Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters I'd like to discuss the Barnes TSX.

I think Scott is correctly nibbling around the edges of this.

I'll post this FWIW and then forget it because I don't want to get into a discussion about it with those crunching numbers as opposed to those who have actually fired bullets into stuff to see actual results.Everyone is free to theorize as they wish.

When I started using BBC's back in the early 80's, Bill Steigers (formerly a ballistician with Speer before he started making his own bullets)told me that his bullets operated and performed best at very high velocity,and the fastest practical twist.Those that own BBC's will note a little card listing recommended minimum velocities and minimum twist requirements for best results.

Due to their bonding to pure lead cores,and very heavy jackets,Steigers found in developing the BBC that faster than normal twists,in conjunction with high velocity assisted in facilitating more rapid and complete expansion of the bullets; and that a faster twist also helped the bullet maintain a point-on attitude as the bullet expanded and crashed through varying densities of animal tissue and bone,helping to keep the bullet going straight while expanding to a very broad mushroom.

So if you bought BBC's and were buliding a rifle for hunting(not target shooting),you got the Steigers lecture on having your 375 made with a 1/10 twist,a 30 cal or 7mm or 270 with a 1/9;some went as fast as 1/8 in these calibers.Steigers also cautioned that these faster twists would likely tear up standard bullets,even at reduced velocities because construction was inadequate to withstand the high roational forces coupled with impact velocity.

I did what I was told and built 30 cal and 7mm rifles with 1/9 twists,but also used BBC's in slower twist rifles in the same calibers.I have some recovered from animals where impact velocities were roughly the same,and it is apparent that the bullets fired in the faster twist barrels have shown a difference in the expanded form,with the petals clearly pulled out a a greater angle,with some others at a standard 90 degrees.These of course are not tests since it very hard to duplicate shot to shot in an animal,just my observations of recovered bullets which tends to agree with what Steigers recommended and predicted as results.

On another note there is floating around in an early Handloader or Rifle ,an article by (IIRC Dave Andrews,I think it was him)another Speer ballistician who did bullet expansion tests to determine the effects of twist on expansion and wound cavitation;and his results correlated with Steigers;faster twists help bullets expand more completely,and there was even a dramatic effect upon wound cavity size from the faster twist bullets.He did his experiments in clay so they would hold the original wound channel.You can get the details in the articles.

I know this is a highly controversial subject, so have no intention of engaging in lengthy conversations defending any of it;especially with the mathematically inclined because I don't consider such evaluation worth anywhere near as much as actual shooting of the bullets; and I'll string along with Steiger anyway because his bullets are not substantially improved upon by anything being made today.

And how much all of this will effect a Barnes bullet or a Berger I have no idea,since both are completely different animals from a BBC;and it may be impossible to see these effects with bullets like BT's or AB's because neither one is a true bonded bullet,and guilding metal jackets with alloy cores will be unlikely to stand the strain and retain enough of the original bullet to see the effect,being too brittle and likely to lose weight at high forward/rotational velocity....So the next time your X bullet or something else does not expand the way it should...or your CC bullet comes unglued...it just might be that too much or too little twist might have had something to do with it

So there it is..have fun

maybe just like this one...



it is a 180gr old Core Lokt. it is the one on the left in the picture below.

Bob, thanks for the post...makes sense to me.
I don't want to get into a lengthy discussion on this either but I do enjoy the nuances that make me think about stuff...
And to keep it on a laymans level...I can easily see where a tight twist and high speed can make a conventional cnc bullet come apart...( noted it myself some years ago shooting the same 55 gr. load in a .223 with a 1 in 12 twist,and another with a 1 in 7..)
I can also envision...if not theorize...that some of these unopened TSXs we have seen pics of could have been yawing on contact,due to a possible twist/speed issue, and hence tumble on impact instead of open...don't really know...but as Dober says...its a thunk...

Ingwe


BTW; Bberg...You 'da man when it comes to pics!!! Cool beans!

An animal not falling on its tracks does not necessarily mean you will have a problem, but an animal falling on its tracks is never a problem.

In Europe it is quite common to use a tracking dog to retreive wounded game, and there are breeds specially developed for the task, like my Bayerische Gebirg Schweiss Hund, Polka that I alwasy bring along when stalking.

Here are two pictures of her, a funny one in which she seems to be using my Leica spotting scope, and another one with a non typical buck that she retreived last May and that I would have never found without her help due to a TTSX not expanding.

Ingwe: It's offered in the context of..."think about this(?)"....as opposed to any absolutes

I've sat at the range and watched a buddy's 264 Win Mag turn 90 gr HP's (IIRC),to blue smoke trails down range...he used to do it for entertainment as .."Hey lets go blow up some 90 gr HP's for fun...".Speculation was that it was the fast twist and high rotational velocity that pulled them apart....I dunno.

Anyway Steigers was sure convinced.....gawd knows he tested them enough to know......

Bob; Thanks again...it is thought provoking....and it is WAYYYYY too early with too little caffiene for me to think in absolutes... so no worries there!

BBerg; Very cool Roe Buck! I also have quite an interest in tracking dogs....they are very slowly gaining favor in this country...where their use is legal...I wish it was a lot more prevalent, my dog has sure saved us a lot of trouble over the years....

Ingwe

Hey, I"ll leave ya'll on this one, we can banter back and forth, bottom line use a bullet that will work, IMHO 2 holes are better than 1, and put it in the right spot and all will be fine. Tracking or not.

Jeff

Agreed!

I gotta go now too...

Ingwe

OK.

Here's something to grind on for a bit.

Where I shoot I have an aspen cutting (half a mile) for backstop. I have started looking for bullets in the aspens after accidentally spotting one. I have recovered a dozen or so Barnes bullets in various calibers and weights. I have one .243 Barnes recovered point first and one .224 caliber Barnes recovered point first.

All the rest were embedded butt first into the trees. That is beyond chance. I also see a partial expansion of the Barnes Bullets.

This leads me in the direction of suspecting that rotation is still a stabilizing factor, and that the partial expansion is acting like a drag causing the bullet to have a propensity to stabilize traveling backwards.

The degree of stabilization would seem not to be very high since the bullet would seem unlikely to deform on initial impact in a manner that would provide uniform distribution of weight about it's longitudinal axis and have uniform resistance to the air. Indeed, I have observed varying degrees of "butt first" embedding. The cup and core bullets recovered were far fewer and showed no orientation preference. In fact, all but one had shed their cores.

In the month since I have discovered this I have given much thought to how to explore it further. My suspicions are that wet (green grass) will be enough to initiate this, and that dry (dead grass without dew or heavy frost) may as well, but at a much lower level. I suspect that some amount of water is necessary to expanding a Barnes much but that even dry grass can make it turn, and that they can stabilize much better than one might think when they are traveling backwards. I can say that a Barnes striking an oak butt first does not show enough butt damage to be obvious that it hit butt first once removed. I have not measured bases to determine if any upset was present though.

As has so often been the case, I have learned a great deal more by listening.

I appreciate all the responses, and especially the photographs.

So often the discussion of the TSX (or the Nosler BT, for that matter.) turns into an argument.

I was mainly interested in knowing at the outset whether the results I were seeing were typical.

Thanks again.
CT

Spin cannot stabilize bullets in flesh because flesh is more dense than air. Also because flesh and bone vary in density, and bullets don't always expand into symetric shapes (the "perfect mushroom") in flesh like they do in ballistic gelatin. Sorry, but I cannot buy into the idea that the mushroom itself makes bullets less stable. If that were true, expanded bullets would routinely tumble in ballistic gelatin. The re-entry vehicle used in the Apollo space program was designed (like a mushroom) so it would maintain it's attitude with the heat shield forward. Point-forward is the more unstable attitude/shape than blunt-nose-forward. No offense intended.

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Good points dude!

This thread HAS made me think....

Ingwe

Big Redhead,

Sorry, but your analogy just doesn't pack it, no offense intended.

Even bullet that has expanded "perfectly" is far less symmetrical than an Apollo space capsule, and is entering the atmosphere through VERY thin air, rather than plowing through the varied bone and organs of an animal, which include really tough heart muscle and really soft lung tissue.

There is also the matter of balance. I believe the Apollo capsules are designed with far more weight in the wide base, but a bullet doesn't have this advantage. In fact the mushroom often weighs far less than the shank.

Plus, bullets do sometimes tumble even in homogeneous test media, particularly if they enter at an angle. But it happens sometimes even when they enter perpendicularly. As I noted above, the most unstable expanded bullets are those that expand the widest.

As I have read through posts, generally the smaller rifles shoot smaller tsx, they open a lot more than the larger ones using 180+. My son shot elk 30-06 with 165 tsx and dropped him. The better the bullets become - don't need larger grain except for big animals.

I use a different bullet, shot nice animals with 165 last year but didn't like the opening's, dropped down to 150gr this year and a big difference. 30-06 on deer..

MD,

If you think expanded bullets are unstable, try shooting a FMJ into gelatin.

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the light(er) for caliber TSX bullets seem to be the ticket!

+1

I might have missed it, but what cartridge were BB's two unopened 180 TSX's from?

My own un-opened sample was a 150 TTSX from a 308 Win with 1-12" twist which performed flawlessly out to 550 yards on paper... just when it hit an elk at 170 yards did it act funny by not opening and tumbling.

This thread once again sort of confirms the religious like devotion some have to the Barnes bullets. By "religious, I mean "turn off brain, ignore a LOT of contrary evidence."

I think they're a great BIG, big game bullet 95% of the time...

I wonder if we could do actually do an honest poll on this forum:

A. I had a Barnes TSX or TTSX not expand, tumble, and found the bullet in the dead animal

B. I lost an animal I thought I hit well with a Barnes TSX or TTSX

C. I have shot animals and killed them with Barnes bullets and have not found the bullet as it penetrated completely.

Wonder if A and C would be the two big hitters?

It also reminds me that LOTS of folks have blinders. Just cuzz yours worked fine with that twist don't mean that twist, or lack of, isn't a problem in other instances.