Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Your 1st Experience with an X Bullet

Mine was pretty pathetic, I picked up a box on a whim at a gas station in Eastern Montana. I thought. well here's a new sexy looking bullet. I'll give these things a try. I can't even remember what brand the ammo was, but it was definitely a 130 grain Barnes X for my 270 Winchester now this is like 1984-1985.

I tried them out at the local range and I've never had a bullet scattered like these things, got shotgun patterns....3 shots into 3 inches then 3 shots into 4 inches & 3 shots into 5 inches.

Obviously I gave up and went back to my regular reloaded ammo & my M-77 went right back down to 1 MOA. Forgot about them till the TTSX came out & hunting buddy wanted them in his 270 Weatherby, his ULW Mark 5 shots them like a house on fire and kills everything with 1 shot, he calls the load his "death ray" running Reloder 23 for him, that's a great powder by the way very easy to get an accurate load with 23.


You?


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It was 1992 or ‘93. They were suggested to me by the guy that built my AI. He had done a bunch of bullet testing with Randy Brooks of Barnes.

I developed a load, and had an opportunity to use it the following fall on an elk rapidly departing the area @ about 80 yards. The young bull only offered an @$$ shot, which I took. The bullet entered just left of the “target spot”, shattered the pelves, continued on through the diaphragm, through the left lung, exited in the left foreleg “pit”, reentered the upper leg missing the leg bone, and stopped beneath the hide on opposite side. The path was end to end……giving a total of 3 hide penetrations, elk ham (large muscle) and pelvis, through the intestines (wet grass and all), continuing through the lung, and the large upper leg muscle.

The bullet lost one petal, retaining 95% of it’s original weight. The bullet path was essentially a straight line through the elk.This was the bullet performance that I was wanting……been using Barnes bullets ever since. As they improved their technology, I’d followed along! No disappointments thus far!

The original X Bullets were very sensitive to a bore of less than perfect condition and could not be shot behind typical cup and core bullets without thoroughly cleaning the bore of all fouling. I had a match grade barrel on my rifle, which I believe contributed to good groups and minimal (near zero) fouling!

This past summer, I worked up a load with 270 grain LRX’s in my AI. Stopped just a few fps short of 3100 mv, with 3 shot groups running around 1/2” ….with a couple just under 1/2”! memtb

I can't recall if it was in the latter part of the 80s or maybe early 90s, but I tried them in a custom XP in .250 Savage. As long as I paid attention to copper fouling in the bore, they shot great and provided nice expansion in both test medium and game.

When my original supply ran out, I bought more -- but the results were not the same. They failed to expand on game and, other than the rifling, were almost pristine when taken out of test medium, much unlike the earlier batch. I contacted Barnes, and they asked me to send in the rest of the bullets and to pull all that I had loaded (well over 100). The acknowledged a metallurgy issue with certain lots and told me they'd send bullets to replace these. After checking with them three or four times over the next year or so, I quit calling -- and to this day -- several decades later -- they never sent those replacements LOL.

Much has improved since then.

I use generally use cartridges of moderate capacities, so Barnes bullets aren't often the best choice. But the 6.5mm 115 grain and the .30 cal 110 and 120 grain in the Tac-TX line are the exceptions, and I've used those with incredible results. The 95 grain TTSX designed for the SPC is also a winner for lower-velocity rounds.

I wish they'd offer a 7mm 120 grainer with similar expansion capabilities for the likes of the 7-30 Waters, etc.

I loaded 180's in my 30-06 and proceeded to kill stuff. Got a 300RUM in the mid 90's and killed more stuff. Got a 375H&H in the early 2000's and ditto. Switched to TSX then TTSX as they became available. When I saw folks posting about problems on the internet I was amazed.

Your memory is a little faulty, but then so are the memories of some other veterans of the Campfire. The Barnes X was introduced in 1989, which is when I first tried some. (You can look the year up in several places, including the Barnes website.)

Mine were some 180-grain .30s sent to me by Dave Petzal, the managing editor of Field & Stream, which I was working for back then, among other writing jobs. I tried them in the first Ultra Light Arms rifle I also got to test, a Model 28 .300 Winchester Magnum, and while most bullets grouped well under an inch in that ULA, the Barnes Xs weren't nearly as consistent. (In fact that rifle put nine rounds--three 3-shot groups with different bullet weights and makes--into .9 inch at 100 yards, something that's pretty common with ULA/NULAs.)

PMC Eldorado factory 270 Weatherby mag. 130 gr X Copper fouled my barrel by 12 shots so bad the target looked like a 15 yard buckshot pattern. Next 85 gr blue coated xlc in 240 Weatherby mag same chit at that pt I would have done best to beat that Brooks turd into the ground. Fug 'em. One of these days I reckon I'll get stupid and try the ttsx. Mb

I can’t suggest that it’s as important as it appeared to be at one time…..but, try cleaning the bore to “squeaky clean” with a good cooper solvent prior to trying the Barnes. Or for that matter……any mono!

I really think that you’ll be pleased with the new ones! memtb

No personnal experience with the early versions, but a good friend of mine Ed Stevenson guided Randy on ,which might have been one of the first usage of them in 375, as I recall. Ed put Randy on a good size brown bear in Gravina Bay, Alaska. They were in an inflatable just off shore , the bear was cruising the beach. Randy hammered the bear good but he didn’t go down so Randy hammered him again , and again and again , the bear was well hit but just didn’t want to expire, after finally figuring out where his tormentation was coming from I guess he (the bear) came in the water after them, but thankfully expired. I guess when the smoke cleared, 8 or 10 rounds later, Ed looked at Randy and said something to the affect back to the drawing board huh Randy. Guess the bullets were just to hard and didn’t expand well. Next time Randy and Connie got together with Ed they had it pretty much solved. The shooting industry owes Randy and Connie a debt of gratitude.

I had the opportunity to spend some time with Randy and Connie at the shop, saw their bears “up close and personal”. Some beautiful bears! memtb

Yep, they kept after it and worked out the problems.

And since then several other companies have built "monolithic" bullets (or at least semi-monos) on the basic principles learned from the development of X-Bullets....

Way back in the day,when I first started collecting Sako Rifles, I bought a rifle chambered for the 338-378 KT.





IIRC it was a Sako l61R.



It came with 50 loaded rounds of the Barnes 338 XLC bullets.

ya!

GWB

No experience with the XLCs, but I used 210 gr XBT bullets in my .338 Win mag on a cow elk hunt in Colorado in 1996. They shot 1 inch at 100 yards, and I killed my first elk at about 75 yards with a shot through the shoulders and heart. The heavy shoulder bones were not hit, and I didn't know that I had an exit wound until a thin drop of blood began to ooze from the far shoulder during field dressing. I could barely poke my finger into the exit wound. There was no blood trail, but she went head over heels after about a 50 yard dash. She was about 2 miles and several hundred feet lower elevation from the truck. This Missouri boy earned his first elk on the pack out on that day.

1992 Zambia.

9.3 250X ahead of H414

Cape Buffalo dropped dead within 4 steps. Never looked back.

Sometime in the ‘90’s, original Xbullet in my accurate 77 tanger 7mmRM. Extremely poor accuracy. Struggled trying to get them to shoot well. Did kill some deer with them but always close shots, probably the longest was about 100 yards. Did like terminal performance, straight through from any angle, no explosive meat damage. Gave up on them for accuracy though. Next got some .257 100 grain TSX for my .25-06 AI. They were accurate enough. Killed deer near and far and one caribou at about 400 yards.

Got some 130 .308 original X bullets I couldn’t get to shoot in anything.

Doesn't surprise me, those years of hunting mulies & pronghorn around Glasgow are kind of a blur. Did remember it was PMC brand ammo, still have the leftover 11 rounds here somewhere.

5-6 MOA. I've only once had them shoot under about 2 to 2-1/2 MOA. That was with an old stainless / boat-paddle Ruger 77 Mk II in .338 win mag and the bullet was the original gummy 210 grain X .. boat tail I think. It fouled like a mother f**ker. At first I thought I had to clean it every shot, turned out all I had to do was smack the stock against something hard between shots .. in other words, it wasn't cleaning the bore, it was just thumping it hard enough to unstick the bond between barrel and stock .. that sumbitch would shoot in the .3s for 3 shots. I bought a new stock for it which helped a ton but eventually I screwed up by cleaning too aggressively. I didn't know squat about Sweets 7.62 back then. I kept cleaning as long as goop kept coming out using Shooter's Choice to neutralize every 10 minutes. I didn't notice the goop turned from blue to black and before long the rifling had very rounded edges. Shoot.

That was back .. 1995-1998, something like that. I've never gotten acceptable accuracy out of Barnes bullets since. Not in nearly 100 rifles. I'll stick with partitions thank ye ver' much.

Not a gun writer, but my experience was near the same. Shilen DGA, 338WM, would shoot nice little clover leafs with the Barnes originals, Nosler Partitions, It REALLY loved the Barnes 300gr RN originals.... First try with the Barnes X, it wouldn't keep them all on a 9" plate.... worked with about a half a box, gave up, never went back.....

The general, original theory about why the original X-Bullets didn't always group well was that since rifle bores vary slightly in diameter the X's had to match the bore-size well. Otherwise they'd have to be "squeezed down" too much--or be too "loose" to group well.

Which is why the grooved shank of TSX's eventually solved the problem, since it allowed the bullets to work well in bores of slightly varying dimensions.

Which is why other monolithic bullets generally have circumferential grooves--even if only one.

I shot a cow elk in Colorado during the early 90's.

Used a 140gr X out of my 270. Was a struggle getting them to shoot. Finally found a load and went hunting.

Elk was moving through the trees at about 60 yards. Took a shot and there was no reaction from the elk. Herd continued downslope and when following the tracks in the fresh snow found zero blood until the elk was spotted all piled up. Right through the ribs.

Was a little unnerving, but all is well that ends well. I attributed it to elk being elk, but years later wondered if I did not get expected expansion. No was of knowing now, as I do not remember the butchering process as it was getting late in the day and we a very long way back to camp.

Finished the remaining shells and swore off X bullets. Tried XLC's and swore them off. Then one of the Superior ammunition guys talked me into trying TSX's at the range one day. Have not looked back.

I bought some for my 270,7mm Mauser and my 35 Whelen.

Read what was printed at the time and had no problem getting them to group.