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

In my 308 they have never let a whitetail go very far. But one doe made it about 60 yards from the pond where I shot her. The 150 gr Blue meanie went through an Osage Orange (Hedge) sapling before striking the doe. Still she didn't go far. I was paranoid as I couldn't see her go down in an unpicked corn field. She wasn't far, maybe not even 60 yards. I think it was maybe 20 yards. But it was a 308 and not a magnum speed on a whitetail, not an elk. YMMV. I am convinced they are great. Be Well, Rustyzipper.

Up until this year the only Barnes I killed anything with was a blue 100gr in 25-06 on a 150lb buck deer. Died right there partly because I clipped the bottom of the spine on a quartering shot. I wrote in another thread about this year using a 7mm-08 Model 7 20" stainless with a 120gr TSX opened up with a 1/16" bit marked at 1/4" depth. First deer full grown buck had a hole bored thru both shoulder bones between scapula and elbow and a LOT of damage in between. Yesterday shot a yearling doe, maybe 75 lbs with broadside entry just into the shoulder muscle and exiting same place on opposite side. Entry wound in the rib cage was about 3". Still trying to figger that out. Exit wound was inch or so. Everything in between was scrambled. Appears a larger hollow point in the older TSX might work. Beginning to like them. Will either use the remaining 20 or so I have with the hollow point enlarged or just go with 120 TTSX next year. Powder load was 223 CFE 48gr. I can see where the 120gr 7mm might kill stuff bigger than deer.

This is typical in my experience with the TTSX and leads me to conclude they actually open very rapidly on contact with the animal. See my post above in which the entrance hole in the rib cage is significant larger, 2" - 3", than the exit hole, which is about 1". This pattern is typical after using the TTSX on at least 30+ animals in the last several years. The actual count could be much higher as all of the pigs killed tend not to stick in the memory.

Thoughts for the day;
Barnes TTSXs, like Porsche, there are no substitutes
Speed kills...

I suspect you are remembering me writing that Failsafes don't kill deer-sized game very quickly with heart/lung shots behind the shoulder. The bigger the game, however, the better they worked.

My wife and I used them for over a decade, starting in the early 1990s when they were first named Black Talons and Barnes X-Bullets usually did not shoot very accurately, and all together we took around a dozen species of big game in both North America and Africa with Fail Safes, ranging from whitetail, mule deer, and similar-sized African antelope, up through elk, nilgai, gemsbok, blue widlbeebeest, kudu to Alaskan moose and Cape buffalo. Plus, I went on several "industry" hunts where a lot of animals were taken, including one in Texas where 15 hunters took 30 nilgai (a bull and cow each) plus a bunch of feral pigs and even some javelina. The bullets included 140-grain .270s, 160 7mms, 165 and 180 .30s, 230 .338s and 300-grain .375s. Their only fault was a rare failure to expand. In fact can only remember one instance where that definitely happened.

Jorge,

Actually, I have yet to be able to tell any difference in field performance between Barnes TTSX's, Nosler E-Tips, Hornady GMXs and even the old Fail Safe. I have been able to document slight slight differences in penetration and expansion when they're fired into various kinds of test media, but as far as on-game performance they've all acted remarkably simillarly.

The older Barnes X , XLC and XBT, Failsafes all made me a believer in monos, but they also made me want to try and catch at least one shoulder, going in or out and across the top of the heart. Of course, high shoulder is the berries for me, it always works! But I too believe they all do better on tougher game. But, when it absolutely, positively has to a kill, I want a mono! Merry Christmas guys!

John, just "loving" on the TTSX haters. All the bullets you sighted are pretty much the same and yeah, I do prefer TTSXs, but not always. Deep down I'm a cup and core guy and (the horror!) old fashioned Silvertips

!!!!!

I've used the Barnes TXS & TTSX extensively and have never found a shared petal. I have no problem if petals shear but have no real desire for it.

I have used the GMX on one deer and fond the petals sheared on the entrance side and despite hitting the vertebrae the exit hole was very small.
Of course the buck went straight down. I don't know if this is normal for the GMX. The cartridge was a 300 win

What cartridge?

OPs hunt is coming up. Safe travels and have a good one. I would appreatiate an update upon return - what did you take, how did the hunt go etc. :-)

jwp,

We've found both TSX's and TTSX's that sheared petals--as well as the original X-Bullets. In fact a couple that lost all their petals. Have seen the same thing with Fail Safes. Have also found "lost" petals in animals with both bullets, sometimes at the entrance but sometimes around the exit.

That said, lost petals don't seem to affect how they kill, and may even enhance "killing power," though petals tend to be lost when hitting relatively heavy bone, which also affects killing power. Eileen killed a big cow elk a couple years ago with a 130 TTSX from the .308 Winchester, quartering to her at around 250 yards. The bullet broke the near leg just above the big shoulder joint, and the cow stumbled 20-25 yards--obviously done for--before falling. Found the bullet minus all 4 petals under the hide in the middle of the ribs on the other side--with a petal in the ribs maybe 2 inches away. (Also found a petal from a 300-grain Fail Safe at the edge of the fist-sized exit hole it left in a Cape buffalo.)

So far have not found any E-Tips that lost any petals, at least that I recall--though will check my records. Also no GMX's have lost any, but haven't used nearly as many of them as X's, Fail Safes and E-Tips.

But as noted above, I don't know how much it matters. In fact Randy Brooks told me years ago, while sitting around a campfire during a mule deer hunt, that the first X-Bullets tended to lose their petals, which he thought probably made them more effective. But then customers started bragging about 100% weight retention, and some even complained about lost petals, even though the animals they came from were really, most sincerely dead. But Randy was enough of a businessman to go with what customers wanted, so tweaked the bullets do they'd tend to retain their petals.

Nowadays, of course, the petals of LRX's are considerably "softer" so the bullets will expand more readily at lower velocities. So it's kind of gone full-circle!

Damn right I am, any speed demon cartridge needs them provided accuracy is there, that said, i know of no better soft at 2075 and 2163 fps in 500 and 577 Nitro doubles, I even use the 290gr TTMZ's in my inline 50 cal, one destructive sawmill cuttin' sombitch.

Even use
125gr in 38 Super at 1321 fps.
140gr in 357 mag revolver at 1450 fps
140gr in 40 S&W at 1250 fps.
185gr in 45 ACP at 1125 fps.

They're just damn good bullets.

gunner,

Would greatly appreciate your field results with the .500s and .577s!

The mule deer buck I shot this year at 160+ yards was hit a little farther back than I like, but still a mid body hit. Unlike every other deer or elk I have ever shot with a TTSX, he ran about 150 yards before piling up at the end of a blood trail spewing bits or innards that Stevie Wonder could have followed. Small entry and maybe 3/4 inch exit through a rib. That was a first of animals shot with a TTSX that did not drop in sight. Happy Trails

Yes. Emphatically.

LOL, have been to Africa twice and didn't take either.

I have shot two deer with the 570gr and 750gr TSX's, no test at all, completely wrecked the animals, that said, I went from mild to wild in my bullet testing media here at the farm, with hard packed glossy Wife mags stacked tight in a box loaded with random cow bones, the TSX's never failed to penetrate and expand from either double.

I used dry, and then wet, went high velocity and loaded down, they always worked, not knocking another bullet company, but, I used the 570gr Hornadys and Woodleighs in the 500 and 750gr Woodleighs in the 577, with the 570 Hornadys I saw a wrecked bullet, it had copper, lead and steel exposed, on it's slow vel test it didn't expand at all, the Woodleighs expanded some running slow, and shirt buttoned when ran high [2175fps 500 Nitro] into the bone and hard mags.

The big test came from the 570gr TSX's, I had machine shop Bud draw down a dozen to 505 inch, loaded them up to 2500+ fps in my Gibbs bolt rifle and slammed them into the hard box with bones, some of the petals were rounded off, but a definite X pattern was still visible, the drawn down Woodleighs were flattened much worse.

High to low, hard to soft nothing compared to the Barnes' in my doubles, a 750gr TSX was fired lengthways into a 55 gallon steel drum filled with water with a banded lid, the bullet pulled the threads on the small threaded filler lid, it came dancing back by me on the right from 25 yards out, blew the main lid, split the drum at the seam, had a very large dog knot knocked in the bottom of the drum, nearly made it out, the displacement pressure has to be seen to be believed, I can imagine similar on the insides of a large animal.

I have massive faith in the 50 and 577 cal TSX's, even running at or just over 2000 fps.

Yup.....no question about it.....three elk with three bullets at roughly 200 yards each.....all DRT

It also worked wonders for mule deer.....

Barnes are my go to bulllets for all big game. Love them.