Has anybody used the 130 grain Barnes tipped TSX bullet. Is it really a big game bullet ?. and how big can you go with it let’s say in a 30/06. Limited to deer or can you go as high as elk

I have been using them for years in my .300 Win Mag. Shoot like lasers. I've killed one whitetail and several big feral hogs with them. Everything shot went down, quickly. These were just about all shoulder shots.

Mike Holmes

I’ve killed deer, pigs, and Aoudads with them.

I think it's a fantastic big game bullet. Harvested a whitetail buck approx 170 pounds last fall never traveled a step through and through with my 308 win. Check out reviews o that bullet on Midway usa. Lots of good info.

Good luck and shoot straight

grayfox,

My wife killed a BIG cow elk with one last fall. The elk was quartering toward Eileen at about 250 yards, and the bullet landed maybe an inch above the left shoulder joint, breaking the thick end of the scapula. The cow staggered about 20-25 yards before collapsing. We found the remains of the bullet under the hide toward the read of the ribs on the other side.

The cartridge was the .308 Winchester, and muzzle velocity about 2900 fps.

I use the 62 Barnes at around 2900 in my AR on pigs. It will go from nose to ass through a 200 lb pig. It will break both shoulders, keep on going. A 130 at that same velocity should take down a pretty big animal.

Hey Mule Deer,

When you say you found the "remains of the bullet", does that mean it was in pieces, or did you find the bullet intact? I may be dropping down to a lighter then 168 grain Barnes X in my 30-06 this fall for one of the grandkids. Moose, caribou and bear on the menu.

Found the bullet without any petals, weighing 80.5 grains, though one detached petal was an inch or two away.

Thanks for the info Mule Deer. Maybe I will stick with the 168 TTSX version or try the 150 grain one. Still, her elk died quickly from the sounds of it and is bigger then the caribou we will shoot.

I've used the 130's from my 30/06 on whitetails with excellent results. Great accuracy and I've never recovered one from any angle.

1Akshooter,

I have some experience with caribou, having taken a dozen bulls myself, and probably witnessed that many more taken by my companions. They're noticeably easier to drop than elk--though of course any big game animal isn't long for the world if a bullet penetrates sufficiently through the right part of the anatomy.

This is what it looked like on the offside side of this hog. Only one I've ever recovered. 308 Winchester, MV 3100fps









It works on deer and coyotes, all from a 300 Savage

I dropped back to the 110 at about 3000 FPS for deer in the .308. Still have not recovered one.

John,

2900 is well below what's possible for that bullet in a .308. You've written that your wife has less tolerance for recoil of late. Was that loaded down for that reason?

Thanks.

I have killed a lot of deer with Barnes of a lot of different calibers and weights. My favorite is the 130 and TSX or TTSX doesn't matter to me. I have never recovered one. The closest I have come to any kind of performance that was less than perfect was a 300 WM pushing a 150 grain XLC at about 3250 FPS. Into the teeth of a deer at 25 feet out through the cervical spine taking the brain stem on the way. That one sheared at least one petal because I found that down in a spinal process just above the pelvis. Other than that I have never personally recovered one, and never found or saw evidence of any other sheared petal(s). Every single one made two holes. Some passed through a godawful amount of bone on the way through. 100% one shot kills. Zero lost deer. Clear and very respectable evidence in every case of good expansion and wound channel. Longest run was about 70 yards. at least about 1/3 never took a step, and only about 1/2 of them were brain stem shots. Despite hitting bone, I have never observed any evidence of significant deflection inside any of the deer.

Pappy,

Yep, that's exactly why the 130 isn't loaded to max in her .308--and was loaded that fast only after we had a muzzle brake installed a couple years ago. Before the brake the most velocity she could tolerate from the 130's without getting headaches was around 2650. Which is exactly why the previous cow elk she killed, in 2014 I believe, was taken with her NULA .257 Roberts and a 100-grain TTSX loaded to 3150--which also worked great.

Before she started getting recoil headaches, the standard load in the pre-brake .308 was the 150-grain Nosler E-Tip at just about exactly the velocity we're loading 130's to now.

I have not, but keep the house guns loaded with the 130 gr TSX version at 2800 fps, the homemade bullet testing media, to include wet and dry newsprint, hard glossy magazines from Wifey as well as random cow leg, femur, and jaw bones stuffed tight in the boxes tells me ANY 130 gr TSX/TTSX would be more than fine in your '06 for elk or any other animal in the U.S.

The 130 is equal or better to 150 cup and core type bullets. The old advice of dropping down one bullet size for monos works for the 130's. Additional velocity never hurts with the them either. I think I am going to get radical and drop down to the 110s in the 300 WM as the extra velocity could be a good thing for short to medium ranges. For heavier game I will stick with the 130s and 180s as an all around load.

Maybe those 130's would be good in the old Mod. 99 caliber .300 Savage my Father left me? Might just breath some new life into the old rifle. If I could just find the old dies that I saw a couple of years ago...……..

I don't know about your 300, but I know another one that produced stellar accuracy with them and kills deer dead for it's owner. I wouldn't use anything else but the Barnes 130s in a 300 Savage.

Scroll up to Steelhead's post regarding the 130 Barnes in a 300Sav M99

This particular Savage 99 settled on 2,780 fps with the 130 TTSX. It accounted for my first-ever "3-fer" on the TX hog hunt this Spring:







It's just a beautiful combination of weapon, cartridge, and projectile.


FWIW, I've driven this bullet from three .300 Savages rifles, all with H4895. One of the bolt guns was pushing them at 2,960 fps. That gets one an awful lot of killing capability for a paltry amount of recoil & muzzle blast.


FC

My recent trip to NW Namibia using the 168 gr TSX via a 30-06 FN Supreme has led me and my PH at the time more than pleased.

And that had nothing to do with the OP's post. Another compelling band camp story.

55gr of Varget behind the 130gr TTSX in my 30-06 has exceeded my expectations in accuracy and performance on game. It is my go to bullet for Deer and would have no problem using it for Elk.

What velocity are you getting with that combo?

30-06 with Barnes 130 grain TTSX bullets.I was still hunting in a CRP grass field when a doe and this buck jumped up at about 25 yards and tried to high tail it.
At about 50 yards I had already decided he was a shooter and had the crosshairs on the top of his tail.Pulled the trigger and down he went. Bullet entered his spine at the base of his tail and blew out about eight inches of spine then travel through his body,down his windpipe and out his nose.An almost perfect X scar was the last thing the bullet left in that deer's nose on its way out.

Year before I was able to take a doe and her button buck son with one shot about 40 yards with the same load. Button buck dropped in his tracks and the bullet stopped in the far side of the doe with a center mass hit.She only made it about 100 yards.

I would use these bullets on about anything except big bears.

Right in the kisser. Okay, Just a bit north.
I bet that deer hit the ground real quick.

This is the same load that we use. I've put a lot of deer on the ground with that combo. It is the only thing that I have used from my -06 in over a decade. Never recovered a bullet. Never missed with it. Never lost a deer. Never left wanting for more.

My experience over the years has shown me that the 130TTSX gives a similar performance to the old 180 CoreLokt that I used for years before that.

I will be trying the 110TTSX black tip this fall instead, just for the heck of it and to see if I can get even less recoil with flatter trajectory.

I've been thinking about 130 X for the 308. Just need the Barnes data. Have a neat little Ruger tang safety fullstock to sight in.

It's available online.

You can start at 40 grs of Varget and a chronograph.