Ruger270man;
Hopefully this finds you well and keeping warm enough on this frigid Tuesday morning sir.
While we've not done an exhaustive study on 6.5 bullets or even 6.5 Barnes bullets, there is a pretty good one here from BCSteve I believe it is. I'll try to find the link after.
Our eldest shoots an ancient Swede - 1903 vintage - that I modified for my late father in the '80's and he passed back to us before he died.
With it she's shot somewhere around 8 or 9 local mulie and whitetail bucks - all of them with the Barnes 130TSX excepting the first one which was a 120gr Sierra PH.
She has yet to stop one in a buck - which considering the sample size already speaks well of the bullet, of course taking the ensuing tissue damage into consideration as well.
She has yet to need to shoot more than one into a buck.
Some of them like this one were a long, long walk from where it was shot. I apologize that we don't use a range finder so I can't verify the distances, but I very clearly recall looking back at where she shot from and scratching my head on this one.
It broke either the scapula or attached bone - ulna? - on the way out and there was a good amount of damaged lung tissue indicating the bullet opened up adequately.
This one was standing in such a way that terrain and vegetation necessitated the shot placement be in the neck.
The interesting thing on this buck I felt was that on similar shots in the past using various cup and core .308" bullets fired from .308Win., '06, .300 WinMag and .308Norma, we've had the bullet come completely apart on the neck vertebrae.
The 130TSX did not come apart and destroyed two vertebrae on a good sized mulie neck at the same time. For comparison sake - the neck of her buck is on the left and an "average" 3rd rack Okanagan mulie is on the right.
Finally here's another good sized Okanagan mulie that was hit at what we consider a good hike on the other side of a little valley.
I'd have to go find my hunting notes on this one, but if memory serves the exiting 130gr TSX absolutely shattered that big knuckle that connects the scapula to that next bone below it - again sorry about terminology - ulna ??.
As you and most readers here know it's a skookum bone or about as tough a bone structure as a deer has and the bullet blew it to pieces on exit after doing adequate tissue damage to the heart/lung area.
Hopefully that was some use to you or someone out there this morning sir. Good luck on your bullet selection whichever way you decide and all the best to you in this upcoming week.
Regards,
Dwayne