Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Barnes TSX & TTSX: Changing the Game for Good?

What are you laughing at?

You and Tom.177 tied for second.

When does the annual woodchuck thinning begin? I might have to come up with my shotgun.

By your own admission, you don't know they aren't.

I have been loading my own ammo and killing deer with that ammo since 1956. I have used really [bleep] bullets and I have used outstanding bullets. For my money we have the best bullets in all of that time right now. The Barnes TSX and TTSX bullets are as far as I am concerned the best of the lot. Pull your head out of your ass and ask yourself if all the people who like them so much and use them in preference to all other bullets are doing that if they think there is or even might be something better for the job at hand. The only other option you have if that isn't what they are thinking is that like you, they're just ignorant and none of them know what the hell they're talking about.

Do I need them if I want to kill a deer? Most of the time not. Do they provide more margin for when things just aren't perfect. Even you have that figured out. Do they fail more often than any other bullet? Not that anyone has demonstrated so far. The worst experience with a Barnes that I have personally had in fifty odd years is some of the early ones in copper tubing were not accurate enough to hunt with. In the last few years the eleven rifles I load for aside from my own have killed some forty deer give or take a couple. Zero evidence of any bullet failure in any of those deer In the years prior, I don't know how many I killed with Barnes, but none of them failed either. I am not the least bashful about putting bullets through deer at pretty steep angles BECAUSE I use Barnes bullets.

It's not that I ask a lot of the bullets. It's that I expect a lot from them because they deliver it more consistently than any other bullet I have ever used. Last season I passed on 10-12 deer opening weekend to choose one fawn and one doe. Why those particular deer, I have no idea, but... Once I decided those deer were going in the freezer they were absolutely going to die. At that point, there's only one bullet I want in the gun and I will not settle for anything I think is one iota less than the best available to me to put that deer down.

If they weren't accurate I wouldn't use them. If they had a problem with performance on game I wouldn't use them. I am pretty damn sure the people who use them are of the same opinion. JJ Hack is not using them and putting them in guns for his clients knowing there's a better bullet for the job. I think you can bet money on that one.

Yep and it makes you wonder how I ever drooped game at nearly 800 yards with those "fluffy" TSX bullets, but somehow they managed to kill them on the spot without any "DRAMA" and that is why the "DRAMA QUEEN" doesn't like them not enough "DRAMA" foe him/her/it or whatever

Geezzuss....no wonder this country is in trouble......man...

Jeff �

You know I like good bullets and refuse to usestandard C&C�s in my bolt guns. For 20+ years I used Grand Slams in my 7mm RM and was pretty happy with their performance, the down side being they were never quite as accurate as I wanted. They tended to shoot .9� 3-shot groups pretty consistently. When Speer changed the manufacturing and went to a single core, I started looking around at other bullets. The Barnes XLCs were the first and shot great (0.5� at times) but a bad experience with an antelope buck sent me running back to the Grand Slams, with which I took two more elk that year. North Fork were next. Not only did they shoot great, (.262� best for 3 shots), they proved devastating on game � which was pretty much expected. As started adding bolt guns to my collection the North Fork were the bullet of choice and were very accurate in all. The supply was a little iffy, though, and I wanted a back-up bullet.

When the �improved� TSX bullets came out, I gave them a try. They were accurate in every rifle I tried them in. (My .257 Roberts, with 115g TSX, tended to shoot the centers out of clay pigeons at 200 yards.) Still, I had concerns about using them due to reports that they sometimes failed to open. In the end, I never used any on game.

Enter the MRX and later the TTSX. Across the board I find the TTSX to be the more accurate of the two. Just before the 2010 elk season I did a final check at 600 yards with the two rifles I was taking, a .300WM with 180g MRX and a .30-06 with 150g AccuBond. I fired a total of 5 shots at clay pigeons on the 600 yard berm and took one with each rifle. The TTSXs may be more accurate, but the MRXs are accurate enough. When I gave my son-in-law a .30-06 as a wedding present, I also worked up 168g TTSX loads for it.

So far we have only taken deer and antelope with the MRX and TTSX, but the results have been consistent. Even on the antelope the bullets have expanded, mushed the vitals and exited. One MRX went front to back on a mulie with straight down results. At this point I really don�t have any concerns about the ability of the TTSX or MRX to expand reliably when properly stabilized at impact. (Twist rates that are too slow or hitting brush enroute might cause a problem, as they can with any bullet.)

There are valid performance concerns for not using TSX and older X bullets (I burned the XLCs up on targets and am doing the same with the TSX I have), but the tipped TTSX and MRX really are a big improvement as far as I�m concerned.

It's thinking like this and the ideas it alludes to which bother me when it comes to bullet adoration. Every problem I've had with Barnes bullets over the years has come when the bullet has slowed down. Mostly that's at long distances and generally it has involved both poor or no expansion and penetration which is lacking. (So much for overpenetration when they fail.) And I don't like the drama these kinds of situations can cause. In my experience even the old XFBs were fantastic bullets when they made contact with adequate speed, and I was never bashful about being one of their proponents, though that wasn't the popular position to take when they were known more as "copper crap which won't shoot." But to suggest that they are adequate bullets for long range hunting without qualifying that they have been launched by uber mags and at powder-puff targets borders on irresponsible. Copper is still copper, and always will be harder and tougher than lead. I hope and expect that the added tip will help with expansion problems, but they still won't be magic bullets.

I've had some 130gr TSX out of my 270Win pencil through on small deer broadside, but I've never failed to recover an animal. The 180TSX out of my 300Win has been a devastating round on every deer and hog I've taken with it. There may be something a little "off" with that batch of 130TSX .277s.

Doesn't surprise me that JO hasn't returned to this thread and admitted he was wrong.

Another example of his intellectual dishonesty.....

Oh he'll likely show up breathless about skiing all day. I looked for him on the mountain today. Figured he'd be the guy skiing up the hill and riding the chairlift down, saying "but it works for ME" (grin)

Klik: I am assuming that we are talking TTSX;and that lessons of driving them hard have been learned.JMHO but if I ever get around to using them, they will be going fast....

I'll just say that TSX bullets work very well out of the 6.8 SPC and it don't drive them very fast. At least the 16" barreled upper that I have doesn't

I have killed a few head of game a long ways out and never have a problem, I shoot they drop on the spot. What's not to like?

After reflecting on 40 something years of shooting animals, it struck me that game seems to have the same reaction when hit with a .25 caliber TSX as it does with a 12ga rifled slug.

Just wait till JeffO starts using tsx's and becomes and expert on them overnight.

It will probably make you quit shooting them.

He just announced that he is getting a 7WSM built.

I'm thinking of selling mine now....

How would we know if he did, or not?

Was this study of yours done in a controlled environment with specific data parameters? Can we expect to see it published soon?

Nope...just watchin' lots of 'em fall down and kick a little bit!

Whenever I see his posts all it says is .... *** You are ignoring this user ***

Been here over 6 years and still amazed that he posts the same thing every time. And he's the only one.