Here in california the big hogs are out and rooting all over the wet hillsides. My brother popped out of nowhere and grabbed me and my rifle and we took off. We stopped by the nearest toy store and I decided to grab a box of Federal 110 grain Barnes TTSX to try out. We got to the landowners house and saw rootings everywhere. So off we went, and within 2 hours of the hunt me and my big bro saw two big hogs wandering around a knoll and I placed the crosshairs right on him, a nice broadside shot. I took the shot and the boar just flew off like nothing hit him, ran into the thickets of live oak and I wasn;t able to get a second shot. We waited for 2 hours before we started tracking. No blood, nothing for 3 hours of tracking. Called in my buddy and his dog, he came up and we tracked for 2 miles of where I shot him and then finally the dog found the boar. Upon examining the entrance hole, it was very small, then we flipped the pig over and the exit hole was very small too. We gutted him up and the organs weren't heavily damaged, just a small hole through both lungs. Looks like it was hit with a FMJ. I supposed the bullet didn't opened up. I am very dissapointed with this style bullet. But, I will give it a few more chances to see how it performs as only one experience is not enough to judge.

Over/under at 6 pages............... easily.

What cartridge/caliber?

Gotta be a .270

Gut shot?

if you use a 300 rum and 200gr accubonds at 3200fps. you wouldn't have this problem

I was shooting my 338 rum with 225 Accubonds today.. Nice.

Just Mk19 the bastids.........

good grief I hope not... you could prolly just whisper that to an animal and it would die out of anxiety/fear

Brett (Mac)

i really love my rum

StxHunter I disagree! If that bullet does not open up and flys through the animal like an ice-pick, your going to have a running animal with little or no blood trail and it will go for several hours on end.

I been there and seen it happen more than once with those Barnes X, XLC bullets. I have tested the TSX bullets and some of them have not opened in water tank test we conducted last month with 2 .300 RUM rifles and 1 .338 mag rifle.

I'm convinced you could double lung a field mouse with a TSX and it will boggie several hundred yards with little or no blood to trail..



Guess bone is where you want'em to go.. grin

i shoot accubonds they open up pretty good. this was from my 300wm 180gr AB ENTRANCE EXIT this is a 200 AB from the rum never have tried the barnes boolits

The experiences mentioned do not match up with that of many, many other hunters, including me. That said, it is very good that you are going to give these rounds another try or two as a sample of one is pretty inadequate. Kudo's to you for not making lifelong opinion or observation decisions yet. Let us know how the next 5 or 10 hogs respond. I have shot both California ferals with Russian looking features and African warthogs with various itinerations of the X bullets with great results so I will be looking for updates. I fully expect better reports so long as the cartridge and bullet weight selection are correct for the game being sought. Please do tell us what caliber etc. you are using here and exactly where you hit the piggy.

hard to argue with those results

Brett (Mac)

Very well put safariman! Took the words out of my mouth. This does not match my experience either and I have double lunged a PILE of game with TSXs.
Keep us posted on future experiences!
Ingwe

it was a box of federal 110 ttsx 270 win. I usually run 150 a-frames, but i haven't loaded any so. the shot was 75 yards. I still have 2 tags left and I will test more hogs. I used one for the pig, 3 to sight in which was spot on with my honey load, and 3 to punch a 1.25" group. leaves me 13 to test on hogs.

Ooooohhhhhhhhhh . . . .

So you DID sight in . . .

That was my first thought.

BMT

So, where did you hit piggy number 1? Where did hte bullet exit? The rifle and load should be good to go, I suspect, as I said before, that the rifle and load will perform admirably in the long run. Good luck, good hunting, and do report back when you can.

When your first experience with a bullet is wierd, it makes an impression. That was kind of how my Ballistic Tip 1st kill worked out- except the opposite, the damage was kind of appalling.

I look forward to hearing about how it performs on the rest of the piggies. My guess is, the TTSX will do very well from now on.

That said- Accubond. Grin.

Only one pig was shot. It was a broadside shot, third rib behind the shoulder, went through both lungs and through oposite shoulder between 5th and 4th rib.

I think he was operating on the assumption that you would use them on another 3 or 4 hogs to continue your testing.

Is there any chance that the bullet tumbled before hitting the boar? Could it have hit some brush on the way to the animal or for some other reason hit when it was not point on? Anyway to examine the entrance hole in the hide?

Do the bullets that you have loaded have plastic meplats? Thats what TTSX means to me. That tip should resist closing from a bump better than the old plain TSX in theory.

Personally, I have never tried these bullets yet though I've recently been thinking of giving them a shot. Vital kill describes my apprehension. If my first experience was like this, it might be enough for me. IMO, there is something very wrong with a two mile track job on any double lung hit animal. Pigs are tough, but not armor plated. I'd be running partitions or A-Frames and the like.

CLB

Remember, he was using the tipped TSXs, this might make a difference. My experience with that tipped Winchester bullet is the same- NO expansion at all on a bull elk. One incident doesn't define anything, but it was enough to [bleep] can the box and never use one again on big game. Hard to get over first impressions.

People that have had nothing but the usual excellent results with the mono-coppers often have a hard time making sense of how poorly they also work sometimes. I expect that if another dozen pigs are shot with what's left in the box, the results will be completely different in a very satisfying way. Whether that is enough to convince you to buy more or not is another question. I was an advocate of the early X versions before some of the current adherents even tried copper or at least before some of them had become convinced of its superiority. People's tolerance for failure versus success varies though, and some won't put up with unexplainable failures more than once. There definitely room in town for more than one show.

Much of California pig-hunting land falls in the dreaded Save A Condor zone where lead bullets are a big no-no...

Folks are going to have to figure out how to make the mono-metal bullets work...

What are the chances this was a different hog? Even with a dog, tracking a hog that's not bleeding is a hell of a lot less likely than a TTSX not opening. I'd be needing some tall reassurance that this was the same hog shot at before I'd go one step further

Denial works. It's also a very useful tool for managing the data.

Cali if full of hogs running around with holes through their lungs....

How could it NOT be the same hog! The 270 caliber X bullets are notorious for being unreliable- at least I have heard of more 270 problems than any other caliber.

Well gentlemen, the first time I used a 175 Hornady at 7X57 velocity it didn't even penetrate the shoulder blade of a 160 pound blacktail. When it turned, I put one in the back of the head.

For about the next twenty years I used 175 Nosler partitions at 3,150 from a 7-.300 Weatherby. One deer in partictular acted as though it were not hit at all. It was at most 110 yards away. The 175 grainer made about a 2 1/2" entrance hole and a 1" exit hole. It hit just above the heart about two or three inches back from the heart. If the deer had run the quarter mile in the woods, I may have lost it. Fortunately I was in Eastern Washington and saw it fall in the sage. I called my shot so didn't shoot it again because I didn't want to destroy the meat.

I switched to Barnes and have great success.

Well friend, you are a prophet! One day and we are already at 4 pages. This is almost as reliable as a which is better thread wherin we are asked to pick a .270 vs 30/06 or 30/06 vs a 300 of some kind. I have about four posts in here already.....

It all depends how your computer is breaking things up. You just made the seventh post on page two for me. Now if these bullets were as boringly reliable as something like an '06, then you probably wouldn't get so much input. They're easy to love when they work right (kind of like a 220 Swift on deer or elk), but the argument for failing as a "solid" - which works well in theory- doesn't sell so well when it actually happens.

First off, the pig was shot on an open knoll, no brush anywhere to deflect the bullet. Second, this is the same pig, as the pig I shot had no tail. My brother confirmed that too and the property is private and we were the only hunters. Yes the bullet is the "Tipped TSX." I have a GPS on hand it it was a confirmed 1.68 mile tracking and that hound is a champion bear tracker. Like I said, I am going to give this bullet more testing. Tomorrow morning I will head out to the ranch again and do some real test and I will also bring along a camera.

vital kill,

Have you seen penetration to be a problem on these pigs, using other bullets, in the past?

i wouldnt waste the $2 bullet on a pig when a core-lok will kill 'em deader-n' dico.

On the big boars, you need a tough bullet. They rub their hides on blue and live oaks and if the acorn crop is good they put on a big hunk of fat and 2-4" of hide. I used .270 130 partion in the past but I would lose the front core to the hide so I started using A-frames and 150 or 160 Partitions on big boars. For young pigs I can get away with 130 partitions and accubonds. These pigs that I hunt feed heavily on blackberries, figs, grapes, and acorns and they are tough.

I thought the tip on the TTSX was supposed to cure the occasional failure to expand?

Shoot enough bullets at enough things, and sooner or later you see inexplicable stuff. There is just a random element. I have no doubt that it happened just the way the OP described.

I started a "TSX pencil through" thread last summer, it went like 20 pages. Dangdest thing I ever read; I was called all sorts of things. In spite of that, I used 210 TTSX on a bull elk last fall--after I had the failure to open. Both those bullets were recovered with advertisement-photo-worthy expansion. (But I also chose to shoot it twice. Just in case.)

Ditto on that, brother. When I lived in Taxifornia, I used to hunt hogs quite a lot and had a big sow take several rib hits from a 338 Win Mag and keep going.... and going..... upon autopsie, the Nosler 200gr Ballistic tips failed to get into the offside lungs at all. She fially bled to death from several large holes in the on side lung.

I also have not been doubting your story at all. I will be waiting to see the report on how you do with these bullets over the weekend. Good luck and good hunting.

Supposed to is the key word here, but it didn't...

Dober

That was not the idea behind the tip. Tips purpose was only to improve the B.C. and sell to people who thought a good bullet had to have them. Expansion had not been a problem before and, in all practicality, is not now. I have been using them in various itinerations in calibers as small as 6mm and 25 with no expanision issues for a very long time before the tips came along. Lets see how these bullets do on the next few little piggies. I will predict here good to great results.

Most likely they will do well for him on the next few piggies. He's gotten his bad one out of the way.

As I've mentioned b4 I know of 2 TSX's and one Tipped TSX that didn't open last fall on game.

Bottom line, when they work they do work well and when they don't you may well be in for a rodeo...

Dober

I don't know how I and my friends and my hunting clients have been fortunate enough to not have one screw up on us so far over a 20 year period and animals in the hundreds....

I will say again, lets see how the remaining bullets do. For the OP's sake and that of the quarry lets hope for the best.

Partition!---just sayin.

I am thinking that Partitions are illegal in the area being hunted since they contain lead same with Accubonds etc. POster stated he is in Taxifornia where many areas are now lead free projectiles only. But then, I have been using X's over Partitions for a long time anyway.

Must not have caught the "Lead Free Zone" comment. Figured he used them before so why not.

I'm sure he'll have better luck with the next one. I am actually rooting for Barnes to finally settle on a design. Seems they keep getting better, maybe just some bugs to still work out with certain wts & calibers.

I am going to try some TTSX's in the 7 wizzum next year just to see what all the fuss is about.

I think you will like the 120gr .284 TTSX in 7WSM really well. I know for a fact that they will open up nicely and yet blow through the chest of a big bull Elk easily. BTDT.

I really think the bugs were largely worked out before and have seen some of the bullet expansion testing Barnes does but the design is getting a bit better with the grooves and the tip. Since the grooved or TSX versions have come out I have not had to moly all of my bullets to keep copper fouling down like I used to do with the original X. The fact that I was running these bullets in various calibers at 3400-3800fps in various rifles MIGHT have had something to do with my copper fouling difficulties of the past.... The grooved bullets also now seem to group really well in about any rifle I have tried them in. Even older rifles with old technology barrels.

Dober I know you have lots of experience with the Barnes as do I and I have yet to find one for testing. I have shot hogs deer elk yotes and several different animals with the barnes x bullets and triple shocks. I really don't know if any failed to open as all animals were dead and complete pass throughs are the norm. I shoot the shoulders on most animals I shoot if I am not pelt hunting and the shoulder shot seems for me to drop animals in their tracks. I fail to see how a good shot even a heart shot will keep and animal in the remote vicinity. A 2 or 3mile track job is a sign for me anyway of a gut shot or just plain BAD shot. I really wish that I would find one of my Triple shocks someday so I can see if they are expanding but for now the dead critters don't seem to mind. HAPPY HUNTING

you shoot a hog behind the shoulder its going in the gut.heart and lungs are farther up behind the shoulder/front leg

They do carry thier vitals a little farther forward.... similarly Elk and most African critters. Many people shoot like they would on a deer i.e. BEHIND the shoulder and on hogs, African plains game etc. this means a bit of tracking. On a broadside shot the verticle crosshair sould line up on the foreleg, not behind it. Similarly, 1/3 the way up from the brisket is a much better bet than 1/2 the way up like many of us were taught.

Well, SEAN aka VAnimrod, we already made the 6 pages you predicted....

Yeah and according to my puter there's 3 pages and 51 posts and you've got 10 of them so you're doing a mighty fine job of working to 6 pages...

A person would almost get the opinion that you like the Barnes line.....grins

Kind of thinking it's about time for another SMK thread

Dober

Yeah, I do like my Barnes bullets. 10 posts, eh? Well, lets go for 10 pages then!

You post something about SMK's and I will put up a .270 vs. 30/06, which is better? post....

As we sit theorizing, hopefully our OP is out pluggin piggies.

I figure tween a SMK thread and a 06 vs 270 thread we'll be covered for a long time...grin

Dober

One needs an incredibly tough bullet to stop a South Texas piggy.

.25-06 shooting the 87gr Hornady to the skull seemed to work well on them.



For those that like shoulder shots you need an even tougher bullet for them.

22-250 shooting the Hornady 60grSP.

The whole in the head is from my ol' man's .44. It was still doing the funky chicken when he walked up to it. He does stuff like that.



Travis

Now, that is very strange. They continue to work perfectly in two 7X57s that I have experience with..........on bull moose that weigh eight times what that blacktail weighed!

Ted

shot these two with the same 200gr AB. hit the sow in the neck then hit the piglet

STX... gruesome, dude... simply GRUSOME! I like 'em!

Reminds me of some of the ground squirrel vs 22-250AI photos I have.

Two with one shot, doesn't happen often I am guessing. Good shooting there, for sure.

110 Grain Accubond from a Bob to the head seemed to work.



120 Gr TSX out of 7mm-08 in the shoulder worked equally well.


Both DRT. The TSX didn't pass through but was found in the opposite shoulder and weighed 119.9 grains. I like them fine.

UPDATE! OKAY GUYS! I went out this morning for another test. Today was pouring and the pigs were all over the vineyards rootin' around. They were mostly sows with piggies and a few small boars. I decided to hunt the other side of a ridge where big boars are known to hang out. 4 hours and nothing until this small dude came out, I decided he was good enough. This is a down hill shot @ 133 yards quartering away. It hit the 6th rib behind the right shoulder, punched through the top of both lungs and exited the high left shoulder. No bullet to recover but this time much better than the first experience.This time the bullet seemed to work, punching a good size exit hole, the lungs were torn up good too. The boar took off for a 100 yard dash, lots of blood. I would like to shoot more pigs and test it more but the rain was pouring hard and I was wet and cold so I called it a day. Here are the result, not a big boar but good for a test.

i shot this one with a 180 AB out of the 300wm at 198 yard. he was facing me the bullet hit dead center between the eyes about two inchs down from them. bullet didn't exit on this one

Vital Kill,

Great job there, man! Good shooting and looks like a good one for the freezer.

What you are showing there is what I have been seeing for years. I do not have a good explanation for what may have happened with piggy number 1 but good on ya for giving a great bullet a longer testing period. Do keep the test results coming.

Good hunting,

MARK

That is got to be one of the strange color combinations I have ever seen!

"he was facing me the bullet hit dead center between the eyes about two inchs down from them. bullet didn't exit on this one "
WOOF!!!
I'll be that smelled pretty...

You guys are so lucky to be able to shoot feral piggies, I'd love to my christen 500 Jeffery on a piggy. I guess I'll have to wait for elk season ...



Chuck

Lucky? Not if your a landowner, they have long since reached plague status here.

vital kill, did I understand you to say you still had two tags left for hogs??!! Please don't tell me California requires tags for a pest thats gonna take over half the damn country if we're not careful.

Perhaps they need the hogs to feed their protected mountain lions?

They are considering bountys on hogs here in Central TX because of the damage they are doing.

I admit they are fun to shoot though.

Bill

Well tags for pigs started out at $5 for 5 tags simply as a means of trying to track the total population and number killed. I think they have now moved up to $5 each.

Unfortunetly I have never seen any signs of lions taking pigs other than piglets (or the turkeys crapping all over my yard). Instead they prefer to wipeout our blacktail population.

I agree. We're seeing them more and more here. I grew up on a farm with hogs and they have a lot of power to uproot everything. We thought the cold may limit them some but they appear to do fairly well. Our current laws are you don't need tags but need a valid license of any kind. Guess I'll be going squirrel hunting with my 358 Win..

Bill, have you been reading the papers lately? THIS STATE SUCKS A$$!!!!!!! If you're a hunter residing in the state of crap-o-fornia, you are shiet out of luck! It used to be $7 for 15 tags, now it's $19.70 for 1 tag! Our budget is out of control, "AH-NO" is driving this state crazy, they are taking away our guns and banning the whole state of lead bullets because of a ugly worthless bird, and the DFG is doing a really bad job of the wildlife managment. Our deer herds are declining every year, and they are going to kill off the stiped bass. The list goes on.....Montana, Colorado, Wyoming here I come!

I haven't seen this being reported in the media, but the Feral Pig is experiencing such a population explosion in some areas because these feral pigs are hybridized and have genetics that can be traced back to the Russian Boar that is a lot more rugged species.

These pics here don't look exactly like them, but the characteristics are age dependent... They are larger, with longer snouts, larger tusks, a lot more aggressive, and smarter....you guys that live in those areas have probably seen this already.

In their original habitat, they are a prized game animal. In Russia the Fish and Game equivalent has to support the population there to keep the population up. The environment is so harsh there the piglets don't survive winters, and the ones that do survive end up being the really tough ones and are much larger to withstand the cold winters. That keeps the numbers down over there, but in the US that control is non-existent.

Like the problem with other non-indigenous alien species, the wolf and killer bees, the problem will likely get a lot worse before it gets better...and there is not a known solution at this point.

TC

They've made inroads into Oregon, I hear.

I can't help but think it'd be fun to be able to hunt a big game animal 24/7/365... grin... but it sure sounds like they are the devil incarnate.

you can't kill'em fast enough to stop the damage they do. sows start breeding at 6-8 months and have 2-3 litters a year

Oh believe me I know, my mom grew up in Mexifornia, got out as fast as she could. My brother left his brain somewhere and moved there about 6 yrs ago, my sis-in-law had alot to do with it though. She's not anti-hunting or anything but lets just say otherwise her mentality fits right in, she grew up here and I guess it was to normal for her here ! I still have an uncle and a couple cousins there.

If all my family was out of there I could give a ratz a$! less if a giant quake hit and the whole damn state broke off and floated about 1000 miles into the Pacific and stayed there.

My apologies to the folks from California here, no personal offense meant. I know there is some good folks there, but you are the minority (no pun intended).

Bill

That was the official line behind their addition. However, it seems rather obvious that with all the plain ol' TSXs still out there it wouldn't be good for marketing endeavors to suggest that the tip was necessary for maximum reliability. However, I suspect that is the bigger reason behind the tip. That said, it's obvious that even the tip can't completely correct a problem that is undoubtedly always going to be an issue with relatively hard mono-metal bullet design.

I won't pound on this too much, but many hunters think that shooting half a dozen animals with a given bullet (usually deer from the same rifle and box of bullets) provides an idea of that bullet's capabilities. I have also heard more than one hunter talk about having killed 30-40 head of game in their lifetime as if that is a great amount of experience.

I dunno what the base-line is but it is more than 2-3 dozen animals. That is a beginning, but not really adequate to judge even one bullet design. Unless, of course, a high percentage "fail."

100 animals starts to provide a real look at bullet performance, especially over a period of several years, and includes a wide range of animal size---plus various weights, diameters and production lots of bullets.

That's how it works???
I thought it worked like this- You shoot a deer in Virginia with a 270, two antelope and an elk in Montana with BArnes bullets and a 300 magnum over 25 years- Then, you have the claim that you have hunted from coast to coast with the 30 calibers over 3 decades, taking several species of big game. This gives you expert status on all deer, antelope and elk rounds in general, and Grand Poobah status on all Barnes bullets in every weight and caliber, all 270 bullets and all all 30 caliber bullets. Bingo! Instant expert staus, just by changing the way you reframe your hunting experience!
That is, of course, all tongue in cheek.
Not tongue in cheek is this- Two dozen animals is probably the very very least number of animals that would yield any reliable information of bullet reliability, and may be so low that it actually gives more mis information than true information. Stop and think- If a bullet gives less than satisfactory perfomance once out of very 50 times, that certainly isn't going to be acceptable, yet AIN'T gonna show up often in your sample of 24.
Yet, there are people here, that pounce on every bullet question with with the conviction usually only seen in Televangelists, about the suitability and comparitive performance of every bullet weight and manufacture in every caliber on every game animal. Lacking, almost always, is how many animals at what range they have killed or seen killed with said bullet.
To say with any actual veracity that a bullet A is better than bullet B for elk, for example, given that both are fairly reasonable choices for elk, I think you would have to have samples of at least 5 shots for each bullet placement for each bullet, ie five shoulder shots, five lung shots, five quartering shots at 25 yards, 100 yards, 200 yards, 300 yards and 400 yards., at a bare minimum. That's 75 shots with each bullet. The average hunter may in one career garner enough info to talk with authority about one or two bullets. And, by the time the avergae hunter gets that info, the bullets have been redesigned so that info isn't valuable.
The more info we get about new bullets the better, but wrong info is worse than no information. Professional hunters, many gun writers and the experiences of fellow hunters THAT ARE GOOD OBSERVERS are valuable. Vaguely described "failures" while interesting, are nebulous predictors, at best.
The point of all this is to throw more weight behind the opinions of professional hunters, guides and gunwriters that work seriously at their trade on predicting bullet performance. And, perhaps, to suggest that when someone begins pontificating about bullet performance, to ask exactly how many animals of what species and what range they have seen killed with said bullet.

Royce

Royce and Mr. Barsness,

Is credible information, as presented by the original poster on this thread, considered reliable enough by you to serve as a data point?

I ask, because just this year there were at least 3-4 unexpanded TSX's pictured "on the internet" that *I* saw. All seemed credible. As does this thread's originator.

Curious as to whether or not you give ANY weight to stuff you read or see a picture of. Thanks.

-jeff

Jeff O
I should not be mentioned in the same sentence with JB
-
JB is a gunwriter and hunter of enormous experience and impeccable qualifications- I, on the other hand am a hunter of less than average skills and expeience-
I find the bullet experiences posted here to be valuable information. They state exactly what happened and give added insight to that bullets performance.
What I am Ping and moaning about is two things that happen on most bullets threads- People with a little experience with a bullet claiming that their small experience defines that bullets performance- and secondly, people reframing their hunting experiences to make it sound as though they have more experience than they actually do-
Example- I could truthfully say that I have carried the 338, 30/06 and 270 for deer, elk, antelope and bears using Barnes bullets, Patitions, Ballistic Tips and Interlocks from Maine to Montana to Alaska. That is true. It also sounds as though I have tons of experience- But, I never killed anything in Alaska, only have killed two little black bears, and have only used Barnes bullets on some diminutive deer and one hapless cow elk. So, when the spin is taken off, my actual experience is pretty paltry. It's called "reframing".
Sorry for the rant-

Fred

Fred

Royce, no worries, I wasn't attacking you in any way. I was just trying to get a read on how others view it when, say, you see a pic of an unexpanded TSX or, for that matter (to pick on my favorite bullet) a blown-up Accubond.

The internet is one heck of a social experiment, unheard of in human history. I think it dwarfs even that of the printing press, though the one was a necessary precursor to the other. There is SO MUCH information out there. How one filters it becomes the real question.

Thanks for the reply, Fred.

I have had about 4 total failures with Barnes Bullets including obersvation of some more by hunting partners and in all fairness I have seen them perform to perfection on buffalo in various calibers....

I also agree with Mule Deer that it takes hundreds of animals to come up with a correct account on any bullet..but if I get 4 failures from a bullet, then you can bet your sweet bippie that I am not going to give that bullet any more chances, even if it is a fluke...That is just my unforgiving nature or at least until a lengthy amount of time passes or I take a nap and my past life disapears, then I usually will give it another chance!

We've got the little oinkers here, too. Great thing is, they decided to BAN HUNTING in about three counties were the pigs are most abundant so they can "study them". Not sure if the PGC caught the memo from other states that feral pigs are a pest and nuisance, not a new game animal worth studying..

"Re: Barnes TTSX, disappointment"

With the all around quality of today's big game bullets, I think that disappointing shooting failure rate far exceeds the bullet failure rate. There will always be more bad shooters, or badly placed shots by good shooters, than bad bullets.

But then I think NBTs are a great all around bullet so what do I know.

I hope I will bring GOOD NEWS back from Africa. I have forty of the little jewels loaded, packed and ready for action. These are of the 210 gr TTSX from my pre 64 338-06. Accuracy is great and now we shall see if they work on eland, nyala, sable, kudu, zebra,etc. Will advise results on my return the third week in June. If I get one negative result it will be a steady diet of 375 H&H, 300 gr Woodleighs for the remainder of the hunt.

I don't know if this is the right way to look at this.

A design can be proven by a very small number of trials. The manufacturing process used to produce the bullets is proven by statistical analysis of the sampled product more like you describe.

You can have a very well designed bullet that is simply too difficult to manufacture consistently. That certainly was my experience many years back with cup and core bullets. The were less than consistent as related to accuracy and less than consistent when they hit game. Steadily we have improved both design and process to where today we have very highly predictable accuracy and terminal performance.

Today we face limitations of design running up against actual use. A cup and core bullet will deform and deflect on hitting bone, even rib, to the point it may not produce a lethal wound even when properly aimed. Too much velocity on cup and core bullets can guarantee failure resulting from rapid deconstruction of the bullet. Too little velocity on any bullet can guarantee failure due to inadequate expansion.

Damage to the bullet from normal handling may cause failure to expand in the case of the monometals or failure of the bullet to fly true. Regardless of the result, damage from normal handling can cause failure and needs to be considered separately from failure related to design or process.

If the design has changed, even slightly, during the test then 50 or 100 or 200 trials do not make a test. Likewise the manufacturing process and the end user's handling.

It is my considered opinion that for instance Barnes has had process problems related to the hollow point design of the X bullet, and that they have had some design problems with the TSX bullets, and that those problems resulted in changes the end users have noted in the bullets and likely in the performance of the bullets. I have noted changes in NPs and other bullets over the years that are in all probability much the same.

With the tolerances in process being so tight, and the precision of design being so critical today I think we need to reconsider how we look at bullets. Small changes like slight alloy variation or tool wear or minute machine adjustment are entirely capable of radical alteration in performance. I can see working up a load for a rifle and having maybe a box of ammo left out of the 50 or 100 you started with, and the next box of bullets comes out of a different lot with different performance characteristics, maybe forcing a modification in your load.

You and I may have very different loading practices that could well effect the test. Maybe I don't chamfer and debur and that buggers up the boat tails a little bit and my accuracy sucks now and then. Maybe you just throw charges out of the measure and into the brass without weighing, and now and then you throw one light enough to make a difference. Thus your test and my test are not equal.

The instant test, a single shot on a single animal, the pencil holed pig, is of an by itself a valid test. We need to understand how a monometal bullet with a protective plastic tip could have done this. Normal variables would not seem to account for this radical a failure since the monometal construction would seem to make for more uniform performance.

Obviously a high percentage of failures would indicate either a bad design or bad process or both. Barring that, correct performance on two or five or ten or 100 tests by one individual probably do not matter so much as say 25 by a number of people.

This is why BOB made the Partition!

This is why BOB made the Partition!

This is why BOB made the Partition!

Ray: I have not used Barnes bullets on game, but notice a lot of the "problems" seem to be associated with the smaller calibers; I notice (hear, read) the guys shooting animals with the 375's seem very pleased with them.I looked at a couple of 235 TSX 375 bullets that were pretty impressive, fired into eland and kudu.

Do you think the somewhat larger cavities on the 375 help uniform expansion? Or is it just easier to make larger caliber bullets that expand well?

What bullet weights and calibers did you see have a problem?

Bob, Ray: you guys both know by now I'm a big TSX fan,never seen anything dissappointing happen with any of them in any cartridge.However, as Mule Deer stated, I am one of those more in the "sample" realm of dozens, rather than hundreds, of animals.
As I go along I've found fans and detractors for literally every kind of bullet on the market. I'm a Nosler fan,and refer to the partition as one of the few sure bets in life, but I've heard the opposite....Was just talking to Mule Deer yesterday about Sierra boolits ( I am not a fan...) Bottom line of course is that I've seen erratic terminal performance with GKs, and the bottom line with that of course is because we recovered them from DEAD animals....not exactly bullet "failures".....So you go with what you like, and what works for you, and then we all have something to discuss around the Campfire, virtual or real...
Ingwe

The vitals on a hog are farther forward than many folks think. Behind the shoulder is likely a liver or gutshot. Just above the leg/body junction, through the plate are the goodies if one isn't taking the ear shot... Farther forward will increase the "Luck" with about any bullet. Ear is a DRT. Angles on body shots are very critical, as well.

http://www.dixieslugs.com/anatwpig.htm

Ingwe: My experiences with Barnes bullets are purely anecdotal,except at the range.For some reason I have never gotten around to them.I just watch and listen.My question to Ray was in response to what I have seen on here.

I shoot a lot of Sierra's,but have not used one on game(other than varmints)in years.But they are useful in load work-up because they are accurate and seem to correspond nicely with Nosler Partitions,those sure things.

I would love to try those 120 gr TTSX in my 7mm Dakota, though!

I still wanna pull the tip on a TTSX and shoot something with it.

Sam: Let us know how that works out!

Sam, I can show you how...I'm a "trained professional"
I'll bring the hemostats, you bring the IPAs
Ingwe

You'll be the first to hear Bob!


I don't think expansion will be a problem Ingwe although the BC might not be so great.

IPA's.....Need to go to the store.


Talk to you boys later.

Do ya think Bambi will notice?
Ingwe

I took out a medium size boar ( 100#-120#) last weekend with a '06 shooting 168 TSX's. Shot him between the eyes at approx. 97 steps. No exit but the impact cracked the skin on his cheeks. He hit the ground, did the Curly shuffle one time and gave it up. Maybe a tbl. spoon of blood on the ground. Oh, and a gallon of fleas.

BP...

Miles most of the above is biased BS. Any bullet can deflect on striking a animal.
And if you want to talk about inconsistent performance the TSX has to be right up there.

Quoted by Mule Deer



Very True! I agree!





My first time hunting experience using Barnes bullets on elk mirrored these same results, in 1991

18 years later and a wide range of hundreds of animals shot by various hunters and calibers, Barnes bullets still polarize the peanut gallery.



Why is that?

My take, because it is a known fact that Barnes has no way
of controlling the copper they buy and use.

It's all in the copper good and bad.
They buy copper on the open market that is not suitable to making bullets.

It comes down to a crap shoot when you shoot them.

That may be good enough for some but not for me.

I would rather shoot a good cup and core than a Barnes.

+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.