Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Typical Barnes TTSX Performance

This is typical for the small number of Barnes TTSX I have been able to find. Found this just under the hide on the offside of a bull nilgai I shot this past Thursday. One shot, bull ran ~100 yards and fell over, dead. The bullet did not pass thru but worked just fine. Entrance was ~1/3 up from the bottom of the left front leg with slight angle to the rear. 300 Win Mag.

Should be a litany of posters along pretty soon to tell you how their Barnes didnt open up...just 'penciled on through...' and the animal got away.

Personally I've only ever recovered 3 Barnes TTSX ( out of 60+ kills with them) and they all looked like your pic. I'm a BIG believer in them, particularly if the rank and file tell you your gun isn't big enough for your quarry . ( i.e. you shouldn't hunt big mule deer bucks with a .243...) They are a game changer.

Thanks for posting. I've read the naysayers, but it seems the more recent TTSX have worked fine. I plan to use it in a .300 Win. Mag. myself.

They can say what they want. Most of the pencil thru results have, as Paul Harvey used to say, "the rest of the story" that we will never hear. I haven't used much of anything else in my hunting rifles except for some 140 gr A-Frames in a pre-64 270. I went back and edited my original post to list the caliber. The Barnes was 180 grain.

I have shot prolly over a hundred critters with them and have never had one fail that I can tell.

I don't even know what a Nilgai is...but I know a good mushroom when I see one. So what do you estimate the impact velocity as?

Looks pretty darned good.

An Antelope, about the size of a Elk,

When those Barnes work, they make their own marketing media, Classic pic.

Regardless of the scoffers and naysayers chorus, the proof of their effectiveness resides in my freezer. Nuff said.

Shot a cow Elk with a 140 TTSX that left the muzzle close to 3350 fps from my 7 Wby. Entered the body front right chest, angled thru the abdomen, exited at the left rear ham, entered the left rear ham & then exited the body. The cow wobbled for about ten yards & fell over like a kid learning to ride his first bicycle. I was impressed.

A couple bits of added information to respond to questions and statements. My estimated impact velocity was between 2,700-2,800 fps. Kind of a broad window but I estimated distance from myself to the animal at impact. This is also based on the fact that I validated the factory ammo over my chronograph. From my rifle the ammo posted a velocity of 2,951 fps. Barnes lists this ammo at 2,960 fps. Kind of surprising as to actual velocity vs. published velocity. This was also factory ammo that was acquired ~7 years ago so not the latest version of factory ammo.

Cool. Thanks for posting that. I've only recovered Barnes bullets from gel blocks & water jugs. The little 100 grainers from my 25-06 have done a fine job on mule deer.

Guy

I used the .338 225g TTSX on an antelope doe a few years ago. By the look of her ribcage, I could tell it surely opened up on such a small animal. She was 250 yards and the muzzle velocity was 2800 fps. Impact velocity would be about 2230 fps

Nice! Looks about perfect to me. Congrats!

I started using Barnes TSX bullets in 2005 when I built my.375 RUM for an African Cape Buffalo hunt. And since 2010 when I built my .300 Weatherby, I've only hunted with Barnes TSX and TTSX bullets with it.

I've taken at least 40 big game animals with those rifles and Barnes TSX and TTSX bullets, but only recovered 8 of those bullets. Some bullets completely passed through the animals, but there were .30 or .375 caliber entrance holes and 3/4" to 1" exit holes. I usually don't spend a lot of effort to find the bullets in the animals.

All of my recovered TSX and TTSX bullets look just like the bullet that the OP posted. Looking at my "pile" of recovered TSX and TTSX bullets, I can't tell which are TSX and which are TTSX.

Here's 3 recovered 168 gr TTSX bullets from critters shot with my .300 Wby.

My .300 Win Mag handload for my Ruger is a 180 TTSX at 2975. I believe I have only recovered one that I dug out of a big bodied bull elk. Looks a lot like the one in your pic and weighed right at 180 grains.

If I was just interested in hunting and not a gun slut I could sell all my other large centerfires and happily hunt anything I plan to with a TTSX in a .300 Win Mag.

The only TTSX I’ve managed to catch was this 80 gr. bullet fired out of a .243 at approximately 100 yards into the axis deer pictured. He was broadside but taking off at the moment of trigger pull resulting in a liver shot. He went about 60 yards and piled up in the middle of the largest cactus patch anywhere nearby. The bullet was bulging the hide out on the opposite side for easy recovery during cleaning.

Every other TTSX I’ve witnessed on deer exited - even on angles requiring more penetration and entering at lower velocities due to longer ranges.

It’s the only bullet we use for hunting critters we want to recover in .223 and .243.

They have worked very well for me.

I’ve killed many a damn pig with them. Dead pigs tell no lies!!!

I forgot to list the final weight which was unreal. The bullet weight 178.7 gr. Unreal for the penetration and stress that the bullet encountered.