After trying a few loads for my 12 year old grandson and several for the youngest daughters boyfriend both of the 30-06 rifles shot the best with 150 grain TTSX over 53.5 grains of Superformance. Way under an inch at 100 and over 3,000 feet per second in the grandson's Savage with a 22" barrel.

Shots in the lower sage country average about 300 yards but 400+ is possible for the adult hunter. I was happy to find one load that worked but was hoping to find it with 168's or 180's - any concerns on performance of the 150's?

Concerns? Are your knives sharp?

Absolutely no concerns other than as Mathman said.

Yep, just sharpen knives. TTSXs are as good as it gets.

...only concern will be finding the critters and how far the pack out is.

This. Shot a cow elk at 272yds with a 140gr TTSX from a .280 rem. She was quartered to me, hit the base of the neck on the right side, found the bullet in the left back strap.

Shooting and killing an elk with a 150 TTSX will be the least of your worries. Get ready to pack out some meat...

Only if you miss from what I've heard!

There are always concerns. But I wouldn't bworry about the 150g TTSX being adequate.

Daughter #1 is recoil sensitive so I've loaded 130g TTSX for her .308 Win, 3045fps.

which manufacture of the 30-06

One is lefty Savage Axis with a Leupold VX2 3-9 and the other is a TC Venture with a VX6 2-12.

I've shot a half-dozen bulls using the TSX BT (untipped version) in .270, 7mm, and .308 versions. Two weeks ago, I recovered my first such bullet, a 7mm 150 grain fired from a 7x61 at a distance of 200 yards. Bullet still weighed 150 grains, all four unbroken petals peeled back uniformly and the bullet expanded to .60 caliber.

The tipped bullets are supposed to expand more reliably than the TSX, and that may very well be true, but I have no complaints with the original version. Regardless, you've likely made a very good choice.

Not sure what your concern is - maybe impact energy/momentum. Neither would be an issue. Save the concerns for where you're gonna put all that elk meat!

Nothing wrong with a 150 from an -06 at all

Yes, I have lots of concerns.

Only to create controversy.

specneeds,

A couple weeks ago my wife dropped a big cow at 250 yards with one 130-grain TTSX from her .308 Winchester. The elk was quartering toward us, and the bullet broke the near shoulder just above the big joint and wrecked the lungs, ending up under the hide in the middle of the ribs on the other side.

Mule Deer,

How did the bullet look when you found it?

"How did the bullet look when you found it?"

Just a guess here, but I bet it was bloodier than before it was shot.

Got it Teeder I meant the mushroom/pedals/weight part.......................

jmp300wsm,

Yeah, it was bloody--and all the petals were gone, which I've seen happen a few times before when various petal-type bullets hit bone, including the Original X and Fail Safe. The stump retained 62% of the bullet's original weight, but I found one of the petals a couple inches away from the bullet.

There was obviously no need to shoot the elk again. It wobbled about 25 yards and keeled over.

Got it. Just wanted to see if it "penciled" through or not? Sounds like it performed as planned.

With copper bullets at 30-06 speeds the heavier bullets would be a disadvantage.

Yep, have never encountered any problems with Tipped TSX's expanding. Have seen standard TSX's not expand well a few times, but only in smaller calibers, especially one batch of .25's. But the same .25 bullet in the TTSX version has done very well on everything from pronghorns to cow elk.

I reckon after losing its petals, penciling thru is all it could do.

I have concerns too. Lay it out. Like to hear the negative side too.

A 150 TTSX will do just fine. I took a cow elk last year with the factory Barnes load. 1st shot was ~100 yds complete pass through taking out the off-side shoulder. 2nd shot (kill shot) was straight through the sternum at about 50 yards. I recovered the bullet in one of the backstraps and it looked exactly as Barnes advertises. Don't have a scale to weigh it, but I'd wager it retained pretty much all of its weight less the plastic tip.

Not a huge sample, but I've used 4 TTSX to take elk. 150 .308, 2 130 .308, 1 130 .277. All one shot kills and no recovered bullets. I did find a petal in a roast from a .308 130g started at 3000 fps. Glad I didn't break a tooth. I think the petals do break off at high impact speeds but that only helps with tissue damage. Just be careful where you bite in meat showing signs of impact!

Barnes can and do fail. All mono's do, and at a higher rate than other premiums. But I'd not sweat it. They'll still make a hole and kill, even if they fail to open. When they work, they work very well.

A few years ago I shot two cow elk with a 120 gr TTSX out of a 7mm-08 at roughly 125-150 yards. One cow hit the ground and slid about 20-25 yards downhill to her final resting place. The other cow, took the first bullet, stood still then took a second bullet and stumbled backwards about 5 yards into a downed tree top.

I'd have zero concerns using your proposed load. Good luck!!!

Blunt pencils and sharp pencils do make different wounds though.

Brad,

What data is this statement based on? My experience has been contrary.

I have seen Barnes fail enough that I doubt them & won't use them.

Everybody’s opinion is a composite of their experiences, unless we’re basing these statements on a large compilation of statistically meaningful data, which is why I asked.

In the factory .308 loads:

https://www.barnesbullets.com/files/2016/03/VOR-TX-ballistics-for-web.pdf

the 150 gr. mono shoots flatter and greater energy as the 168 grain bullet out to 500 yards.

the 30-06 data was too new to be published in this version, but I'm sure you would find the same as the .308 data, just add 200 fps/ 100 yards.

All bullets "fail". Too many variables to take into account to design anything to work 100% of the time. density of tissues, bones, angles, grass, trees, distance, velocity, twist rates, coreolis affect, whatever. The question is if you are able to recover the dead animal and find the bullet and determine that it didn't do what you expected/ is advertised to do... did it really fail?

OR

If you didn't recover the animal, how can you guarantee that the shooter/ shot placement wasn't the issue?

Those 2 questions can eb argued till the end of time... so forget about them

Just find something you/ the hunter is confident in and roll with it. IF the 150 TTSX shoot that well, they have plenty of juice out to the ranges you are talking about. I see no reason to try anything else. If 180gr. factory corelockt shoots great, then buy a case of that stuff andspend your life killing stuff with it.

I'm taking 130 gr TTSX load in .308 in the field this year for deer and hogs, 5 shot groups as fast as I could run them through my Kimber Adirondack could all be covered by a 1"x.5" square. Good enough for me from a 6#10oz, scoped, slung, fully loaded rifle with a buttstock ammo carrier holding 10 extra rounds. 6# even with 3+1 loaded.

I've had good luck with 180 grain Barnes TTSX out of a 300 Weatherby and I expect 150's moving over 3000 fps to be fine. The other option for the TC was 165 sierra game kings that grouped fine and might be good for elk but wouldn't be my first choice. I prefer broken bones and exit wounds to rapid expansion on elk. Hopefully next weekend we will get to see and then eat the results.

Reloder 28,

A TSX that loses its petals doesn't have a pencil-point, so hardly pencils through--partly because the petals don't necessarily fall of on impact. As my post noted, one of the petals was found a couple inches from the bullet--which was found under the hide on the far side of the elk.

I have seen a few bullets "pencil through" animals over the decades, and believe me, the minimal damage they do isn't anything like what occurred to this elk's lungs.

I understand. I should not be so critical. I should admit that I have taken one Elk cow with a 140 TTSX, 7 Wby, 3400 fps muzzle velocity. The bullet impressed me having made a straightline penetration from brisket to butt and beyond. It was pretty much a reverse Texas Heart Shot. The critter stumbled for 30 yards and toppled. And, the only pencil thin wound cavity was done by an original TSX.

I saw a lot of failures of the original Barnes X bullets on whitetails from guys in my hunting camp that used them. I got to trail more than a couple of wounded deer because of what I think was their failure to open. Because of that I developed quite a dislike of the X bullets. Fast forward about 20 years and now I'm a confirmed TTSX/LRX slut, they're almost all I use now. I think the plastic tip makes all the difference, it gives something to initiate expansion instead of relying on hydraulic pressure to open the hollow point. I've never seen a failure of a TTSX or a LRX unless you consider shedding a petal a failure, which I don't.

I still won't use the TSX because of the hollow point, but I don't see any reason to use them when the TTSX is out there. I also won't use other hollow point bullets like Bergers or Lapua Scenars on game, I just don't trust any hollow point to open consistently enough for my satisfaction.

I have shot lots of elk with 150 gr. BTBT.. I am sure this will work fine.. My pal’s daughter just made a super shot with a .308 and 125 gr. Accubonds..

Crowhunter,

You kinda right, but not really.

The plastic tip doesn't "initiate" expansion as much as the BIG hollow-point under it. This is required so the "stem" of the plastic tip can be seated. Slow-motion video shows the plastic tips don't "drive down" into the bullet, but float out in front of it as the bullet expands, then drift off to the side.

Bergers don't actually have a hollow-point, because the tip is pretty much completely closed. You can't even push a typical sewing needle into it. Instead, the front end collapses backward, because the lead doesn't extend anywhere near the tip, rather than expanding outward. Which is why Bergers penetrate 2-3" before expanding, instead of opening up as soon as they hit hide.

I have found the tip from a TTSX just under the hide on the entrance wound.

I've found the blue tips in the entrance as well. Actually on the fur at the entrance. Leaves me scratching my head, but it works.

I shoot the regular TSX in many calibers and have kilt a pile of critters (100's) along with my buddies that I reload for and have never seen a TSX fail. I heard that problem was more with the original unbanded ones as the copper was harder that helped prevent them from opening plus creating very high pressures with standard loads.

I’ve used TSXs with great success in the ‘06 (168) and the 375 (270) and the TTSX (a 140) in a 284. But one time I used a 150-gr TTSX in the 284 and I killed a good whitetail buck at about 500 yards. It was the day after a blizzard in the Sandhills area of Nebraska and the temp was about -20* to -25*. It was bitter.

The bullet was over R17 and had chrono'd consistently about 2950 mv. The buck barely traveled thirty yards but the entrance and exit were not much bigger than bullet diameter as expansion appeared nil and double-nil. Due to the cold I didn’t do too much searching out of the bullet’s path through the chest.

I have wondered if the cold affected the load (R17 — ?100-200 fps slower) resulting in a much slower impact velocity than expected or if I may have met that rare and extra tough bullet. However, refuting that first thought is that the bullet hit where I was aiming at 500 based on the higher chrono’d mv.

Even though you don’t exactly know the reason why, one remembers these things.

But this seems to be an aberration at least in my experience and is probably much further than your grandson will shoot anyway.

I have shot lots of elk with 150's BTBT and Accubonds.. During some lean years I used Sierra 150 FB, I shot mine out of the .300 at 3400fps.. You will have no problem.

I’ve been wanting to try the 130’s in my 308. Should wack hell out of deer and pigs.

They’ll whack the hell out of anything. Seriously deadly combo.

George there are no worries with that combo. Its a slamo dunko.

Here's an interesting alternative, The Raptor by Cutting Edge Bullets. Not cheap, but great terminal performance. They're sort of a mono answer to the Partition, petals fly off and do a lot of tissue damage while the core bores on thru. I read an account of a problem with using them in the brush. Seems it doesn't take much to start the frag process. In the open, they're great.

DF