Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Barnes TTSX, dissapointment

Here in california the big hogs are out and rooting all over the wet hillsides. My brother popped out of nowhere and grabbed me and my rifle and we took off. We stopped by the nearest toy store and I decided to grab a box of Federal 110 grain Barnes TTSX to try out. We got to the landowners house and saw rootings everywhere. So off we went, and within 2 hours of the hunt me and my big bro saw two big hogs wandering around a knoll and I placed the crosshairs right on him, a nice broadside shot. I took the shot and the boar just flew off like nothing hit him, ran into the thickets of live oak and I wasn;t able to get a second shot. We waited for 2 hours before we started tracking. No blood, nothing for 3 hours of tracking. Called in my buddy and his dog, he came up and we tracked for 2 miles of where I shot him and then finally the dog found the boar. Upon examining the entrance hole, it was very small, then we flipped the pig over and the exit hole was very small too. We gutted him up and the organs weren't heavily damaged, just a small hole through both lungs. Looks like it was hit with a FMJ. I supposed the bullet didn't opened up. I am very dissapointed with this style bullet. But, I will give it a few more chances to see how it performs as only one experience is not enough to judge.

Over/under at 6 pages............... easily.

What cartridge/caliber?

Gotta be a .270

Gut shot?

if you use a 300 rum and 200gr accubonds at 3200fps. you wouldn't have this problem

I was shooting my 338 rum with 225 Accubonds today.. Nice.

Just Mk19 the bastids.........

good grief I hope not... you could prolly just whisper that to an animal and it would die out of anxiety/fear

Brett (Mac)

i really love my rum

StxHunter I disagree! If that bullet does not open up and flys through the animal like an ice-pick, your going to have a running animal with little or no blood trail and it will go for several hours on end.

I been there and seen it happen more than once with those Barnes X, XLC bullets. I have tested the TSX bullets and some of them have not opened in water tank test we conducted last month with 2 .300 RUM rifles and 1 .338 mag rifle.

I'm convinced you could double lung a field mouse with a TSX and it will boggie several hundred yards with little or no blood to trail..



Guess bone is where you want'em to go.. grin

i shoot accubonds they open up pretty good. this was from my 300wm 180gr AB ENTRANCE EXIT this is a 200 AB from the rum never have tried the barnes boolits

The experiences mentioned do not match up with that of many, many other hunters, including me. That said, it is very good that you are going to give these rounds another try or two as a sample of one is pretty inadequate. Kudo's to you for not making lifelong opinion or observation decisions yet. Let us know how the next 5 or 10 hogs respond. I have shot both California ferals with Russian looking features and African warthogs with various itinerations of the X bullets with great results so I will be looking for updates. I fully expect better reports so long as the cartridge and bullet weight selection are correct for the game being sought. Please do tell us what caliber etc. you are using here and exactly where you hit the piggy.

hard to argue with those results

Brett (Mac)

Very well put safariman! Took the words out of my mouth. This does not match my experience either and I have double lunged a PILE of game with TSXs.
Keep us posted on future experiences!
Ingwe

it was a box of federal 110 ttsx 270 win. I usually run 150 a-frames, but i haven't loaded any so. the shot was 75 yards. I still have 2 tags left and I will test more hogs. I used one for the pig, 3 to sight in which was spot on with my honey load, and 3 to punch a 1.25" group. leaves me 13 to test on hogs.

Ooooohhhhhhhhhh . . . .

So you DID sight in . . .

That was my first thought.

BMT

So, where did you hit piggy number 1? Where did hte bullet exit? The rifle and load should be good to go, I suspect, as I said before, that the rifle and load will perform admirably in the long run. Good luck, good hunting, and do report back when you can.

When your first experience with a bullet is wierd, it makes an impression. That was kind of how my Ballistic Tip 1st kill worked out- except the opposite, the damage was kind of appalling.

I look forward to hearing about how it performs on the rest of the piggies. My guess is, the TTSX will do very well from now on.

That said- Accubond. Grin.