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Have a feeling it's been asked but my Google-fu sucks.

Any real difference in the various mono bullet choices?

Barnes is always mentioned when wanting to go the mono route but how different are they from the E Tip or GMX bullets?

All basically the same when it comes to terminal performance?

While I have a bit more experience with Barnes, it seems there is little to no difference between the three brands.

Having said that, it must be noted that my overall experience with Monos is not so great that one should give it too much credibility.....three elk and seven mule deer isn't exactly a great amount of evidence.....but so far I can honestly say that I'll shoot the ones that deliver the greatest accuracy regardless of brand.

I’ve used only the Barnes, but they are accurate and kill deer and pigs dead.

I have used Barnes and GMX in the field with no difference in terminal performance that I could see.

Where I see the difference is at the range, Barnes as a whole always seem to shoot better.

One of my processes for developing loads is to load Barnes and GMX's. Shoot the series for each and not only look at individual loads but the average of all the groups for the series. I have yet to have a GMX come out with the lowest aggregrate group size.

Just did that with two 338-06 rifles and the 185gr TTSX and GMX's with both Varget and TAC powder. TTSX out shot the GMX. The 210gr TTSX grouped better than than both the 185's. So I loaded up some 210's last night to take to Texas next week, and will take that same load to AK in June for black bear.

Have had the same results with a 300 H&H and 180gr bullets, with the TTSX shooting tighter groups..

The majority of my 270's shoot the 130gr Barnes T or TTSX better than the same weight GMX. I have one rifle that prefers the 130gr GMX.

I've used all three major brands of monos on big game, and also shot them into test media. While there can be small difference seen in media tests, I have yet to be able to tell any difference on game. All three open into four "petals," and usually retain all four, though sometimes lose anywhere from one to four petals, particularly if they hit bone.

The exception would be the LRX (Long Range X-Bullet) which has the petals annealed to enable the bullets to open up at lower velocities. This sometimes results in losing petals at closer ranges.

But also have never been able to tell much (if any) difference how various monos kill game based on how many petals they lose or retain. In fact, some other monos (such as the Cutting Edge Raptor) are designed to consistently lose their petals, which supposedly results in more damage around the primary wound channel. But there are many variables in both animal reaction and bullet placement.

The other factor is that (as noted above) TSXs, E-Tips and GMXs all tend to lose petals when they hit heavy bone. This often results in more damage, despite the petal loss, from bone fragments. A good example would be a big cow elk my wife killed a couple years ago with a 130-grain TTSX from a .308 Winchester. The cow was quartering toward us at around 250 yards, and the bullet landed just above the big joint of the left shoulder. The elk staggered 20-25 yards and fell over, obviously done for from the moment the bullet landed. We found the bullet, minus all four petals, under the hide over the right ribs, only retaining around 60% of its weight, due to the loss of all its petals.

Saw the same sort of thing several times with the discontinued Fail Safe bullet, which also opened into four petals. Even if all the petals broke off, the animal died quickly--usually quicker than if the bullet didn't hit major bone.

Thanks all. Sitting on 100 TTSXs and had someone recommend the GMX to me. Realized I always only seem to hear about the Barnes offerings.


ETA - LRX - what's the min impact velocity for those? Everyone tells me 1800-2k for the TTSX.

In my desk drawer I have three recovered monos:
-300gr TSX (Cape buffalo)
-225gr E-Tip (bull elk)
-180gr GMX (zebra, I think)
Other than the TSX missing a petal, the bullets are virtually identical as was their terminal performance. I would say use what shoots best in your rifle.

Barnes has been in the mono game a lot longer than the others if that matters to you. They have had more time to work out the bugs in my opinion and really laid the ground work for the others.

Yes, Barnes started the present trend in the late 1980s, and I have used them since then, including coping with the difficulties of the early models. In my experience they started really getting the problems solved about a decade later, but the introduction of the TSX in 2004 really got Barnes over the hump.

But Barnes did not invent monolithic bullets. Others had experimented with them long before, as well as nearly monolithic bullets, such as the now defunct North Fork, which only had a tiny bit of lead in the tip. And other companies came at it from a different direction.

Nosler brought out the E-Tip in 2007, essentially as a coreless Ballistic Tip since they'd experimented considerably with various core/jacket ratios already. The E-Tips worked well from the beginning (I know this due to extensively testing E-Tips on big game before they were offered to customers) but a small percentage of rifles didn't shoot them well, perhaps because of "disagreements" between bore diameter and the solid shank.

But not as many people back then were willing to experiment with seating depth--which eventually proved to be a major potential factor with not just Barnes bullets but all monos. I got 130 E-Tips to shoot VERY well in a .270 Weatherby by seating them a LOT deeper than 130 Ballistic tips.

GMX's came out a little later, and from my experience worked well from the beginning--probably due to observing what had happened with other monos, and other solid-shank bullets.

Any insights on another mono-bullet: Lapua Naturalis?

Mule Deer, as a note on seating depths, in both my .223 with 50 gr TTSX and 7mm-08 with 120 TTSX I found that a surprisingly short oal provided the best accuracy.




P

That definitely can happen--but also often doesn't, even with lead-cored bullets.

Which is why it often helps to seat ANY bullet farther from the lands if a they don't shoot well close to the lands.

I’ve been happy enough with the performance of Barnes TTSX and TSX in various cartridges to not spend the effort and money experimenting with the other mono bullets. I think I’m going to work up 145 LRX loads for my 7x57 for potentially better expansion at lower velocities. Happy Trails

I read a Jack O'Connor article from an older Gun Digest. In his article he mentioned Fred Barnes and his bullets.

He stated that Fred Barnes started making copper bullets in the early 1940's when lead became unavailable because of
the war effort.

Barnes came up with the idea of copper bullets, maybe not original even then, but he did it. Well before Randy Brooks claim to have come up with the idea.

O'Connor did not have a favorable impression of them. They were crudely made to him.

Terminal performance seems similar in my limited experience of the non Barnes bullets and lots with the Barnes. One big difference is in pressure generated.
Driving band or relief groove bullets like the Barnes have lower pressure than even some cup and core bullets. Smooth copper = more pressure. smooth Cupro Nickle (Gilding Metal) = even more pressure but no hard and fast rule if it is higher than the smooth copper always. It depends on diameter and bearing surface.

Between the three, loads can vary as much as three grains with two grains being fairly typical when multiple bullets were pressure tested individually. Nosler doesn't make this distinction for the monos but in my limited experience they should.

Fred Barnes worked with PO Ackley on a controlled expansion bullet, it was mostly copper with a hollow point punched in the nose and then a small lead core was swagged in. Crude tools and varable materials hurt the accuracy. But those that were believers swore by them. One shooter thought so highly of them he was going to use these bullets in a 220 Swift on man eating tigers in India? These bullets were similar to the original Trophy Bonded Bear Claws.

I have tried Barnes, Nosler and Hornady monos. The Barnes from the TSX and newer have always been really easy to get to shoot with the exception of the MRX, which were a little bitchy. The Nosler E Tip have always been tough to get to shoot. The Hornady GMX are somewhere in between.
I should mention that the Etips I have tried were the older ones without the relief groove. I just picked up some 6.5 120 E Tips.with the relief groove and plan to give them a try this week.

BWalker,

The biggie I've found with E-Tips is seating depth, whether the original or grooved version--which is what I've also experience with the other monos. In general I have found E-Tips easy to get to shoot well by fiddling with depth. Early on one rifle (a .308 Winchester of all things) shot one batch well, but not a second batch. Since then have not had any difficulty that I can recall. My .257 Weatherby shoots the 100 E-Tips into an inch at 200 yards--usually less.

Tejano,

Nosler does acknowledge the difference in pressure with E-Tips. In their original data, they advised using the "middle" load as maximum, but in their latest manual emphasize always starting with the "starting" load, because so many handloaders don't.

Also, cupro-nickel is NOT gilding metal. Cupro-nickel is about 75% copper and 25% nickel, and was used for bullet jackets a century ago. It fouled like crazy, and was extremely difficult to remove. The British eventually found that filling a barrel with an ammonia solution, then letting it soak, would get it out--which Townsend Whelen started using, and reporting in America. But I don't know of any bullet company that has used cupro-nickel for bullet jackets for a long, long time.

Gilding metal is mild brass, generally either 95% copper and 5% tin, or 90-10.

Pressure, of course, also varies with seating depth. I have used E-Tips with Nosler's maximum loads for that bullet weight with no problem, when seating them farther from the lands.

Thanks, John. Useful, as always.

I have also used most of the major monolithic bullets and concur with John that they are more similar than not.