Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles An interesting 'trick' to get Barnes TSX and TTSX's to shoot well early on.

Mr Safariman, I want to thank you for your post. The information was very timeley in my case. I started out with the Barnes 168 TTSX in my 06 at 0.50 out of the lands and got about 1/1/2 inch groups. Dissapointing since it shoots well under an inch with 168 grain ballistic tips seated 0.020 off the lands. Load is 58.5 RL19, Nosler brass and CCI primers. I was ready to give up for now on the Barnes at least for this hunting season..Come back to them when I have more time to experiment and go to the range. Combined with your tip and also another suggestion on a different forum suggesting a COL of 3.250 for the 06 with this bullet I loaded up 6 and went to the range. I got a 3/8 2 shot group and a 3/4 inch 3 shot group. With this seating and this brass (new but run through the sizing die)the last groove is just covered up. Seems like the 3.250 measurement is a good place to start with this bullet and caliber... PHIL

Too late to edit, but noticed I said 25-06 on the factory TTSX's in 110 grain - they are, of course 270 Win, not 25-06...

DJ

My .257Roy Vanguard Sub MOA likes the TSX seated to 3.170 which is just below the first groove. I tried seating them at 3.300 but shot like crap, I then moved them to 3.200 and noticed the groups tightening, so I kept seating them deeper until they started opening back up. I finally found 3.170 to be the magic depth. IIRC Weatherby factory 100gr ammo is seated at 3.160. My load of 73.0gr of RL22 is smoking @ 3,600+fps and shoots under 1/2 MOA.

Safariman - Excellent post and thanks for the information. I am starting load development for my .260 Rem with 120 and 130 gr. TSX bullets. I will incorporate your suggestions and am looking forward to see how they shoot.

Kevin, Good luck and please do report back.

Phil aka Seamount, You are quite welcome, sir. VERY glad to hear that the tip helped out some. Congratulations on your load shooting so well.

MARK

I've shot .338 225 gr TSX out of a 338 win mag, .375 270 gr TSX out of a 375 h&h and 375 Ruger. so far my best groups are when the top groove is exposed but the case comes up to the edge of the top groove. I've gotten sub MOA always seating to that depth with the most popular power for that bullet weight and cartridge.

The only problem that I foresee with this setup is that different models of the TSX/TTSX bullet have a different number of rings, and the rings are spaced differently along the shank of the bullet, affecting the distance to the lands when seated to the top ring.

I think most of them are proportionately the same, but there is some variation, I believe. For 90% of the TSX/TTSX bullet line that I've tested, this is an excellent observation!

Could someone please post a picture of this just for clarification. Thanks

Well, I'm loading some 115 gr TSX's tonight in the .25-06, with a charge of R22, and launching them out of a B78 this weekend, so we'll see what happens!

seated my barnes 100TSX in my .257 robers to cover 3/4 of "cannalure" shot 3 into 3/4 inch in my Kimber,

Went to the range today with two guns that had been giving me trouble with seating depth. Instead of starting the workup at .050 off I started at .010 and ended at .010. Just when you figure you have a shortcut you lose it. Both rifles dropped into the 1/2 inch range with a little tuning on the charge weight.

Generally I found that all Barnes bullets, TSX, TTSX and the Varmint Grenade like to jump. I usually start with factory OAL seating depth, and adjust from there. This has proven best with the .204 Ruger, .223 Remington and .22-250 and Varmint Grenades. The exception came with the new .257 80 grain Tipped TSX boat tail bullet. This bullet shoot best in my rifle with .050" jump.

Being in California's lead free bullet zone, I couldn't use my purpose built rifle after July 1, 2007 for ground squirrels. The rifle is an old Remington 700 built by Greg Tannel with a Schneider barrel and chambered for the .257 Roberts A.I. with a .287" neck.



Group above shows the fouling shot, upper left, then a group of eight shots clustered on the .5" red diamond, and one complete blow-it "oh damn-why did touch the trigger?" I wasn't watching the wind flags - it was kicking up pretty good, I was thinking of a hot Wendy's Bacon Cheeseburger on the way home.

Those little TTSX's at 3,464 fps really scramble the squirrels. This is smallest squirrel I have ever hit at 200 yards - maybe he was 4" standing on his haunches, couldn't measure as a large part was missing.



The rest of the squirrels looked like they were run through a blender, not bad performance for a bullet designed for deer sized targets.

NICE group! Good job on the rodent, too.

Hopefully Barnes will come out with a Grenade in .257 cal.

A 65 - 70gr Grenade could be a lot of fun in my 27.5 inch bbl'ed 257WBY!

i tried this and made it great accuracy with it loaded to the land in between the first and second grooves. 5 shots into 5/8"

It really depends on the throat of the barrel you are loading for.
OAL is not the key, distance off the rifling is. The way to spend the least money is to buy a Hornady (ex Stoney Point) bullet seating gauge, the right adapter cartridge and a set of vernier calipers. That will tell you where the bullets hit the rifling.
My 6.5x55 Sedgley c.1935 and throated for 160 RN gr bullets can use a L-o-t longer OAL than my 6.5x55 Tikka 595 throated for modern spitzers.
40-60 thou off usually works regardless of the OAL.
Yes I am a Barnes addict!

oldman1942 (Hey that ain't so old - I came along in 1945) There's one other factor with Barnes bullets, twist rates. I just couldn't get the 62 grain VG to shoot in any 6mm PPC I own. The Sako with 1:14 wouldn't send them down range point-on. So I barreled up a Savage action with a 1:10 twist, it shoots okay, but won me a Distinguished Flying Cross for its unpredictable flyers. Couldn't get enough powder in the case, that .972" long bullet took up too much space. So I reamed the throat 0.10" forward and seated them no deeper than .243" into the neck, at .020" off. Better, but not good enough. The Miller twist calculator showed them just under the minimum stability factor at any velocity obtainable in that case. Finally gave up and ordered a 1:8 twist chambered in .243 WSSM for a little more powder capacity.

The Barnes .224" 50 grain VG shoots very well in my .22-250 that I had rebarreled with a 1:10 twist, and the same for the .220 Swift. But in the old .223 Remington 788 with a 1:14 twist it wouldn't group. So I picked up a Savage barrel in 1:9 polygonal from Pac-Nor, and now the .223 Remington shoots fine.

Bottom line is that if a particular Barnes doesn't shoot, check the twist after seating depth. Barnes now lists minimum twist for many of the problematic bullets on their website and in the relaoding manual. Barnes bullets are truly amazing, they sometimes need a little adapting for maximum accuracy, but it's well worth the effort.

WJ,

Try the Barnes 36gr Grenade in your model 788. I use it in my old Sako's and other slow twist rifles and love its accuracy and on game performance.

Yep, they are different but truly worth the effort should some be required. Important to go down a weight range or two right off the bat.

Safariman,

Wanted to thank you for the guidance on the TTSXs. I still have some work to do with the 100gr version, but definitely found a load with the 80gr version. Had to back the velocity down to 3715 (max is around 3850), but I don't think they'll bounce off.

John

Just found this thread - thank goodness of the 24hourcampfire google search engine.

While I could do my homework and get a rough idea of how far off the lands Safarijim's tip works out to, has anyone actually measured the length off the lands to the ogive - better yet has anyone done this for the .300 WSM for the following Barnes flavors - 150, 165, 168, and 180 grain TSXs/TTSXs.

Thanks, in advance