Just thought you folks might like to see the result of a 270 grain Barnes X in .375 after it went through the far shoulder of a buffalo. Same story, zillionth verse....



Not too bad, huh?

Has anybody had similar results on game with the fail-safes in 375?

I've had great results in testing medium with the 300 gr fail-safes. Just wondering how the X and FS compared.

Over the last few years I have come to the conclusion right or wrong that BarnesX and Failsafe bullet work much better on large heavy animals than they do on smaller animals...

I've used the FailSafe .375 300 grain bullet pretty extensively and I have never had a failure of any kind. They penetrate extremely well. Weight retention is excellent. They're the only expanding bullets I use in the .375 H&H for hunting.

I just re-read Ray's post...

I've shot upwards of fifty impala, various baboons, duiker, klipspringer, grysbuck, etc. with the 300 grain FailSafe and I've never had a problem with expansion or apparent killing effect. They are a fine bullet for all-around hunting. Recovered bullets look just like the Barnes X the Judge posted the photo of - a nice long shank with petals folded back. I doubt that there is much difference in performance between the two designs.

Here Here..

Ray, while correct, is not totally right....

They work GREAT on bigger animals...

and work like great SOLIDS on most smaller game

jeffe

I think the key to using X's on smaller critters is to drop down a weight or to to bring up the speed. They will penetrate as well as a heavier conventionally constructed bullet, so don't need to be as heavy as a conventional bullet.

250gr. Barnes X bullets in .338WinMag [@2500FPS]were extremely effective on three springbok this past march. The PH was worried about exit damage, but needlessly. They all show a .338 hole on the way in and a very slightly larger hole on the way out.

All were DRT with the single shot.

You do, of course, need to be aware of what's in the background.

Les

Just because one has shot some game does not make a perfect bullet and everytime someone points out a bullets short commings then someone will take issue with it and tell of their successes, and thats normal, but its somewhat deceiving in that todays bullets that fail only fail on ocassion, not everytime..Because of that I used Swifts for several years but finally backed off of them except for Buffalo. I stated they were an excellent Buff bullet. I have about 9 or 10 perfectly expanded Swifts in my collection or recovered from game bullets.

It is my opinnion they are too smooth and do not have enough jagged tearing edges like a Woodleigh or Nosler for instance, therefore they don't work just right from time to time on smaller antelope..I discusse this with Swift some years back and they told me then that this was a factor in the designing of the new Sirracco they were comming out with...

We all go by our experience and I have had a world of experience with the Swift A frames and I stated that it always mushroomed perfectly and puffed out just under the mushroom...What I said is it has no ragged edges and at times does not leave a good blood trail on smaller game in my experience..I also said they work well on larger animals, jeffeosos post sumed it up nicely IMO. The Failsafe and BarnesX tend to blow the pettles off on smaller stuff because they are shot at high velocity I suspect, but they always mushroom perfectly on Buffalo it seems and I believe this is because of the lower velocity....

This is simply my opinnion and I realize that some folks have problems with different bullets..I have never seen a Nosler fail, but I have been told of Nosler failures..They do blow the front partition off sometimes but I never felt that was a failure because they always kill very quickly when that happens, lots of stuff blowing around inside there..Some times the blow out the lead and leave a perfect mushroom and that just fine with me...sometimes the react perfect for taking photographs, but I have never seen one come apart and like Seyfried I'd have to be shown...

With bullets, things happen thats for sure...otherwise we would only need one brand.

From left to right, I recovered these from buffalo: .505/570 gr. @ 50 yards, .505/570 Grain @ 100 yards, .458/450 gr. @ 70 yards, .375/270 Grain @ 35 yards.



I tend to agree that better choices exist for some of the smaller species but my experience is generally that the "X" will tend to shed petals when onside bone is squarely hit and not often, otherwise. I don't consider this a negative, as I've often seen the damage done by these secondary missiles.

Them super solids sure do send off some glare but that xbullet looks pretty good dont you think?

Tonto,
I assume that's your .458/450 or 500 "X"? Look how very similar to the one above, fired from a .458 Lott @ about 2,450. Zero weight loss, I'll bet. To answer your question: Yes, it does look pretty good!

[ 10-04-2003, 04:10: Message edited by: Nickudu ]

How is bullet failure identified/defined?

As I sit here I am looking at the remaining base section of a .338 250gr. Nosler Partition that now weighs 137.5grs. and resembles an eraser from a #2 lead pencil, only 1/2 of one petal remains. This base portion was all that was recovered from a Gemsbok. [under the skin, offside shoulder]
Another Nosler appeared to have "partitioned" at impact [quartering away]on a Blesbok, leaving a very ugly baseball sized entry wound. Nothing was recovered, though there was no exit. The animal was knocked down, but did not die right away from the shot.

Were these failures?

These experience's make me question using any Nosler Partitions.

Les

Nick,
that was a great photo. I use to think the 375 was big, but compared to those others........

The 250 gr X from my 9.3x62 dropped the little stuff like springbuck and impalla out to 230 yards right now with pretty sizeable wounds. The same bullet literally flattened an eland at 25 yards with a high shoulder hit. That bullet was recovered just under the hide on the off-side and it weighed 221 grs. For me, the 250 gr X is the bullet to use in my 9.3's. I have not been able to get the X to shoot well in any other calibers I have tried though the 225 X looks promising out of my 338-06.

I am not an X-bullet fan either, especially on light game. I have been very impressed, however, with their performance on larger game. I shot 2 Buffalo this year with a borrowed .416 Weatherby with a muzzle brake and Barnes X bullets. Those of you who know me know how big of a sacrifice that was. X-bullets, Weatherbys, and muzzle brakes are 3 of my least favorite things. I must admit, though, that I have never seen a Buffalo die as quickly as the 2 I shot with that combo. The first one dropped in his tracks without so much as a grunt, with a bullet square through both shoulders. The other was shot at about 90 yards on the point of the shoulder, quartering towards me. The bullet did not exit, but tore up everything in it's path. The Buff ran 20 yards and expired in seconds. I was prety impressed, but I will continue to shoot Trophy Bondeds and Swift A-Frames through my own guns.

As Ray alluded above the plural of anecdote is not data, as some wit wrote once upon a time -- but the accumulated experience here is pretty interesting.

My .375s didn't shoot the Barnes X-Bullet well, so I never took them hunting. They did shoot the Nosler Partition well, and the Swift A-Frame extremely well, so I have been using those bullets. My rifles didn't like the FailSafe either in .375/300 grain flavor, but I have not tried the 270 grain bullet. Now that my BRNO has been rebarreled with a Lothar Walther I am going to go back and try some of those bullets again.

jim dodd

I've shot quite a bit of game with the X bullets, and I support Ray's conclusion. They work great on heavier game, but they do not work as well on smaller game. I've shot several deer that the X bullets acted like solids, and I have one recovered from an elk that failed to open at all . This one penetrated the elk's heart and broke the opposite side humerus. It was found against the humerus. I have used lighter x bullets effectively when the heavier bullets didn't seem to work as well. For instance I use 150's in 7 MM Rem. I've seen partitions fail twice, both on moose from 30-06; one of these was recovered from a tree after exiting the moose, unfortunately my guide in Canada kept that bullet.

On Noslers I have found that if I am blowing the front partition off, then go to the next heavier weight bullet for that caliber...The same might work on Barnes bullets I don't know but its worth a try...Velocity is what destroys bullet integrity IMO.....

I do know that when a Barnes bullet works it is spectacular, but when it fails it fails miserably...Same with the Failsafe...

But the bottom line is most of todays bullets are better than ever and these monolithics are still in their infancy and the future holds a lot of hope along these lines...fortunatly they work most of the time.

I still remember when bullet failure was the rule rather than the exception and the only bullet that worked was the Rem. or Peters corelokts...Then later the Win PP was a great bullet as long as you didn't push them too fast.

I probably should have added in my previous post, that the reason I don't care for the Barnes-X is that they have performed so inconsistently on medium size game (Blackbuck and Whitetail up to Scimitar Oryx and Gemsbok) for the clients I've seen use them, both here in Texas and abroad. As Ray said, when they work, it's quite spectacular. I've just not seen them work that well on a consistent basis. I know that many of my clients have used them at some point, and they all have a vey strong opinion one way or another based on their experience. I haven't run across too many people who are ambivilent about them.