Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Thoughts on the TSX performance 2009

I applaude Mr. Atkinson for his reminding us all, just what a Nosler partitioin bullet is supposed to do and has been doing for years. I will continue to use Nosler partitioni bullets on smaller species of big game.

Now I am sure that Mr. Hack saw a lot of animals killed with these TSX bullets but I for one can't help but know, lots of TSX or Barnes bullets in the past have been complete pass throughs on big game animals. Don't want to whip a dead horse from the past but passed facts are just that facts gents. I have also heard from those who have shot the TSX bullet and come up with the same results I received in my testing of those bullets.

I did find out, that TSX bullets seemed to be more user friendly in my hunting rifles, verses those other Barnes bullets of past years. However, I have still gotten TSX bullets that never opened up in a water tank test, several calibers like the .338 magnum and .270 Winchester and 7mm magnum.

I will commend Mr. Hack for his information in the post he put forth but I shall continue to use what I know works, mushrooms out and causes lots of tissue damage, without just giving me an entry hole and exit hole with little damage to the animals vitals. The Trophy Bonded Bear Claw, Swift A Frames and Nosler Partitions, thank you Mr Hack.

Thanks JJ for the excellent report. I'm still using the 140TSX and the 250TSX(9.3x62). My experiences have shown them to be great bullets whether for antelope, deer, or elk.

Well to my simple mind those pictures of those Partitions in pieces does give me pause. As to the pass-through I much rather have two holes than one. I've used NPs all my life including Africa in my 300, but have mainly been a Swift A Frame user. With the advent of the TSX & TTSxs, I'm going lighter and faster. jorge

As stated before here any bullet can fail depending upon the conditions and the widely varied impact options, so with that fact in mind what is the default failure you prefer?

For my money, .... it's failure to open and then continue on the path I have chosen with my accurate bullet placement through the vital organs.

I know the whole thoery behind the partition, it's clearly stated in the original post here. I also know that they don't often end up in pieces of twisted copper and chunks of lead. But it happens. Much as a TSX as shown here can have the possible not opening failure.

With those as the options, I suppose I've never seen or heard of a Partition failing to open so that is not on the table for this discussion as far as I know?

Then which is the preferable worst case scenerio as a failure. Crumpled to bits of twisted copper and the lead squirting out? Or remaining a solid projectile which carries on through the point of impact you have chosen?

That bullet reminds me of what I pulled out of my elk this year:



What Mark Dobrenski pulled out of his antelope this year:



What Chuck Nelson pulled out of a Mule Deer this year:



As JJ's excellent post indicates, when TSX's work they work VERY well. When they don't, they REALLY don't, and frankly I've never seen more "problems" with a single bullet make in my years of hunting/handloading than the Barnes X/XLC/TSX/TTSX.

All the failures that I have seen personally with the various Barnes are much the same as posted by Brad which leads me to believe the problem is in the initial impact and the pinching shut of the hollow point...This makes me wonder if the new Barnes bullet with the plastic wedge, whatever its called, will be the answer to the pinching of the hollow point shut and will do what its designed to do and open the bullet up on impact and it just might be the answer to any problems that The X bullet has ever had?

I have noticed over the years that the Barnes bullets open up perfect on Cape Buffalo and I have never seen a failure. the few failures I have seen have always been on plainsgame, deer and elk..I told this to Barnes one time and he didn't seem to interested. It has always seemed to me when a Barnes bullet works it is the best, but when it fails it fails miserably..

I also have to say that I have many friends that are very experienced shooters and hunters and they swear by Barnes bullets.

Guess that's what makes a horse race.....:)

All the failures that I have seen personally with the various Barnes are much the same as posted by Brad which leads me to believe the problem is in the initial impact and the pinching shut of the hollow point...This makes me wonder if the new Barnes bullet with the plastic wedge, whatever its called, will be the answer to the pinching of the hollow point shut and will do what its designed to do and open the bullet up on impact and it just might be the answer to any problems that The X bullet has ever had?

I have noticed over the years that the Barnes bullets open up perfect on Cape Buffalo and I have never seen a failure. the few failures I have seen have always been on plainsgame, deer and elk..I told this to Barnes one time and he didn't seem to interested. It has always seemed to me when a Barnes bullet works it is the best, but when it fails it fails miserably..

I also have to say that I have many friends that are very experienced shooters and hunters and they swear by Barnes bullets.

Guess that's what makes a horse race.....:)

I have to go with the other's findings on Barnes failures. I'm a public land hunter, trophy unit tags are hard to come by. I can't afford the loss of an animal nor can I simply slip the guide a big tip and ask him to "find me another one".

So when it comes to bullets I use proven bullets like the Nosler Partition.

And I'm not sponsored by any bullet maker.

MtnHtr

Yes we have bananas. Copper ones.

JJ and others thanks for Posting results and pics.

I want to see an E-Tip recovered. Infact I patiently wait to see many E-Tips recovered. Before [bleep] head took office E-Tips were easily found for half the price of a TSX. I think they have a higher BC.

Hope some make the trip next year

Brad, its strange what happened to you guys, and you all know each other it seems, were these bullets from the same lot run? bad copper?

I had two XLC's fail to open,stopped using barnes all together till they came out with the MRX/TTSX, i know you had one o fthem not open. it does cause me some concern, but damn! the dozen or so critters i've shot, and another 20+ head of big game from buddies using barnes, i have been very impressed, more so than any bullet i've ever used.

Ray, my exact thoughts (and expressions/results). The X-type bullet is so easy to be enamored with when they work right....like they do most of the time. But when they don't, then you have what JJHACK was like before he became enamored of them; he disliked them to the point that he actually wrote on one of the hunting bulletin boards that he had seen an X do a 180 and bounce back out basically the same way it went it. (I can tell you, something's changed, and it hasn't been a drastic design change. But the constant and significant tweaking does tell one something about the fact that an essential problem must exist, otherwise why address "perfection"?)

You keep and X-type well into the 2Ks and shoot something with some resistance to high speed impacts and these bullets will work. (Perhaps that's why the reports from Africa come back so positive.) But do a softer animal - caribou come to mind- out at closer to a quarter mile give or take and then see what the numbers give you in terms of terminal results. And I've mostly had good results even then. But as anyone who's whacked game - even lethally- with spitzer FMJs can tell you, though there will eventually be an animal lying dead where the tracks end, finding the end of that trail - and how far- are questions that often aren't fun to learn the answers to.

I have followed this and many other Barnes bullets threads...

Although sometimes the calibre is not given, sometimes you can come pretty close to figuring that out from the picture if there is one.

It seems to me that all of the bullets which failed to open are small calibre. I cannot think of one larger than .338 which failed... (although perhaps some of the pictures were of a large calibre with nothing for scale, so some may have been mis-identified).

It is also perhaps not co-incidental that reports on big stuff like buff have been so uniformly good: one does not generally shoot buff with small bores.

Wish I had been collecting the data over the past years so I could analyze it!

Still, JJ has a pretty big database on .30 cal Barnes bullets and a pile of dead critters and that is hard to argue with!

Of course one has to expect a few failures with any bullet (and yes, even the Nosler Partition sometimes fails -- before I moved and lost it, I had one from a whitetail that evidently tumbled, shed both cores and lost much of the gilding metal). But, just like those pictures of the failed Barnes bullets, it was recovered from a dead critter.

John

HMMM, ok we have unopened TSX's which prove?????? how about what happened to the animal? Obviously they were recovered from a dead critter, pictures with no explanation is very subject to my B.S. meter, and man is it pinned!

what I find most fasinating about the "failed" and recovered bullets is that they were recovered in the first place. An expanded X bullet is rarely recovered, so how can one that acts like a solid stay in an antelope?

Something else is happening here...though we may never know what this actually is. Possibly the bullet, being a very long bullet, is understablized and is tumbling upon impact...?

Good morning Ray. The top bullet was a 30 cal, 150 gr, TTSX. The other two were the regualr TSX, Marks a 223, 52 gr TSX and the other a 140 7mm TSX.

I've had good results, including one perfectly shaped (recovered) TSX, but I'm also convinced a bullet that relies on a tiny air cavity to initiate expansion is likely to have far more problems than a typical lead core type bullet. As you indicate, the tip likely is "pinching shut" at impact and simultaneously tipping.

My bullet and Chucks were both recovered lodged backwards in the animal (ie, they tumbled). Can't remember about Marks.

That's like saying, "the condom failed but my girlfriend didn't get pregnant, so what's the big deal?"

Interesting that someone thinks something designed to do one thing, which does another, is acceptable... and it's not like Barnes bullets are exactly CHEAP!

I'm not interested in further explanation of each bullet, as every one has been fully documented on other threads so apparently your "BS Meter" isn't very accurate... use the search feature on this site if you want all the details.

Back to JJ's excellent post (and it is a very good one), I still think when the TSX works (and it usually does), it works darn well (though likely in truth, not really that much differently than a dozen other bullets) and when it fails, it REALLY fails.

If I want to shoot solids into an animal, that's what I'd pay for. The argument that even if they don't open, they maintain their weight acting like a solid (they actually don't as they tumble), I just can't buy into. But that's just me.

Mtn, that's where I ended up, coming back full circle.