For the first time I have used a brass bullet for hunting.
Beeing a sort of a Woodleigh / A-Frame kind of man, a friend talked me into trying the TSX for our Namibian PG safari with Johann Veldsman.

Rifle was the Ruger Hawkeye in 375 Ruger, and the 270 grn TSX was loaded to 805 mps / 2643 fps.
Not a hot load by far, but I did stop there becouse of exellent accuracy, and that it more or less duplicated a good old 375 H&H load.

First animal was a mountain zebra taken at approx. 90 meters.
Angling away a bit I hit on the last right rib, aiming for the front of the left shoulder.
Shot was top of heart, and the zebra ran 30 meters and toppled over dead.
No exit, and I asked the skinners to look for the bullet.
The did not find it, but the performance on the zebra was exellent.

Next was black wildebeest.
This is said to be a though fella, and it sertainly proved so.
Firs shot was taken broadside at 167 meters, a low chest which broke the off leg.
The BW ran off and we gave it 10 minutes before we took up the spoor.
We soon found it standing under a mopani tree, and I gave it another one behind the right rib, angling forward, distance approx. 50 meters.
Again it took off and we followed close behind. It toppled over, but got up again and I gave it the third shot up the arse from about 20 meters.

This time we found all three bullets in the animal, and I must admit I was a bit surprised that non of the three shots were pass through.
The BW is not that big bodied after all...

Third up was kudu, and this time I had a broadside shot on a nice bull at approx 70 meters.
Hit right behind the left front leg, and this time it was a clean pass through.
The kudu stumbled a couple of meters and fell over dead.

The last of the bigger antilopes was a gemsbook, which was shot at approx 80 meters. Hit on the left shoulder, it took off, but we found it dead some 20 meters away.
The bullet stood halfway out of the right hand side, tail end first.
Obviously it had tumbled within the animal and the wings had stopped it from going through, like the flukes of an anchore.



This tumbling my also be the answer why the bullet stayed in the zebra. And also the three bullets in the black wildebeest?

But why a clean pass through on the biggest of them all, the kudu?

Anyway, here are the bullets I retrieved.
The three from left is from the BW.
Two has lost a wing, the third (up the arse) is perfect.
The one to the right is from the gemsbok, which also had a beating and partly lost a wing.



I do not know if I will return to my belowed A-Frames, or stick with the TSX.
Perfomance was exellent, but the difference in "behavior" on these four animals made me wonder what experience you guys have had with the TSX?

I have used the Barnes TSX in my 416 rigby on a bunch of Water buffalo. I had only a few pass through shots, most stayed in the animal and was able to recover a good many of the bullets,, many times they were just under the skin on the oft side of the shot. All had held together and did not loose its mass. One was actually through the skull and found the bullet under the skin under the ear on the opposite side as well. All had great mushrooming and I was happy with their performance.I have used them on wild pigs here in texas and they pretty much blow through them like hot butter,, a little overkill,,,but I hate pigs,,,

I used .300 Grain TSX in my .375 H&H and had great results. The bullets recovered can be seen on the Zambia Hunt report thread linked below.

I shot a Blackbuck this past weekend with a 180 gr TTSX out of my .300 Win Mag and got the same outcome as Alrid...the bullet base was sticking out of the hide on the off side of the Blackbuck, and my experience on pigs is about the same as drwes...they just seem to fly through the pigs.

My experiences are similar, tumbling and recovery on Wildebeest and Gemsbok, passthrough on Kudu,Nyala, and Impala.

All shot with either a 300 or 330 Dakota

The tumblings I traced to ribs being nicked upon entry.

I now use only A Frames in those rifles and pass throughs occur only on Impala.

I converted to A Frames

I started using the TSX bullets last year with excellent results in my 300 Win Mag being pushed by IMR7828 at a modest 2815 fps.

In the Eastern Cape of South Africa last year, I took 2 Eastern Cape Kudu (168 yards and 225 yards), blesbok (70 yards), duiker (30 yards), mountain reedbuck (125 yards) and black wildebeest (271 yards). All shots were complete pass thrus with only the blesbok requiring a second shot, as the first was a THS.

I also shot a bull elk last year at about 150-175 yards with these same bullets and a complete pass thru.

Went to Texas in November and shot a scimitar horned oryx (265 yards) and a blackbuck at 70 yards. All shots were complete pass thrus.

The only piece of a bullet I've recovered was one petal on the exit wound from the second kudu that was taken at 225 yards.

So far, 9 animals and not a single bullet recovered with 100% pass thrus!!!

The 270 grain TSX is an excellent bullet, good for everything from did-dik to buffalo. Please refer to Aaron Nielsen's recent excellent hunting report where he used this in the CAR very successfully.

Saeed has used monolithics (Barnes or Walterhogs) to kill quite a few buffalo.

I would not get too upset about mono's losing petals or tumbling. When they tumble, they must do a gawdawful amount of damage. If you look at Saeed's photos, most of his Walterhogs have completely shed their petals but left behind buffalo who were very dead.

I have 4 Selous buffalo on license this October. I hope the 270 tsx's are OK or I am in trouble.

I am sure you meant copper, not brass

I used 180 TSX in a 3006 in Namibia on kudu, gemsbok and zebra. All bullets were recovered resting against the skin on the other side. No problem for me as all were dead and I get to keep the bullet as a bonus.

I used the Barnes TSX in .300 Weatherby, 180 grain and a Barnes TSX in .375 H&H in a 270 grains. I loved the results! My PH thought the .300 Weatherby (chambered in an old Sako) was superb and couldn't stop talking about it. I find them much easier to get great groups from compared to other bullets. They kill extremely well and I believe they are evolutionary. BTW, the .300 Wtby killed faster than the .375??? Doesn't really make sense but I made 3 one shot kills on Kudu, Gemsbok and Waterbuck with the .300. I would most definitly recommend the Barnes bullets.

I have used the TSX and the TBBC in Africa, and of the two I like the TSX's a little better.

In the .416 Rigby the 400 grain TSX worked well on many buffalo and dropped a Hippo with a head shot. In 416, only the hippo had any petal damage. It also did a good job on dangerous charging guineafowl...

In the .375 I used the TBBC because I wanted to use the Federal High velocity load when I went for leopard. I shot a heck of a lot of impala with it, and they all penetrated through, but a waterbuck took 3 well placed shots and I recovered all 3, with classic mushroom shape.

With the 300 grain TSX, I recover maybe 1/3-1/4 of them. They make a mess out of little guys, so I have always shot them a bit back and I have yet to have one not drop to the shot, with a softball sized exit wound, so they do open fast. I think they may penetrate a little better than the lead cored stuff in my experience. I have never had the backwards or tumbling experience though. Petal breakage for me has been very rare in my recovered bullets- maybe one or two have lost one.

Grafton, of course I meant copper...

Thanks for the feedback Gents.
Still, I have had more pass thrue with the A-Frame in 375 H&H than with the TSX in the 375 Ruger on similar sized animals.
But less than 10 animals with the TSX is to few to start to make statitics

I use 300gn Barnes X (and in future TSX now the X is no longer available) in my 416 Rigby, driven at 2920fps by 108gn AR2209 (H4350), and they go straight through pigs from any angle. I got 3 on Friday last week from 40 yds to 250 yds. They are one hell of a good bullet.

Dear Arild

There would be a lot of things to consider but here is another one for you.

.338wm
250g swift A frame
Impala 30 meters in shoulder. Bullet stayed in.
Eland 100 meters in shoulder. Bullet went through.

On the impala it hit bone.

Same end result.

quote:

.338wm
250g swift A frame
Impala 30 meters in shoulder. Bullet stayed in.
Eland 100 meters in shoulder. Bullet went through.

The Impla would have been hit at about 2640 fps, and the Eland at 2500fps. The extra 140fps would have given rise to a bit more expansion which would have slowed the bullet down quicker. I understand it has been documented previously that a faster MV often results in less penetration when expanding bullets are used. This plus hitting a bit of extra bone would account for the difference. In the end dead is dead whether the bullet went all the way through or not. Good shooting!

On my first trip to Africa I took two guns; both were very crappy and loaded with crappy bullets. The first, was an Encore which no serious hunter would use chambered in 375 H&H Magnum. After testing various bullets, I found that crappy Speer 270 gr. cup and core bullets shot pretty well on paper. My experience with the Speers:

1. Warthog; 80 yards, DRT.
2. Impala; 80 yards, DRT.
3. Blesbok; 80 yards, DRT.
4. Blue Wildebeest about 80 yards ran about 200 yards and died. The bullet was found perfectly mushroomed under the skin of the off shoulder but there had been complete jacket/core separation.
5. Zebra at about 200 yards. Went maybe 25 yards and died in a pool of blood.
6. Warthog at about 80 yards ran around 50 yards, thrashed around and died.

My other crappy gun no serious hunter would use; a Thompson/Center Contender handgun chambered in 357 Herrett. Thinking I was going to use it on small stuff, I loaded it with Hornady 158 gr. XTP HP bullets (a crappy bullet no serious hunter would use when premium bullets are available).

1. Black Wildebeest; first shot almost took off a front leg (I'll admit, I wasn't as good handgun shooting back then as I am now). I missed with the second shot as said beest went down a hill. When we caught up with it, I put a bullet in its lungs and it expired.
2. Springbok at about 25 yards or maybe less. We had stalked it across a mountain and it was holed up in the brush. I couldn't see much so the PH said "shoot it anywhere." I shot at what I could see. Anyway, it was the Lazarus Springbok. We came up to it and it looked like it was about to give up the ghost. Then it took off and the tracker caught up to it and performed the coup de grace with his pocket knife.
3. Mountain Reedbuck; 85 yards; died.

Thus far, not being a serious hunter, I've never used a "premium" bullet in Africa. I've had several clean misses at a three animals (a couple of those were from a scope malfunction) but nothing I hit ever got away so, I'll probably just keep on using cheap crappy bullets unless I find a premium bullet that shoots better than they do.

My frugal Norwegian father would have been proud.