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Hello Everyone

Recently I went through all of my very good supply of bullets. I found five boxes of Winchester Fail Safe 140gr .270 bullets. I had totally forgotten about them. I purchased them for a African hunt in September of 2003. However, I used Barnes 140 TSX instead. What is everyone's experience such as expansion, problems with the moly coating, etc., etc. I may hunt on a military base where my older son is is stationed for elk. All experiences are appreciated. The molly complaints bothered me twenty one years ago.

Eileen and I used Fail Safes a lot before Barnes solved all the early problems of the X-Bullet with the introduction of the TSX in 2004. Between the two of us, we used the 140-grain in the .270 Winchester, the 165 in the .30-06, 230 in the .338 Winchester Magnum, and the 300 in the .375 H&H. The game ranged from deer, elk and moose in North America to a variety of plains game and one Cape buffalo in three African countries.

In all instances it worked very much like the TSX later did on the same variety of game. Accuracy was also similar in most instances. The only "problem," if you can call it that, was the build-up of moly in the bore, which caused some weird stuff when we used non-moly ammo in the same rifles without thoroughly cleaning them first. Both group size and point-of-impact were affected.

Since there was no real reason to use Fail Safes on, say, pronghorns I eventually decided to remove as much moly as possible from the Fail Safe bullets. I used a then-common product designed to remove moly from bores offered by one company (can't remember the name). It removed most of the moly--yet the Fail Safes still grouped well and didn't copper-foul bores, and "standard" bullets shot well in the same rifles while using the different bullets.

Ross Seyfried found this interesting, since he'd encountered the same problem. (We talked about it some during a black bear hunt we--and several other "gun" writers--did on Vancouver Island with Jim Shockey's company. Ross did some more experimenting and found a more common solvent also worked to remove most of the moly. It might have been acetone, but am not certain, since we talked about it in person or over the phone over 20 years ago.

I have had success removing moly using walnut media in a vibratory tumbler. Used that method on a box of 7mm Failsafes. Did need to handtwist a small drill bit to remove media that got into the hollowpoints.

Many years ago I was using the .270 with the 140 GR failsafe bullets. Had two elk, both cows under 100 yards, got full penetration. Always killed the elk I shot with a single shot. Killed around 10 total elk with that combo.

Used a lot of them back in the day, from 375 down to those 270-140s. All of mine had WW’s Lubalox coating which did not cause the problems that moly did. I still have good supply of them and intend to hunt with them again at some point. Never had a problem with accuracy or expansion on game, they act much like the TTSX for penetration and expansion.

Yep, the later Fail Safes with Lubalox worked fine....

The early ones did too, and were Lubalox coated. Later the ones sold under the C/T label had moly coating.

The Failsafes I saw used on elk worked great. Excellent penetration, good expansion. I think somewhere I have an old photo of one recovered from a client’s big New Mexico bull.

Too bad they’re not available anymore, suspect they were very expensive to manufacture.

Which is exactly why they disappeared after Barnes introduced the TSX....

Never used them but seem to remember an article where they shot a few Australian buffalo with the 270wsm and that bullet….they killed quite well according to the article.

One of the experiences I had with them was a King Ranch nilgai hunt in Texas, where 15 hunters took both a bull and a cow nilgai. Nilgai are elk-sized, though with thicker hide, and had the repuation of being very hard to kill. A lot of ammo/rifle companies were throwing "gun writer" hunts for nilgai back then--and some Texas outfitters were recommending nothing less than a .300/.338/.375 for them.

When we showed up with .270 WSMs and 140-grain Fail Safe factory ammo, both the outfitter and the guides predicted disaster. Apparently ".270" was a nasty term to them, but by the end of the hunt (and the end of 30 nilgai) they were saying the .270 WSM was one of the best nilgai rounds ever.

Of course, the "difference" was in the bullet--along with some people who could shoot. Both of which are often the major factors in so-called killing power....

I remember that article. It was written by Wayne Van Zwoll, if memory serves

I tried them in several calibers and cartridges but mostly on smaller animals like Fallow deer, feral billie goats and pigs in Oz and Pronghorn in the US.

They worked fine and performed similarly to Barnes X bullets as others have noted. Complex in bullet design, it's no wonder they were not financially viable to produce when competing against the X bullet.

I used the 180’s in my 300H&H. They were great. No deer ever walked away from one. I also never caught one. I have exactly 4 loaded rounds left.
That is 4 more dead deer.
I put a WTB in the classifieds a while back hoping to get lucky. Never got a reply.

I used one of the early batches of 30 cal 180's on a cow elk in a 300 WSM. I picked her out of a group traversing a steep hillside and shot her at 350 yards. She didn't react, took a few steps forward again and stopped so I gave her another. Again, no reaction. She continued walking forward about 20 yards and then suddenly fell over. The shots were 6" apart and both through the lungs, exiting the offside. The autopsy revealed absolutely no expansion, just pencil holes in, through, and out. Otherwise, I did use the 165 on an antelope from a 30-06 and it worked as advertised.

I used the Fail Safe Bullets and then cleaned the bore of my 26" inch .270 with JB Bore Cleaner. It seemed to work as I have shot one half inch groups with Hornady AND Barnes 140gr bullets using Norma brass. However, using Winchester brass the groups opened to 3/4 inch groups on a good day. I'll use some acetone to get the moly off my supply of 250 bullets. You guys killed a cape buffalo with the Fail Safe? Nice. Thanks for replying with this valuable experience.

Thanks John. Your post is 100 per cent identical to some stuff I've read about these BIG Indian transplants. I remember Finn Aagaard telling of the humble, low powered .308 Win. successfully taking a big bill, one shot. Shot placement!

Amen from the back row!!!

I have 3 bullets I recovered from front on, full length raking shots, when culling brumbies. Each bullet was under the skin visible at the back of the rump making them an easy recovery. The were 160gn Failsafe bullets loaded just under 2750fps using 46gn of Rel 15 in my old John Rigby .275.

Back in the day, I used to load hunting ammo for two friends: "Roy" and "Ralph". Ralph had just bought a new 300-378 Wby Mag, with a muzzle brake, and he and Roy were going on a New Mexico elk hunt. He brought me four boxes of the, then new, .308", 180gr Fail Safes, along with his .300-378 Wby to work up loads with. Roy was going to be using a .300 Win Mag, so I worked up loads for that one too. Roy was an excellent shot, Ralph, not so much. I had to wear earplugs plus 32 db NRR muffs when I fired that Wby and it still rang my chimes.

In NM, Roy got a nice 6x6 bull, walking across a "park", but headed towards a fence, on the other side of which was no hunting. His first shot was a killer, but the guide told him to keep shooting until the bull was down because he didn't want it to make it to the fence. Roy shot twice more and the bull collapsed. First two shots were raking from about right rear rib, forward and exiting, one from front of left shoulder, other through left shoulder breaking bones on the way. Third was Texas heart shot, and that Fail Safe was recovered.

Ralph hit his bull several times (don't remember how many times), wounding it. Guide had to finish it off. Ralph complained that the Fail Safe's didn't expand, but penciled through. I don't know. None were recovered. Roy shared with me that the exit wounds on Ralph's bull really were not as large as the ones on his, and also that at Ralph's first shot, the guide's eardrums were nearly shredded. Guide said don't bring him back with that rifle.