Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Preferred bullet performance

My preference is for a bullet to expand nicely and leave an exit. Nosler partitions, Barnes TTSXs, TBBCs, Federal T/As have all done this with no failures on various sizes and types of game. Pick one that shoots good in your rifle and put it where it should go and there's no drama.

Responding to both 30338 and rost495!


I believe that all the new Barnes are much better than the original offering and the early TSX. I’ve used them all …..including the “pre groove” Barnes mono. All worked acceptably, though they’re much better now…..in both accuracy and expansion characteristics! But not beyond 430 yards….though those 250 grain TTSX’s worked very well on that Pronghorn.

We’ve never used the “pre groove” Barnes mono in my wife’s .338 WM, I think that we started (I’d have to check my books) with the TTSX in 225 grain. She’s made some pretty impressive kills on stuff out to 400 yards with it! memtb

It depends, are they traveling towards the truck or away from the truck?😁

I’ve never had an elk run away with an exit hole somewhere in the front half. I killed four broadside elk with a 308 and 150g TTSXs that didn’t open up much but none of the elk took more than a few steps. I did have a double lunged caribou run 300+ yds in the open tundra when shot with a X Bullet that exited but failed to expand.

I’ve had more than a few elk races when bullets expanded too much, or broke up, and failed to penetrate very far, even with easy broadside shots.

I’ve killed a lot of elk heavily quartering away where the bullet had to travel through a portion of the back half to reach the front half. A stomach full of grass will slow down a bullet darn near as much as bone.

Moderate expansion, deep penetration across a wide range of velocities. Partitions are among the best at that.

Copper bullets weak link is lower velocity expansion. There’s room for improvement in that regard.

The shot with the Sierra wind drifted a bit back and went through the liver clipping one lung. No expansion, small exit wound. However starting velocity might have been less than load workup indicated at 80 degrees compared to -4 degrees. Or it could have been low impact velocity for a known reasonably tough bullet. Maybe cold temps affected expansion. At any rate I never used that bullet again. The same bullet dropped a big cow elk at 50 yards expanded and exited. Took three elk with that rifle two were horrendous recoveries and one easy though still had to get it across a mostly frozen over La Barge creek. And if the elk had traveled downhill that would have been toward the road.

What is your theory on why a bullet might not expand in cold temperatures?

If given the choice, running uphill (assuming I have to go uphill to get to the truck) and toward the truck is ideal!

Assuming the target medium is still equally liquid as at much warmer ambient temperature, it's simply a matter of a potentially lower muzzle speed.

What got me with the early Barnes Mono bullets, they were comparatively expensive. Didn't appreciate being the consumer test dummy. I invested in some for my 270 that same year and every deer shot was a runner. One took 6 shots from 2 different people before it dropped it's head. Then the Elk fiasco. It went uphill, over the first ridge and then up to the next ridge. Pretty much vertical. Had to break him down carry him up to the first ridge and then wrangle his heavy pieces to where they could slide down a ways. My hunting buddy had shot his elk within seconds of me shooting mine. So in reality we recovered two elk that day from the wrong side of La barge creek. Jimmy and I were sitting on metal folding chairs, no fire just resting when the Game warden pulls up, counts the seven quarters and said "one of them elk only have 3 legs". I said one more trip across the creek sir. He didn't even check our licenses just said good luck.

I've had great results with Barnes LRX bullets for several years now. They're designed to expand at lower impact velocities, and have yet to see on fail to open at impact velocities down to around 1900-2000 fps.

The difference in design is apparently a LONGER hollow-point cavity, resulting in longer petals--which means more leverage on the petals. In fact, finally recovered one this past fall, a 129 from my NULA 6.5-.284. It was a BIG Montana whitetail buck, both in body and antlers, taken at 50 yards, as it stood angling away. The bullet only retained one petal--which was very long. Retained weight was 68%, the lowest I've ever experienced with a TSX of any caliber/weight--but it worked.

I have used some of the TTSX Barnes and have to say they are fine bullets. And I am a big fan of Barnes Matchburners. Barnes is no longer on my schit list. But for 20 years at least!

Do you mean the 127, John? I assume so, and that's the model of LRX that I have thus far recovered with disproportionate frequency compared to other Barnes bullets. I pulled one out of a WT buck and another from a MD buck. A third was stopped just in front of the hips of a bull moose on a frontal shot, but we didn't recover the bullet as it was dark in grizzly country and we didn't spend all that long looking. In fairness, that shot on the moose would stop most bullets.

Yes, I meant the 127.

Have to assume both the WT and MD bucks were dead. Did they go very far?

And yes, that shot on the moose would result almost any bullet staying inside. In 1996 I killed a big Alaskan bull with a 230-grain Combined Technology Fail Safe, started at around 2800 from a .338 Winchester Magnum. The bull was a little over 100 yards away, quartering strongly tovis, ward me, and I put the bullet just inside the near shoulder. Found it against the front side of the pelvis, retaining 89% of its weight.

Muzzle velocity being lowered and possible impact velocity was too low for good expansion. That particular Sierra bullet is known for being a tough one. My buddy joked that after traveling 450 yards in -4 degrees in the snow it had frozen solid. We were trying to find something funny about the recovery of two elk on the wrong side of La Barge creek.

I don't think that things traveling at 2 1/2 times the speed of sound 'cool off'.........

And I don't think it would freeze in less than a second....

YMMV

Both were certainly very dead, and neither went in any direction other than down. The shot on the WT buck was angling down from between the shoulder blades to the throat. Recovered under the skin of the throat patch. The shot on the MD was angling away, with the bullet entering near the last onside rib and bumping into the offside humerus, where it broke off a petal and stopped. I was just surprised that neither penetrated as far as I would have expected, given my experience with this and other models of Barnes bullets.

I've shot from pre groove to ttsx LRX etc... I have NEVER had an issue with one.

I know some that have that I trust. All were pre groove tsx.

Thats not actually true. I did have accuracy issues a couple of times with the pre grooves. One in a 22-250 that shot under MOA normally. Shot around 14 inches with barnes.

But for bullet performance I"ve never had to ask for better, though the 802 yard caribou is as far as I have currently used a barnes on game. That may change one day. I have this really good spot at 1031 yards but the right deer has never been by there in the right shootable conditions.

I put my life and my clients life in barnes hands for various large game species including brown bears and we are often within 15 to 20 yards of them and we are often talking 9 foot to 10 foot plus bears. They have yet to let me down as noted.And that is likely due somewhat to the demands of so much expansion by so many that really don't actually need it but think they need it. I cannot recount how much game, but its been probably over 50 less than 100, that I've shot with round balls and cast conicals that rarely ever expand much if any. All died. Anyway we have this faction that wants really big damage and big holes. You generally cannot get both. Big holes/expansion and deep penetration.

rost495, I too knew some that had major accuracy issues with the pre-groove Barnes’.

These early bullets seemed to be exceptionally sensitive to anything with a less than perfect bore. And, with my limited experience……it seemed that the smaller the bore the greater the issues.

My rifle, .375 cal. with a “match grade” barrel shot them pretty good…. around 1 1/2” groups @ 100. My wife’s .338 WM was only good for about 3” 100 yard groups ……until I spent a great deal of time “hand lapping” the bore.

A good friend, bought a brand new Rem. 700 in 25-06…..one of the early SS models. After a few shots, it was so badly fouled…..the groups @ 100 couldn’t be covered with your typical coffee cup saucer. I finally convinced him to do the “hand lapping”. He did, it was much improved……but nothing that you could brag about. The following elk season, he did however, kill the largest bodied bull elk I’ve ever seen. One shot, through the lungs, one the run at about 50 to 75 yards!

The original “X’s” had a notorious reputation for excessive fouling. The grooved X Bullets helped tremendously to elevate this problem. memtb

Back in my teens, the late 90’s, my magnumitus was in full force. I had a .338 Win and used those 230 grain failsafes on a few critters. I remember one smallish black bear who stopped that bullet at maybe 100 yards. I don’t recall the specifics but it didn’t seem like much of a bullet test. I can’t remember what else I killed with that rifle combo but do remember that bullet surprising me on lack of penetration. It killed well, but didn’t exit on some relatively small critters.

Also had the 270 grain .375 H&H Failsafe stay inside a mid sized whitetail buck at 150-200 yards. Broke all the petals off and was in the gooey lung mess, not up against the skin or bone. That was a stem to stern shot and went through the stomach, so I guess that one shouldn’t be too surprising.

Well that ammo had been outside with me in the rifle all morning on a day that -4 was the high so probably pretty cold. Virtually everything else was frozen solid, except La Barge creek, it was running strong under thin ice.

Chiming in on the Barnes results, I have to admit that TTSX bullets, even at moderate impact speeds, have generally yielded better blood trails for me than I would have expected from such tough bullets that are known more for penetration than anything else. This, even on broadside lung shots on deer and hogs. While things might not be quite as wrecked as they would with a typical cup/core, they still do notable and adequate+ damage to soft tissue, on average.