I have a stainless Ruger M77 MKII 30-06 that shoots this stuff into nearly the same hole at 100yds. I am wondering if it is too tough for medium to small whitetail. Anyone with real world experience with this bullet?

shot many with the exact same bullet out of a 308 fired at 2740 FPS.. at all different distances out to just shy of 500 yards. and that bullet made it damn near all the way through the deer chest to ass..

I would expect that based on other calibers I have shot using this bullet, but wondering if it will pencil through a broadside shot at a 130 lb whitetail at 200ish yards.

Use Barnes 168 TSX out of 30-06 on a mule deer few years back, the shot was approximately 180 yards, hit him three times in the shoulder and he was still standing, all three shots hit the same place and exit wound was as big as a fist, had to finish him off with friends 6mm and soft point bullet, dropped like a rock. Ever since then I started using lighted bullets on deer.

I've used Barnes since '90. If in doubt, I shoot them on the "High Shoulder", to break them down. Antelope, deer, elk, try and hit bone. None of us will starve to death because of some bloodshot meat, but you "can" if they run off, not to be found! If you can though, in that 30-06 it would be better to drop down to the 130 TTSX and get after it! OR, check out the lightweight Hammers. Good luck to you sir.

At normal ranges I think deer are best shot with cnc bullets.

I grew up in SE Texas so I know the deer are small. I used the 150 Corlokt in the 30-30 and in the 30-06. I later tried some Sierra 165 SBT in the '06 and it didn't tear them up as bad.

I’ve used the 168 TTSX plenty in the 30-06. Never been a problem.

Sounds like good terminal performance with that kind of exit hole. Wonder what went wrong and why he was still on his feet.

Because no two game animals react the same to being shot.

Are you making this up or trolling?

Agree as a rule, but this rifle shoots these bullets so well it pains me not to use them lol.

True, but still sounds like the bullet opened up nicely at moderate range/velocity.

I never had a problem with a TTSX not opening up.
They open up better than the TSX in the smaller calibers, but MD and others could verify or not that thought.

It seems to me you’re using a sledge hammer to drive a nail. Sledge hammers will drive nails. But if it shoots very well in your rifle, I’d try it. Sorry but know personal experience with that combination.

Everyone touts these at high velocity but a couple decades ago the veteran African writer Gregor Woods wrote about some bullet testing done by a retired American vet on game animals and the conclusion with hundreds of game animals was the TSX in 30 06 with an impact velocity of about 2400 fps provided best bullet upset namely, petals peeled back 90 degrees and offering a scythe like cutting motion through all tissue encountered.

I've used this bullet in my 300WSM for 11 years.

In NA, I've shot moose, MD, WT, pronghorn.

In South Africa, I've shot 23 head of plains game from common duiker to eland. The bullet flatout works.

Not making it up, could be that TSX didn't open up as well on lighter game as TTSX, used the same bullet TSX on multiple elk without a problem.

With an exit wound as big as a fist, how did the bullet fail?

It didn't fail, it anchored the buck and eventually he would have died but he just stood there staggering on his feet so instead of waiting I shot him again with 6mm soft point which blew up its lungs causing immediate death. Three TSX bullets passed through the buck and tore chunks of bone on the opposite side/leg but didn't do enough internal damage to kill him quickly.

my recovered that bullet and it was pretty much textbook expansion if I can find it I will send a picture..

now that I'm thinking about digging for that bullet I'll be straight up I can't honestly remember if it was a TSX or a TTSX ..

Similar experience here--with cartridges from the .30-06 to .300 Winchester Magnum.

I had similar experience with the TSX from my 300 Weatherby. Mine penciled through a shoulder and top of the heart. Two more shots took him down. First bullet looked like he had been shot by an arrow with a field tip.

Switched to the TTSX and it is devastating on deer.

Barnes told me that the 168 gr tSX/TTSX was designed for 30=06 velocities and the 165 gr TSX/TTSX was designed for .30 magnum velocities.

I've used the 168 grain TTSX in both the .30-06 and the .300 Win Mag and it's worked very well on elk and African plains game up to Kudu. I haven't used it on deer as I usually use smaller calibers for deer hunting. However, I shot a reedbuck and an oribi with it in a .30-06 and they were DRT, so it works fine on smaller animals.

It's the internet. People can say whatever they want with zero risk of it ever being verified.

I've twice spoken face to face with Barnes representatives, including a design engineer at SCI Conventions. The 168gr TTSX was in actuality the first LRX. It just wasn't labelled as an LRX. Subsequent bullets designed the same were labelled LRX.

We all know that an LRX works in magnums. I load a 270gr LRX in my 375H&H. My buddy used the 270gr LRX in his 375H&H on 4 cape buffalo bulls in Namibia's Caprivi Strip. He had no complaints. The chiefs (the buffalo were all shot on chief's permits) were happy with the meat for their feast.

Not for not but my favorite deer bullet has long been the NP. No thread drift just offering a counter point. However, if the OP has a load and a rifle that shoots then he ought to use it and tell us about it.

Most of my deer hunting shots have been around 100 yards, +/- 25 yards here in the SE. I've found the plain old Hornady 165 Spire Point to work very well for deer, even the two large bodied deer we shot in Kansas the past two seasons with a 308. My son shot his deer in the chest straight-on at 100 yards last year, found bullet in the hind quarter, mine was similar. If I were hunting something larger, I'd use the TTSX but maybe overkill with the 30 cal for deer sized game.

As much as I like the Nosler Partition, last price check was $69 a box compared to $32 for the Hornady Spire Point.

Have you never seen weird totally differing results with those and other SBT game kings? I have seen quite a few.

The TTSX has never given a weird issue.

Of course you might have to go look for them a bit. But never lost a deer to a ttsx. Can't recall that either with tsx. Or even the old X.

We have lost a couple to cup and core, even with a dog. Somehow the bullet didn't do something correctly. In fact only a few years back we had one survive a Berger wound from 6.5 creed moor through the heart lung area. Killed it with a barnes ttsx 223 round about 3 weeks later. It had been very sick. Lost weight etc...

If I NEED to know a bullet will work its gonna be a barnes TTSX every last time. Hammers have frags coming off and it may help but its not my cup of tea.

Oh sure, but the Sierra Pro Hunters and the heavier for caliber SBTs did fine. I had a Hornady 180 IL act weird on my first cow elk. I was shooting the Hornady Light Magnum 30-06 at 2910fps. I hit her running around 135 steps, first shot in the spine, she rolled, and tried to get up. I then popped her high lung shot. First one broke her spine but wadded up right there. No pass through. Second blew through lungs but fragmented, left marks against the far ribs. I felt it was the starting speed. The Hornady 150 going 3000 in my handloads acted like partitions on deer, I think that 180 just had a thin nose/lots of soft lead up front. I too have always enjoyed total success with Barnes, on anything with anything until ... "one weird Barnes incident."

Shot a Black Hawaiian Ram around 30yds with a 100 TSX/257 BEE going 3500 or so from muzzle. It hit "keyhole", screwed up the ram for sure, but I had heard of that before. Upon leaving the bore, a long for caliber bullet has a bit of "yaw" and it was still unstable upon entrance.

Jim Knight, I've had one unexplained anomaly with the Barnes 168TTSX. It was on a bull blue wildebeest that was coming out of the bush quartering to me at about 200yds. I aimed just in front of the right shoulder. At the shot, the bull was down with legs in the air. I felt a couple of congratulatory back slaps, just as the bull jumped up and took off like a race horse.

The brush was fairly thick and I could only spot it every few dozen yards, I could not get on it. It was sick enough that we recovered it. That first shot entered where I aimed, but it came out dead center through the bottom of the chest, not far behind the legs. Only the onside lung was damaged, no significant damage to the heart and arteries.

Why did the bullet take a 90° turn in the middle of the body? In my experience, the Barnes goes straight through an animal. We"ll never know. I had the scope on 4x. Neither I, nor the PH with his 8 or 10 power binoculars noted any branches in the way. But that is my only hypothesis, there was an unseen branch close in front of the bull and the impact with the branch caused the bullet to tumble before hitting the bull. It continued tumbling in the bull and made an abrupt turn before exiting.

Crap happens sometimes.

IMO, the only bullet I've used that I would trust as much as a Barnes is the discontinued Winchester Failsafe. What a wonderful bullet. Just too expensive to make. Federal has some similarly constructed bullets like the Terminal Ascent etc. If you don't handoad, those might be worth a try.

Never have been much of a Partition fan. Especially watching my Dad shoot a WT buck right behind the shoulder at about 150 yards. The onside ribs and the entire shoulder was destroyed (meat was bloodshot/jellified). I left the shoulder for the coyotes, it was not salvageable. What a waste.

I know the front of a Partition is soft and expands rapidly and the rear keeps penetrating, but a main reason we hunt is for the meat. If it excessively damages the meat, it is not for me, especially when the Barnex doesn't.

Yeah, I guess I've turned into a Barnes pimp.

BTW people, it looks inevitable that lead free bullets will be mandated in the next 10-20 years. I'm trying to get every big game caliber I have shooting a lead free Barnes. FYI, for varmints like fox and coyote, i'm a VMax guy. (FYI, hornady rep at SCI says they have a new Varmint bullet coming out this year. It is not replacing the VMax).

They will work in spades for all critters big and small........................................................

I started using the 168 TTSX when it came out, have used them exclusively in my 300 Wby ever since. Deer and elk, near and very far with superb results every time. I was also a Fail Safe user all thru the '90s, several calibers used from lower 48 to Alaska to Africa. Great bullets although not as accurate as the TTSXs have been.

Ditto on those Failsafes. I shot alot of the factory Winchester 270 140's from an old Belgium made BAR. I couldn't beat their accuracy with handloads! Also took a few head of PG in S. Africa with Winchester Factory 375 H&H/270gr Failsafes. Wicked. I also like the Barnes LRX bullets, just a tad softer up front. I'm a little bit leary of the mono's made from "Bullet Jacket Material"...never had good accuracy with them in what few I've tried.

Which brand is that?

I believe the Nosler ETip is made of gilding metal. Or was? Their website says it is all copper. https://www.nosler.com/products/bullets/product-line/expansion-tipr.html

The newer Hornady CX says it is all copper. https://www.nosler.com/products/bullets/product-line/expansion-tipr.html I do not believe the original monometal from Hornady was made of gilding metal.

I believe my memory is right, the original Nosler ETip was made of gilding metal, or a mix of copper and gilding metal. It would appear they changed it.

To my knowledge , Nosler has made only one version of mono bullet and that is the "E-tip". They have always been made of a Copper alloy - not pure Copper


The first mono-metal Hornady bullets were called the "GMX". What do you think GMX stands for?

I also just checked Hornady's website and by their own words, "CX" stands for "Copper ALLOY expanding".
By definition, an alloy is not pure .

Yep.

But have had great results with the E-Tip, including the 90-grain 6mm from a .240 Weatherby, 100-grain from a .257 Weatherby, 150 from a .308 Winchester, and the 180 from both the .300 WSM and .300 Winchester Magnum--on game from pronghorns to elk-size. Started using them in 2007--which was the same year Barnes introduced the TTSX. So far haven't seen any vast difference on game--but then can say the same thing about various monolithics since around 2000....

The 168 gr ttsx has a lower velocity on the bottom end of expansion window than other ttsx’s I was told. It should work well for deer sized game. You might have to track some a hundred yards or so, like many other bullets.

I have shot small whitetails and blacktails with The 168 TTSX and the TSX and have not had any "pencil thru". I personally have had no TSXs or TTSXs fail to expand. I have seen pics of several unexpanded TSXs of very calibers and weights that did not expand properly.

I have also shot several cow elk and wild boar with the TTSX and TSX with very little drama.

Awhile back on another forum, I requested anybody to post pics of TTSXs that had failed to expand and I don't recall getting a single response.

Each Barnes caliber/bullet weight/configuration has a different minimum expansion velocity. Many of them are the same but many are different. For example, the minimum expansion velocity for the 308 168 TTSX and TSX is 1500 fps but the 165 is 1800 fps and if IIRC the 150 grain was higher than the 165 grain. This was per Barnes tech support. When I asked them why the 150 grain was so high, they said it was because for whatever the 150s were very popular with 300 Win Mag shooters.

I struggle with the concept of animals not going down immediately or running too far because of "penciling thru" or other bullet failures. Sure it can happen and sometimes there is a recovered bullet showing lack of penetration or lack of expansion. But often there is no evidence of what the cause was just speculation - i.e. no recovered bullet or animal. But I would say two things - 1) Sh*t happens when animals get hit meaning - weird reactions and 2) Some animals just don't want to die.

I have taken about a 100 big game animals (not a huge sample size) but three were very memorable. The first, in Utah that took 4 150 grain Hornady Interlocks to the chest at about 150 yards and just wouldn't fall down. The second, in NM that took 3 250 grain TSXs to the chest and just kept walking (with only a small amount of stagger) before it fell down. The third a very large wild board who took 3 308s thru the vitals and a 375 HH stern to chest before he would stay down.

But in summary - 1) use those 168 TTSXs, they work well and 2) nothing is guaranteed even with very good shot placement.

I use 150 gr. Barnes TTSX in my 30-06 for deer. They have performed just fine. In general, I am a big fan of mono-metal projectiles even though I do not live in a state that requires them. I like shooting deer on the shoulder to break bones. I prefer to anchor the deer as best as I can due to the often very thick vegetation where I hunt. I would rather lose a little bit of shoulder meat than maybe lose a whole deer. Also, I prefer exit holes. These Barnes projectiles, regardless of weight, usually give me that. Finally, I like the mono-metals because in many of the areas I hunt, close shots are far more common than long shots. With mono-metals, I know that if I get a 15 yard shot, I can hold on the should and not worry about the projectile coming apart.

The primary reason I use the 150 gr. TTSX, in addition to the performance characteristics that I mentioned above, is that they shoot well in my rifle. However, I would not hesitate to use the 168 gr. options if they shot as well. Actually, I would prefer the 130 gr. variety. However, they are not currently available in 30-06 factory ammunition, and I do not currently handload.

"I have shot small whitetails and blacktails with The 168 TTSX and the TSX and have not had any "pencil thru". I personally have had no TSXs or TTSXs fail to expand. I have seen pics of several unexpanded TSXs of very calibers and weights that did not expand properly."

What cartridge / approximate impact velocities?

This is factory Barnes 30-06 ammo. 2800 MV, so should hold 1500 fps for several hundred yards I would think.

TnBigBore,

308 Win, 300 WSM, 30-06 muzzle velocities from 2700-3100. Impact velocities between 2600 to 2100.

Check SPS, Nosler’s outlet for 2nds. I just got two boxes of 150 gr .308 NPT’s for $60+, headed this way. 60 cents not a bad price in todays dollars for a Partition. Those boxes are 50 bullets each.

DF

Have never seen a 165-168 TTSX, or a 168 TSX fail to expand, on a wide variety of game.

Have also such good luck with the TTSX in general that Eileen has used it as the bullet in her NULA .257 Roberts since the Tipped TSX was introduced in 2007. This includes pronghorns at 300+ yards, deer from whitetails does to a big mule deer buck, and this cow elk. It was quartering away in timber at 123 yards, and she put the bullet in the middle of the right ribs, aiming for the left shoulder. Based in past experience I expected it to go around 50 yards before falling, but it crumpled right there.

It turned out the bullet had ticked the bottom of the spine during its journey through both lungs, knocking off a 1" chunk of bone. My guess (also based on previous experiences) is that paralyzed the cow long enough for the holes through the lungs to do their work. (It was also one of the few TTSXs we've recovered, under the hide of the shoulder.)

The 168 TTSX is a great bullet but I’m also a big fan of Barnes bullets in general. I’ve recovered a few in game and every time I do I wonder what the alternative result with a different bullet might have been. When they get stopped, they have generally met with some fairly decent resistance.



They are heartbreakers for sure. :-)

I like the TTSX. For you guys stuck with non lead and wanting options, they’re out there.

Cutting Edge, Hammer and Lehigh are good. Check’em out. They not cheap, but probably worth the premium.

DF

Have had good luck with all three of those as well. In my experience it's hard to find a monolithic that doesn't work well these days. The technology has advanced considerably over the 35 years or so since Randy Brooks introduced the original X-Bullet.

Yep, Randy opened the gate, let the horses out. The rest, as they say, is history.

Yeah, technology has improved those bullets and we all benefit. Wonder how long it’ll take for no lead to become the national standard. It’s been said, what starts in CA….

So, not a bad idea to expand the mono envelope. You just never know.

DF

Just got in a new lightweight Sako rifle, a .308 Wiunchester--for a test article. Along with the rifle they also sent me a case of Sako ammo (200 rounds) with what they call the Sako Blade bullet. It's a 162-grain tipped monolithic at a listed velocity of 2674 fps--which looks remarkably like the Barnes TSX--except the plastic tip is "tri-tipped," with 3 grooves around the visible tip. Will be reporting on all this in an upcoming column for Sports Afield, but due to previous experience with Sako rifles and ammo suspect the combo will work well.

But am also hoping that I don't feel compelled to buy yet another .308....

It’ll be an interesting report.

Look forward to reading it.

DF

It sure as hell don't take "bug hole" accuracy or monothic bullets to kill deer at 200 yards.

I don't think anyone here is arguing that it does.

Exactly.

In my case, I want one unleaded bullet for anything I happen to hunt with a .30-06 or .308. The 168ttsx is on my radar because Barnes lists it as having a lower minimum velocity. I'm also not a fan of having to load something to the max to make it work properly.

That Vortex Factory load in my 22" Model 70 Featherweight chronographs at 2662fps. Handloads move that velocity up to around 2850fps. Best accuracy came from 60gn of H4350 in my rifle which tends to like a grain or 3 more than most other rifles.

All the deer and elk I’ve kilt with 165 TSX, 168 TTSX, and 175 LRX never ran more than a few steps and had adequate exit wounds and internal destruction. Never recovered a bullet to compare, just recovered dead critters. Same performance with 150 gr TTSX in 7mm. Why bother to switch?