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

I didn't get on the Barnes band wagon until the TSX came out because I'd read about the pressure and copper fouling with the early X bullets. I thought that my deer deserved to be shot with a premium bullet, but I had my own reservations about the all copper and small diameter cavity up front. A 140 TSX from my 7mm-08 broke the neck on the first deer and I noted the smaller exit, but chalked it up to how narrow a deer's neck is. Then the next year I shot another deer with the TSX broadside and it ran the usual 40 yards. That should have told me something with the quarter size hole through both lungs instead of the usual lung mush I got from conventional Core-Lokts or Interlocks. A nice tidy carcass with minimal blood shot tissue. The next year a very nice 10 point gave me a broadside shot, but it was in high brush, so I held high to avoid brush deflection. He took off too and dropped exactly five drops of blood where he'd stopped, then ran off and left absolutely no blood trail to follow. First deer that I ever couldn't find after two days of looking. Am I trying another Barnes anything? Nope, not after DRT results from BT's ever since. I want a deer bullet that does lots of damage with a less than perfect shot so I can recover that animal. I'm getting too old for playing hide and seek to find the whitetail I've shot.

My first experiences were my last. I picked up some 225 gr. X bullets for my .338 and some 140 X bullets for my 270. While the 338 bullets had a nice big HP they gave no expansion on an elk I shot at around 450 yards right through the ribs. That elk actually traveled uphill over the second ridge on a mountain just south of La Barge creek. One of the longest packing out jobs I ever had to endure. Crossing La Barge creek in the middle of a blizzard was not a pleasurable experience. The 140's I loaded in my 270 shot reasonably well and though they fouled I found if I cleaned the barrel every 3-5 shots it didn't get out of hand. Pushed to just under 2900 fps. Wow worst bullet I ever used on deer or feral hogs. Every one ran far with little blood leaking. Would have lost most of them if I didn't have a tracking dog and did lose on that made it onto property I didn't have the right to access. These experiences caused me to hold a grudge against Barnes for many years.

I have seen this theory advanced as the reason behind the generally dismal, hit or miss accuracy of the original X bullets. I have also seen vague references to "the metallurgy" not being right or consistent with the fault directed at the copper supplier. I think either or both might be contributing factors. I have long suspected, however, that the primary reason for the poor accuracy so many of us have experienced with original X bullets is due to manufacturing/production practices that are not conducive to producing adequate geometric precision. I am almost, not quite, certain that I can visually detect a lack of concentricity between the shank and the ogive on some original X bullets. Some day I may dig out a few (I think I still have some) and do the actual work involved to say yes or no to this idea. Some of the things that have crossed what's left of my mind with regard to this:

I don't know if Barnes was originally buying copper stock in bars or coils. Assuming bars, the first problem I would look for is the degree of roundness of the bar stock. (Starting with coiled stock carries its own set of challenges.) Assuming it was rolled to size by the supplier, it could well be out of round. Rolled stock, like parts that are centerless ground, are not round in cross section, they are three sided. The best you can do is reduce the out of roundness to what's acceptable for the purpose. (Measuring them with a flat anvil micrometer will not reveal this, you'll get the same reading at any point. That's what V anvil mics are for, to determine the degree of out-of-roundness in a rolled or centerless ground part.) Too far out of round introduces difficulties in work holding, especially of whoever is involved in the process engineering/machine setup isn't aware of this or doesn't know how to compensate for it. Looking at the shanks of the original X bullets, the surface looks to me like it's rolled to size, not machined. Anyone with a modicum of machining know-how knows that the easiest, most certain way to assure concentricity between two diameters is to machine both in the same hold. Another holding issue, if they were buying finished, bullet-diameter stock, would be what were they holding it with for machining it? Generally speaking, you can get something like .257 stock in a 1/4" collet, or .308 stock in a 5/16" collet. You could probably force .284 stock into a true 7mm collet, but in terms of high-precision work, a lot can go wrong in any of those instances.

There could be other factors as well, and all this is idle speculation on my part. Barnes is apparently making good products now and, if circumstances were such that I felt compelled to shoot a mono, I'd give them another shot. As it is, cup and core bullets fill all my needs and I don't have the interest in trying the "latest and greatest" these days. There's no getting around the point, however, that they did put an underdeveloped product on the market and left it to the consumers buying that product to do the beta testing.

Bullet concentricity never received much scrutiny from the gun trade and none from the writers until recent years as occasional mentions.

The penny dropped for me when people using old rifles such as the pre 64 started resporting best ever groups.

Becase these older rifles still largely had their original barrels, it became somewhat axiomatic that bullet concentricity was the improvement factor influencing this change.

This was starting to become clearer in the years before the Barnes X, where CnC bullets were still the most common usage and there was a sliver of design changes becoming points if marketing focus that would come to rely upon concentricity to work properly.

Could you imagine the complexity of a Winchester Failsafe bullet (outer jacket, inner lead core, steel shaft insert into rear core, capped off with a base plug, assuming steel again to square up that base but being an insert that still allowed for obturation) shooting accurately without having focused on basic reaearch and improvements before hand?

No, bullet manufacturers have always accepted the challenge but bench shooting of hunting rifles post war due to the proliferation of scope usage tended to swing riflemen towards whatever their rifles preferred.

This gave rise to the higher quality bullets we have today, the best in a lifetime.

I started with the X bullets in the early 90s and once I learned they can be a PITA to find seating depth for a given rifle I killed deer with them just fine and could solve rifles to <1 inch groups. When Barnes produces the XLCs they were a little less touchy about seating depth. The TSXs got easier when they came out. I nor any of the people who I loaded them for ever had any expansion problems, The TTSXs were even better.

I have seen a couple rifles that fouled miserably with Barnes bullets. Those, were solved with Dyna Bore Coat. The only real peculiarity I have seen that is restricted to Barnes bullets is that on one rage where the backstop consisted of new growth aspen is that after going through targets and backing a surprising number of bullets wound up butt first stuck in trees. Enough that my conclusion is that somehow the bullets, all of which were only partially opened, tumbled and that the drag of the partially opened bullet caused then to continue to fly butt first.

I have one rifle, a 25-06, that I have been unable to solve at the upper end of it's velocity. It is a 26 inch barreled Remington Sendero. At 3225 FPS it will shoot accurately. Above that, no matter what I have tried for powder, 2-3 inch groups is what it produces with 100 grain TSX/TTSXs above 3225 FPS. I have tried to find another seating depth it likes at higher velocity. I have tried every reasonable powder. Cup and core bullets shoot fine at expected velocities.

The mystery continues. This thread is damn interesting.

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I first started using X bullets in the early '90s, the 100 grain in a B78 .25-06. I consistently got 3/4" or slightly better 5 shot groups, and performance on deer and antelope was great. I only recovered one bullet, it weighed 99.8 grains after going from just behind and below the right kidney to the base of the skull, including shattering 6" of spine.

I then used the 150 grain in a Browning 1885 7mmMag. Accuracy ~1"/5shots, again, no problems with performance. Only recovery was from an antelope shot stem to stern; the bullet knicke the pelvis and turned base first. The base actually punched through the hide but the expanded petals caught it. Weight 149.7 grains.

I then tried them in a M700 8mmMag, both the 200 and 220 grain bullets. Accuracy was abysmal, around 6". I shot 2 elk with that rifle, with 200 gr. Hot Core bullets, but at close range they expanded too violently. It wasn't until the TSX came out that I used it again, they have been a great improvement.

My first X bullet use was in 97. I heard about dropping down in weight so I used the 30 cal 165 X in my 300 winnie. I loaded them with the max listed in Barnes #1. IIRC, it was 76 gr of RL19. That was a warm load and grouped OK too. I shot an 8 pt WI whitetail buck at 25 yds. The shot was broadside and the buck was trotting . My shot went through the top of the heart and exited. Heart was shredded and the buck travelled 25 yds. He ran into a dead tree and that was it.
After this, I used the 120 Xs in my 264 to take maybe 10 or 12 whitetail with no issues. Being a loony, I decided to experiment with Noslers next. I bought some TTSXs to try next

My .270 during the X bullet experiment was wearing its factory 22" light conture barrel, that 1981 Ruger product (Douglas barrel?) M-77 was mercurial loving some projectiles hating others, & would merely tolerate the rest. The X was definitely in the hate it category.

I ran the Nosler Ballistic tips during mule, whitetail deer and pronghorn hunts, the 130 grain @ 3000 fps, now they had thier own issues in the mid 80's but they were accurate and fast in my rifle.

I've shot that factory barrel out and replaced it with a Benchmark 5R stainless 25" tube. I'm seriously considering running the Barnes 130 TTSX for all my hunting now that I'm close to retirement. This would include a shot at getting a Montana bull elk in Fall 2025. This based on the results my buddy got using the same TTSX in his 270 Weatherby I reloaded for him.


He likes to say "they create an unsurvivable event"

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Started shooting the Barnes 165X in 1989 out of my 1917 Enfield sporter. I "had" to keep the bore spotless or it fouled bad. That was in OK. I din't use the Barnes again until '95. I used the 250X in a 35 WAI, shot like a Match bullet BUT, I had broken in that barrel with over 100rds of fireforming loads, with cleaning every 20 rds. It was a slick bore! I shot a wad of PG in South Africa in '96. In '97, I loaded the 90x in my 240Wby. Killed a big coyote at tdad over 300yds. Gave the rifle/ammo to my Pastor in Tx and he shot an Axis doe and a big Axis Buck. I also gave him earlier a 7mm RM shooting the 120x like a Match load! He killed an nice Blackbuck around 125, DRT. He later shot "at least" 400yds an uphill Spanish Goat/Ibex mix. Centerpunched. We shot the newer designed 180 XBTs in 300WMs and the 210 XBT in a 340Wby. Deadly. Then I killed a cow elk with a 185 XLC in a 338WM, very slick coating. I killed a 80pd shoat with a 50gr XLC/221 Fireball CZ 527. Made a 50cal hole all the way through shoulders. Used the 200X (with the "Secant Ogive") in my 35 WAI on another PG trip, same deadly results. Then the 100gr TSX/257 Wby was wonderful on Exotics in Texas. But...but...that TTSX is about as perfect as "I" could ever use on Game. Easy to get to shoot, work every time, and the LRX is also wonderful. I'm open to trying Hammers as they have always shot like Match bullets in everything I ever tried. So yeah, if it absolutely has to be killed, broken down, right there, Barnes on Bone is the Recipe!

I didn't use a Barnes X until 1998 - a 165 gr. on a mule deer buck from a 308 Win at under 50 yards. It worked good enough - a bullet through the lungs, and the buck ran 50 yards and piled up. Only reason I used it on the deer was because it's what I had loaded for elk. I tend to think a more frangible bullet would have put that deer down faster.

Aside, I got the Barnes No.1 Handloading Manual in 1992. Still have it. If you want a good laugh, it's hard to beat the Barnes No. 1 manual. Talk about "going where angels fear to tread" loads!

I used that same Manual for my 35 WAI Uncle Brad. It seems, according to QuickLoads, the "Book Max" 250X and 200X loads I used for over 20yrs turned out be around 72-74K! Wow, lol. But man, were they killers!