Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Barnes TTSX .308 130 gr

Very useful info Mule Deer. How much would a cow like that weigh?

Here is the other end of the spectrum on a very small pig, about 30 pounds, my wife shot this evening. The entry was low and behind the front leg classic heart shot at 143 yards. Here is the exit with a 6” blade for scale. The 130 TTSX literally blew the heart out the exit hole. Needless to say, he dropped where he stood.

The TTSX opens fast and very reliably, which was not always my experience with the TSX even when hitting shoulders.

So from big to little, the 130 TTSX works nicely.

That cow weighed around 475 on the hoof, from calculations we made after weighing the parts.

Generally, if an expanding bullet opens as all, it expands by the time it penetrates its length, which with most is 1.5 inches or less. My experience with TTSX's is they do open more violently than TSXs, and those we've recovered have opened a little wider, or even lost some petals.

The one that killed the elk lost ALL its petals, so "only" retained 62% of its weight. But it killed very quickly. Personally, I have never found much correlation between higher weight or petal retention of Barnes X-Bullets and how well they killed, though a lot of hunters seem to consider both both important. (Same deal with other monolithics.) Some of the fastest kills I've seen with various X-Bullets involved bullets that lost most or all their petals, probably because they hit bone, which fragmented and also caused some damage.

Using the Barnes .308" 130gr TTSX with Ramshot TAC in a Savage 16. Great on paper, we'll see how it works in the woods this fall. Been using Barnes since they came out, with great results, from coyote to moose.

Great pics (and video) and good hunting, all!

Will be looking to use the 130 gr TTSX here this fall as well, in 308 for sure and possibly 30-06, depending. IMR 3031 in both cases.

Kentac,
somehow I missed the photos of your daughter looking on my phone. Congratulations to her. Nice looking animals.

And John congrats to Ms. Mule Deer on a beast. That is huge. Also, tell her I put her cookbook to work and enjoy the results.

Good luck to everyone this season.

Thank you jeffbird!

Thanks for all the Good info here Gents. It has been a fun read.

I just picked up two boxes of these .30 cal 130g TTSX slugs to use in creating a good lower recoil deer /hog load for my 16 year old nephew's Ruger American in .308.

I have a question n for all you reloading the Barnes bullets- what OAL are you guys loading them and do you put any crimp on them?

I have read that Barnes recommends using the pressure relief grooves as crimping grooves. Based on the OAL lengths listed in the Barnes data it looks like they are seating and then crimping in the forward most groove for and OAL length just over 2.7" . I have also read about guys getting better accuracy by seating them further out to the second groove which results in just over 2.8" long loads but still short enough of most magazines.

Still a third camp crimps ON the first driving band for an length between those two extremes. I have a full length Lee deluxe Four die set so I can do either the roll crimp or the factory crimp on my cases.

Barnes seems to think the best combination of accuracy and velocity lies in seating their bullets TTSX relatively deep.

What seating depths /crimps are you guys using??

Try 3 each at .030, .050 and .070 off of the lands.

Pick which shoots best or if all 3 shoot the same, as was the case when I tried them once, just pick one length and go hunt.

No need to crimp.

I am a factory ammo guy, as I do not currently handload. I wish Barnes offered their VOR-TX factory ammo in 130 gr. .30-06. I do not currently own a .308. I use 150 gr. TTSX in my .30-06, and it has performed admirably, but would love to give the 130 gr. TTSX a try. Oh, well. Maybe that is an excuse to buy a .308.

Have some loaded up, time to get to the range. Pretty much an all new to me set up here. New to me Savage 16 and new to me Leupold VX-3i 2.5-8x36. So not only trying out a new load, but sighting in a new rig too...

Dean,

dealing with a new rifle, new scope, and load workup is a lot of variables that may take some time to sort out.

fwiw - I start any load workup 0.010” off the lands and that is where most stay.

Buy some more of that powder if it is still there.

Let us know how it goes.

Hang in there and good luck.

Jeff

For the first time ever, recovered a .308 130 TTSX from a management deer yesterday. The only other Barnes I have recovered was an 80 grain TTSX from a .243 on a large hog.

The deer was 186 pounds live weight, 143 yards, slightly angled facing me. Entry forward point of nearside shoulder, bullet came to rest under the hide forward of offside rear leg. Dropped where he stood.

The terminal performance of the TTSX is very consistent, by far my favorite bullet and they are very accurate too.

That sounds near about perfect.

If we shoot bullets in heaven, they'll be ttsx's.

Years ago I had a 130 gr Triple Shock take almost exactly the same route in reverse. It was on a buck about the same size trotting away at about 25-30 yards. The bullet entered just forward of the hindquarter and exited after breaking the offside shoulder. He only went another 10 yards or so.

Pushing the 80 gr TTSX like you're doing is OK. Pushing it at 3,600 fps out of a 240 Wby, maybe not so good. I got a huge blast effect on the chest wall of a doe, not so much internal damage. She ran over a hundred yards, had to find her in the woods at night, which wasn't a lot of fun.

That gun loves the NPT. 100 gr. NPT is my go to bullet in the .240, shoots half MOA at 400 yds. To me, they either love the Partitions or not.

I like 130's in the .308. For WT's and hogs, they're hard to beat. For that application, you don't need 180's, etc, IMO. And 3,100, 3,200 fps hits'em like a magnum.

DF

Sight in after load development is done. As long as POA/POI are close leave the scope be.

Too much jacking around and you may be scratching your head.

Yeah, find your group, then fine tune POI.

DF

I use TSX 150's in my Ruger.303 with a stiff load of either 4895 or Varget, only because that is the only bullet Barnes makes for it..
I have not recovered one yet and have killed "quite a few" white tails with them, from 50 too 372 yards, DRT's all of them.
They are stupid accurate .
This was the heart shot last year, 372 lasered yards.

Cat

Looks like those Barnes bullets are continuing to put animals in the dirt.