Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Barnes TTSX, dissapointment

+10. I thought hogs were bulletproof until I started shooting them in the shoulder rather than just behind it.

I have well over a hundred kills with Barnes Bullets and use them almost exclusively. From 224 cal up through 416 no problems ever. Animals from extra small antelope species weighing int at under 50 lbs in Africa up through and including Eland and Cape Buff. I have seen cup and core bullets fail to penentrate too many times, in person, with real and bad results, to continue to use them since I don't have to.

Pigs and most African game carry their goodies way up forward compared to deer. Great diagram. Use the straight above the leg idea on Piggies as well as most african game and one will have far fewer long tracking jobs whatever the bullet.

Bob, and or whoever wishes to chime in. Anyone wonder if the reason why the Barnes issues appear to be with the smaller cals (my thoughts 30 cal on down) is cause there's so much more game taken on a yearly basis with these rounds hence more opportunity for a bullet to have some challenges?

Point being a lot of game taken with 30 cal mags on down and real world not much taken with 33's and above.

The three Barnes issues I know of from last fall (two of which I saw and a 3rd by Chuck Nelson) were with a 223/53 a 308/150 and a 7/08 and a 140.

The more times you get to bat the more opportunity one has to go down swinging...grin

Just a thunk

Dober

Been to bat a few times, as stated, with no troubles in any caliber and quite a few kills with 6mm/284 and 6mm Remington. Bunches with 257WBY. Dozens with 300WBY and RUM. Many many more from my clients who used them in Africa and Alaska and again zero failures. Possible reason is I keep my velocities up? Everything I shoot starts its bullets at well over 3,000 fps, maybe food for thought. I am wondering if Vitalkill has been out again after thooting the first two piggiess. It would be informational to hear more of his experiences if he has shot up any more flatnosed varmints.

Dober, here I am again... you know I use the little 53 gr. alot, and do alot of creative editing to your posts but the only issues I've had in the .223 with TSXs is that I have to dress and butcher a deer every time I send one downrange...
I HATE it when that happens!
However, that being said, there is you and about two other guys on the planet who I would trust if they say they saw one go "kaput!"...
Ingwe

Dober: I don't know,and you could be right about the volume of bullets.The issues I've heard (from people I consider "trustworthy" on the matter),have had problems with the 270 and 130 gr(did not open in three instances from last year in South Africa).

My very inexpert and unsubstantiated opinion(this is a forum and not a courtroom is that the problem seems to be from the bullets pinching shut once in awhile instead of expanding.The other "rumor" is that sometimes the copper is not quite up to par,and if it is not of the right temper or hardness,does not expand as reliably.An old bulletmaker I know used to tell me he was VERY fussy about the lead and copper he got in to make his bullets,and used to reject the stuff if it was not suitable because it WOULD affect expansion.

Combine a small cavity,maybe not enough velocity,and too "hard" a bullet and all these little things maybe add up to produce a failure now and then.

The 375's I saw looked as good as you can expect;the one fired into the kudu at 60-70 yards had sheared the pedals,and expanded the back of the bullet to a larger frontal area.The one in to the eland at 325 looked picture perfect,and dumped the eland DRT.You really could not ask for more.

If I were going to use an X (I don't plan on it myself in the near future; I have plenty of very good hunting bullets)I think I would make sure they are moving right along,like Safariman says,and keep the velocity up myself.I like the looks of the 120TTSX in the 7mm Dakota at 3550 That may be interesting......

"Bob, and or whoever wishes to chime in. Anyone wonder if the reason why the Barnes issues appear to be with the smaller cals (my thoughts 30 cal on down) is cause there's so much more game taken on a yearly basis with these rounds hence more opportunity for a bullet to have some challenges?"

Dober,

That's what I was getting at with my response to JB. If people like Safariman or JJ hack can kill lots of animals with Barnes bullets without issue, then when we see a failure by someone not shooting many at all it assume importance all out of proportion.

We need to understand those failures. The copper is going to be pretty uniform if you think at all about modern manufacturing processes. ALL bullets are much more uniform today than they have been in the past. A failure based on process or particularly material defect must of necessity show up in not just the odd bullet out of a box. And even then it has to get past the final inspector, the person who loads the ammo and fires it. Not impossible by any means, but it does raise the question of HOW!

If an individual bullet out of a box fails, and the rest perform as expected then the question isn't are the bullets any good, it is more properly what happened with the exception.

Rather than one person shooting 100 animals with a bullet to make a picture of the performance, 20 shooting five or better yet 50 shooting two will give us better information. The variables introduced by 50 shooters (loaders) are part of the whole picture. Those variables will define the "window" in which the bullet is usable.

A failure is a failure regardless who has it.
Hollow point bullets have been known to expand erratically and I think thats one of the issues with the TSX.
There have already been some non expansion issues with the TTSX. Could it be that Barnes QC sucks and the bullets are not being annealed properly?

If I see penetration show up as a problem to be dealt with, I'll consider a super-penetrator like the TSX.

Or I will load them for a very specific task- as I did last year for my BLR, which was to be used exclusively in the thick stuff, up close, on elk, probably headed the other way.

Short of those two reasons, I just don't see any rational reason to use the things. Not when even Interlocks and Accubonds penetrate so well and they (experts like JJHack and JB) say they kill quicker on average.

Disclaimer: I consider 2900 fps to be about perfect as a MV, and I don't load light-for-caliber usually. And I sure as $hit ain't no expert!!

Jeff, I consider 3500 to be about the ideal velocity and Nosler AB's work fine at that velocity, even under 100 yards......LOL. Im kidding, but they do work fine at that velocity and range. I have done it multiple times, which trumps speculating. I have also shot more than a handful of deer with various lead and copper bullets, mostly at close range and all with high velocity rounds. I have never had a bullet fail. When my dad owned a game farm I culled 100 some fallow deer using the 25-06 and 243 with 100 gr bullets, all cup and cores and they worked great.
Of course I was never one to shoot south end of a north bound deer on purpose.

Speeds in the 3300 to 3500 fps range are sure fun, and make things happen real quicklike

No, that is not even close to the case. To date we do not to my knowledge have documented failure of whole boxes of ammunition, whole boxes of bullets or whole lots of bullets. What we have that I know about is individual failures. One bullet and not more. With the earlier X bullets there were lot/box related issues. With the TSX/TTSX bullets we have stories of individual bullet failure. That's why it's so important to understand them.

I hate to hear you were disappointed in the tipped 110 TSX, as I have been considering using that bullet.
What do you guys know of any new bullets that actually works better out of a .270 than a 130 Hornady interlock on mule deer?

I am not looking(as I like the 130 partition in my 270 for deer) but if I were looking for a new bullet, I would give the 130 accubond and the Scirocco II a hard look.

Read the whole thread if you have not already. Many of us here would still use and reccomend the 110 TTSX in 270 for mule deer, including me.

StrayDog,

I'm with safariman here. I have worked out the 110 TTSX in 270 and found them to be very accurate and easy to work up. They gave me good accuracy at ~3400 in a 700. I have a bunch of 130 TSXs loaded so I may not shoot a deer with one in the coming year. I see no reason not to though. I haven't killed so many as safariman with them, but I've never seen one fail.

I have a 7600 in .243 that nicks up the tips of TSXs. I may well use those rounds in another gun that doesn't do that and load TTSXs for the 7600. Eight deer died from them last year and all were one shot kills with the furthest any traveled after the hit being a couple of jumps. I worked up all the loads, but four different shooters using five different guns killed the deer.

If I knew of a better bullet, I'd load it and use it. I get accuracy equal to or better than any other, Straighter, deeper penetration and lead free venison. I no longer work up loads with lead core bullets for game I will be eating.

I don't have anything against cup and core, I just can't find a good enough reason to use them anymore. Every time I pull the trigger on a Barnes it has met or bettered the best I have gotten out of any lead core bullet. I look forward to Nosler and Hornady fleshing out their monometal offerings.

I used the 110 TSX in a 6.8 SPC on two 200 lb whitetails last year. In a Silver State Armory load rated at 2650 fps muzzle velocity it dropped both on the spot at 100 yards. I used it for the lead free venison too. After seeing the MN DNR test results for lead fragments in deer I decided to go lead free for big game. I don't know for sure if those small lead fragments will impact your health but I figure they can't be good for you.

Never had a problem with their perfomance. Takes a lttle re-learning the reloading process to make 'em shoot, but that's it.