Living in California with the new lead ban, I'm now in the process of finding loads for Barnes bullets for several of my rifles.

The Barnes site says to seat .030-.070 off the lands for best accuracy. I got lucky when I loaded some 180's for my 300 RUM, they shot great without any tuning. I never had to play with the length, I just made sure the didn't touch the rifling and they fit in the magazine without binding.

I've loaded some 235 and 270 TSX's up for my 375 Ruger that are .050 off the rifling and will test those next weekend.

So I'm hoping I could get some input from some of the handloaders here that have spent some time loading the Barnes TSX bullets as to where the average "Sweet Spot" was found.

Thanks.

AA, I have found that the AVERAGE sweet spot for seating distance off of the lands is around 35 thou. The reason I capitalize average is because I have some rigs that are far different from that. I follow Barnes advice and start at 50 k off of the lands, and then edge in to about 20 going about 5 thou per jump, and if that isn't working, I go to a little further than 50 in 5k jumps to get there. I have a few loads where I'm less than 20 k off of the leade, but this is umcommon IME, and I do back down on the powder charge if I am sneaking in past 20 k.

I have a friend that runs a firearms mfg. and he has measured very large pressure spikes when dealing with XXX's and getting closer to the lands, the tricky part being that pressures run fine little bit by little bit as he gets close to the lands, and then jump a lot really quickly.

I personally will usually go to another bullet if the XXX's won't shoot around 15 thou as a minimum, because I also find fouliing increases noticably for me when I get that close.

Don't disregard the Nosler E-tip, it works really well for me, and I have had excellent on game perfromance with around 10 or so whitetails.

Consider moving from Commie-fornia

Good luck!

Fish,

Thanks for the information. I tried Barnes bullets several years ago before the TSX's and didn't have much luck. I typically use A Frames, Interbonds or Partitions, which ever work best for a particular rifle, but Arnold but an end to that.

The first, and so far only, time I loaded the TSX's were the 180gr for my 300 RUM, and they shot clovers. I was going to try different powders and OAL's but when I shot it through the chrono and saw 3438 fps for an average, I stopped.

I plan on trying the Nosler and new Hornady mono's.

Have you recovered any bullets from game? How did they expand?

BTW, I was thinking about leaving Commie- fornia, but now that we all have President Obama I don't have to, you're all joining us. Welcome to the dark side.

I've started with them .05 less than the specified cartridge overall length. So far this has worked reasonable well. In my 06 they are great, in the .375 I think I need to play with the depth a bit.

If you can recover a TSX, you'll be impressed, but you rarely recover them. I've only recovered two and that was only because the animal was facing me when I shot it.

Lil off topic... but what is this lead ban in california?? I've never hearf of it, I live in reno which is right on the border of clifornia and acutally hunt in california all the time. Does this ban include all of california or just certian areas.. and when did it go into effect? There seems to be a new reason every day to just never venture west accros the borader into liberal la la land again.

AA, I too had little luck with original type Barnes bullets. A fellow here who posts as Doc, was intrumental in me giving the XXX's a try. Damn am I glad I did. A very tough bullet, and very accurate for me, with a little more work than say a NBT, but not a ton. There has been a lot written about them not opening up at slower velocities/longer range, and I actually did a post about TSX's not opening, especially in sub 330 cal. I drill the tips out on all my TSX's.

I have never recovered a TSX, or one of the new E-tips. The E-tips performance on game has been great, about 10 whitetails taken, pin hole entries and quarter sized exits, just perfect IMO, all but two deer were DRT, the other two went 4 or 5 feet!

I have had some funny experiences with XXX's, but seem to have eliminated that since I started with the drilling out procedure.

I've not gotten any of the Hornady 'lead-free' options yet, but will.

Good shooting--Don

I've been loading Barnes since about 1992. The TSX have been, by far, the easiest to obtain accuracy with. All my rifles will shoot subM.O.A. with them.

Like FISH, I change seating depth in .005" increments until I find the sweet spot for the rifle.

As for recovering a Barnes, good luck. I have only recovered one, out of an elk. It was picture perfect in expansion and 100% weight retention.