run.

For what it is worth, I am not trashing the bullets. I have quite a few TTSX rounds. If it had hit bone or a bigger animal, I think the expansion would have been fine. Also, a faster round would have probably helped (I have a lot of 25-06 loaded with TTSX bullets). The 308 that I was using had a 24" barrel and it was a 150 grain Barnes so I would guess the impact velocity was pretty high - probably 2700 fps at the 40 yard distance. I personally switched to Accubond 165 grains for deer and bear with that particular rifle. I am about to load a bunch of 308 with 110 and 130 grain TTSX for my BLR. Hopefully, I will get a chance to test them on a deer.

Edit: I just pulled up a couple pictures (cant post because I don't have a hosting account). It looks like the entry hole is somewhat bigger than the exit for some reason. Also, the entry went in a bit below the midline and right behind the front shoulder. It exited toward the back of the ribcage on the far side. It looks like the bullet would have damaged the top of the heart but I cannot specifically remember that.

I took paper patched and grease groove Sharps rifle bullets along with Woodleigh and Bitterroot Bonded Cores, the I didn't take either I was talking about was either of my heavy double rifles.

I’ve killed a few head of game with the 145 LRX out of my 7mm Mashburn and many, many more with Barnes bullets. But that particular bullet has worked extremely well from 50 to 440 yds. Those who say it won’t work passed 400 yards are up at night.

If you have used the 150 TTSX, how would you compare the performance? Happy Trails

TTSX that couldn't.

Could you give us a little history on this ?

Yeah, I would like some too. I suspect that is about what the one I killed the buck looked like.

That is a 270/130 factory Vor-Tx, shot into a cow elk at 60 yards.
Shot center punched the lungs, the bullet was recovered on opposite hide.
Cow ran a good 60 yards.

Thing about Barnes bullets is they buy different lots of copper to make their bullets. You cannot count on the metallurgy of the copper being consistent from lot to lot. Therefore different results as you can see. Good and bad.

Roll the dice.

I did and lost on multiple occasions.

That does make a lot of sense and why some have had good results others have had poor. I have had good luck with them other than some rifles don't shoot them all that well. I've only had one brand and make of bullet that was a complete failure on game. It is a very popular bullet and possibly I got a bad production run.

60 yards is a fairly standard death run for an elk hit through the shoulder and/or lungs. That bullet does look to be a bit underexpanded no doubt, but the end result isn't out of the ordinary, IME.

Yes, if you are using a Barnes bullet.

Use a Berger and it will go done now, observing my kills using Berger's.

Even a Partition and Ballistic Tip will perform better on lung shots than a Barnes.

Barnes bullets break bones no doubt but are not the greatest soft tissue bullet out there.

Not in my experience.
Bergers do often kill elk quickly if they make it to the lungs or if shoulders are avoided, no doubt...but accubombs, partitions, grand slams, and many other non-monos have given me 50-75 yard death runs on lung and shoulder shot elk, relatively often.

It's normally not a big deal for them to run that far before dying, but that has been my experience with non-monos, at normal velocities. YMMV, and that's fine. Use what works and gives confidence.

What does the frontal area of that bullet measure ?
I also find it odd that this bullet did not exit.
This was not a bullet failure because it did it’s purpose in fairly short order.
However I would like and expect more expansion and penetration at that yardage with that bullet ??

Although the bullet didn’t expand as well as expected , it still penetrated deep enough to do its job.

Unfortunately sometimes when non mono bullets fail they expand to much or to quickly and never drive deep enough to do there job .

Which one is the bigger failure ?
I wish each was better, but I like the dead animal.

I'm curious where you got this info from. I shoot TTSX when I need to anchor something right there and aim for a shoulder that is in line with the heart/lungs. I want to dive into you claim further. I'm not trying to call you out on B.S. I just want to make sure I don't have a false sense of security when I've just been lucky. If Barnes' Quality Control can't do better than this, I'd like to know.

Will