/

What were the impact velocities?

/

Too bad there's not enough left of a Sierra Match King or a Nosler Ballistic Tip that blows up without penetrating through a shoulder blade so we could take pictures of that.

I do think that ultrafast monolithic bullets may have a problem, but other super accurate bullets do too! Too bad the partition, TBBC, Northforks, etc. don't quite shoot as accurately. Perhaps the Accubonds might be the best compromise.

I think your media may be to blame. Why don't you shoot some through a piece of meat to see if they expand reliably.

/

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:
I am really impressed with the accuracy of these bullets but the expansion issue has me worried.

Just shoot 'em through the shoulders on a shot under 200 yards and throught the heart/lung over that. But like Ralph, I don't think the same thing would happen on game. There was a thread not too long ago where someone was trying TSX's out and shot a hog at a good distance. The hog went down immediately and expired but the recovered bullet showed very very little expansion and many said the bullet failed even though it was almost a complete pass through. My point is that any bullet can fail depending upon what we define failure as. I would rather take my chances with a bullet that will stay together and perform more often than another bullet. Expansion is important, but so are accuracy and penetration.

JMHO

quote:

I think your media may be to blame. Why don't you shoot some through a piece of meat to see if they expand reliably.

That might be a very good idea.Either use meat or a known media like ballistic gelatin.I don't like judging a bullet based on a single bullet fired into an unproven media.I have seen similar results to your unexpanded bullet when bullets(not x bullets)were fired into water jugs.The tsx bullets that a friend used last year expanded very well on elk,moose and deer.

Alf,

I have used only 225 grain 35 caliber bullets of the TSX brand. My recovered TSX bullets from game look similar to your recovered 9.3's. So with the 9.3, I beleive your in good shape. With your 6.5's I understand your concern. Testing in wet news or water may give a better indication of the expansion potential, if you don't get what you want, go to a different bullet.

BigBullet

/

I have a theory that if a petal folds in towards the center of bullet instead of out that it will not tear it's nose open and therefore may not expand.

This can happen from damage to the nose in handling from say magazine battering, too small of a hollow point or the hollow point part of the nose can break off and therefore not be able to pull the rest of the bullet open.

On conventional cup and core bullets the meplat or nose may also be damaged in the same way but the lead below, being softer than the jacket will expand anyway.

Perhaps a plastic meplat would make the mono bullets more reliable. One brand has them.

I like tests into reasonable media as long as other bullets are fired into it also for comparision.

I've shot several critters with 140 grain XLCs in my 6.5X55 and never had one fail to open. All shots were right at or less than 100 yards. I think there are probably rare occasions where some outside factor may influence whether a TSX opens. However, my experience with them (or other X bullets) in four calibers (.257, .264, .277, and .338) is that of great performance. I've shot or seen shot about 35 different animals ranging in size from jackal, through springbok/blackbuck, through mule deer/impala, on up to gemsbok and kudu with X bullets and never had a problem with performance. I still use them in a variety of cartridges and think they're great bullets. Are they needed for light thin-skinned NA game like deer and antelope? No, but what the heck. If you're inclined to shoot something up the ass, the X bullet will get it done.

quote:

Originally posted by Savage99:

Perhaps a plastic meplat would make the mono bullets more reliable. One brand has them.

Savage99

Which bullet is that? Sounds like a good idea.

I have never used the origiinal X bullets but have uesd the TXS's to take deer, hogs, goat and Oryx I saw no problem in thier performance. I do not think that you are useing the best medium inorder to simulate the bullets performancs on game.My performance critier may be different than yours as I like the most penetration that I can get, from an expanding bullet[ I like exit holes on any angle].I have not used the TXS's on game below 30 caliber yet but plan to in the future

Did the third one tumble or turn in the medium?????
Doug

/

Truth be known - there are many good quality bullets available. In fact, the bullets are likely much more consistent than the shooters.

quote:

Originally posted by woods:

quote:

Originally posted by Savage99:

Perhaps a plastic meplat would make the mono bullets more reliable. One brand has them.

Savage99

Which bullet is that? Sounds like a good idea.

It was pointed out to me that the Lapua's have a plastic insert.



http://www.jegeren.net/tester_kuler.htm

i would think we will heave the answer to the question of terminal performance in the next few weeks. I am planning on taking 2 rifles after mule deer in eastern oregon. Most likly my .257 roberts stoked with 100 grain tsks, or my .308 with 168 grain tsx,s. I must say the accuracy i get from my loads with both these rifles and bullets is excenent ! As to expansion ? won't know till ! shoot a buck assuming I do ! I am confident that the
308 or the roberts will penitrate. And hitting and penitrating is 2 3rds of a battle won.
...tj300

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:
To all involved

First of all my bullet shown were dug up from the backstop and to those who do not know what hogfuel is, it is the scrap wood bark and dirt that make up the working surfaces in a log sort.

Now as a "medium" is is in no way indicatitive of anything; suffciced to say I dug up that 6.5 basically intact, as I'm shooting at roughly same POI some bullets were hitting each other in the backstop.

But as far as monometal HP's go they are known to do this and Gerard Shultz who makes GSHV's is very aware of this and he has made the hole bigger and the jacket where the hole starts is way thinner and far more uniform than say the Barnes X.

Some here claim never experiencing bullet failure ?

I would not know depends on how much you shoot and how many animals you get to take in a year I guess?

I have seen many failures both in my own experience and other hunting with us on our ranch in Africa. I have seen bullets do wierd things !

I know for a fact that Sierra's like Woodleigh are velocity cieling dependent, I know that I in certain calibers I have difficulty with pin point accuracy with stuff like Stewert and Rhino bullets, on other they work well.

A buddy of mine right here in town shoots a Remington 7MM STW and the only stuff this rifle remotely likes is simple relatively cheap Hornady Interlocks, it will not come out and play using TSX's or NP's?

Good point.I certainly have not shot enough TXS's to know for sure

Alf,

Are you CERTAIN that all of the recovered bullets in the pic in your post are in fact TSX?

I think the problem is the media. It takes hydraulic pressure to open a barnes X. I have fired a bunch of 6MM 100 Gr, barnes into milk jugs full of water at less than 2000fs and they opened like pictured in the Barnes brochure.
A couple years ago I had earings and a ring made from fired 6mm Barnes and 7mm barnes. the 6s were earings and the 7 was a ring they were gold plated. The set was featured in one of the Barnes brochures a couple years ago. they were all fired at 2000 fs or less to get the perfect picture.
Lyle

5

Alf. i for one agree with you, after recovering 8 TSX's from my backstop, 3 of them looked like the one on the left in your picture. One of the bullet's even had a 45 degree offset(from hitting a small stone)and it still did not open up. I am shooting a 300 Rum. @ 3200 fps. in those barnes load's. I personally will be staying with the nosler bullet's. Rick.

Alf. like the bullet on the right.(my mistake) no expansion.

/

Alf, the new TSX has a redesigned hollow point which worked so well, Barnes implemented it in their XLC and originals.

Fear not on the opening issue. I've dumped a ton of yotes with the 130 from my 270 and they open on them just fine from bow range to beyond 350.

Currently, I have over 1200 TSX bullets on my bench and about half that many partitions. I've taken several head of big game with the TSX and have 200% confidence with them.

John Burns tested them at 700 yards in his custom line of 7mm STW and they still penetrated 30" with remarkable expansion.

Ty Herring, at Barnes, claims that they open on Jack rabbits 100% of the time.

/

I've worked up a load for my friends 6.5/06 AI with 120 TSX seated .045 from the lands, 53.o gr. 3200fps and the last 3 shot group gave me .400 @ 100. I'm mounting his new scope and sighting it in for him. We shoot within an inch usually, so he can fine tune with a couple of shots when I give him back his rig.

At first I had some pressure problems but all's good now.

Hey ALF, Obviously you missed this question in the other Thread:

How about picking "one" specific bullet in Mr. Sciuchetti's Report that you have First-Hand Experience with which does not Expand or Penetrate in a "similar way" as shown, in comparison to the Nosler Partition. I personally do not believe it is appropriate to discuss actual First-Hand bullet performance on bullets that I have less than 24-25 kills with and much prefer 100 or more. So it would be nice if the bullet you do mention is one you have at least 24-25 kills with so you have a good data base.

Of course, you will also have to have enough First-Hand Partition kills to make the comparison worthwhile.

I look forward to your First-Hand observations.

Hey ALF, Where did you go?
---

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:
First of all my bullet shown were dug up from the backstop and to those who do not know what hogfuel is, it is the scrap wood bark and dirt that make up the working surfaces in a log sort.

So, are you saying that non-consistant "dirt and wood chips" is OK to derive expansion information from, but wet phone books are no good?

I was wondering the same thing Hot Core, this is what Alf had to say in that other thread you mentioined:

I am not inferring that the man is a liar not in the least but any assumptions made from non validated or standardized tests are of no value or consequence.

Seems like the trend continues forever; people will accept whatever data they think confirms opinions that they already hold and will dismiss data that does not.

/

Good job ALF.

quote:

Originally posted by Ackley Improved User:
Good job ALF.

By "good", if you mean totally avoiding my question you are correct.

Not a single First-Hand Example of where ALF has actually "witnessed" one of the bullets in Mr. Sciuchetti's Report doing ANYTHING different than what Mr. Sciuchetti said they would do concerning Expansion, Retaining Weight and Depth of Penetration.

I'm still not sure what ALF's point was in the other thread.
---

quote:

Originally posted by McInnes:
Seems like the trend continues forever; people will accept whatever data they think confirms opinions that they already hold and will dismiss data that does not.

Hey McInnes, I do believe you have summed it up right well.

/

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:
...What is my point?

Simple ! You cannot equate apples to oranges, they are both round, they are both fruit and taste nice, but when it comes down to the wire they still are apples and oranges!...

Hey ALF, No wonder I was confused, I was talking about "bullet" Expansion, Weight Retention and Penetration in relation to First-Hand Experience on Game.

Just didn't realize you were talking about Apples and Oranges.

Best of luck to you - seriously.

quote:

By "good", if you mean totally avoiding my question you are correct.

Not a single First-Hand Example of where ALF has actually "witnessed" one of the bullets in Mr. Sciuchetti's Report doing ANYTHING different than what Mr. Sciuchetti said they would do concerning Expansion, Retaining Weight and Depth of Penetration.

I'm still not sure what ALF's point was in the other thread.

It seems that the world remains imperfect. It would be more interesting, to me at least, when a debate leans more towards the facts and methods rather than being a gotcha.

I understand that bullet manufacturers test bullet expansion in media also. As I suggested before the test media in question may be "calibrated" by shooting other bullets into it for a comparison.

There is some smoke on the expansion of X bullets. Perhaps they do not always expand when they should. All of the ones that I shot into water filled cartons at high velocity did.

ALF, Have you seen or experienced a failure of the TXS I am aware of the X failures.The TXSdo not have the zinc alloy as the X's did this is according to Barnes solved the problem just currious if this is the case

Alf- I don't know if this will help or not, but here goes.

I've used the TX bullet since it came out and in quite a few cals (22/250,6/06,270,7 Mashburn Super,340 Wby to 375 and 375 Wby oh yeah I forgot the 06). To date we've taken critters from 40 yds to 520 yds. In each and every case they worked to what I would call perfection. We took the shot and they fell over, no muss and no fuss.

Of the few bullets we've found (and we have had them run thru plenty of critters) with the exception of one (that lost 1 of its 4 petals) they all looked as advertised. I would guess we've found about 8 of them, I'd have to go and look for sure.

The last one we found was in a carp deer (muley) my wife shot with her 22/250. Quartering to her at 140 shot hit the point and said volunteer went down. We found the bullet when butchering and it had all 4 petals and it still weighed the same 53 it entered the critter as.

IME I can say with all confidence get to shooting them into critters and you'll not have any worries.

IMO it is the finest bullet ever made and yeah Ty at Barnes does know his stuff!

This is just what I've found to be true after shooting them into game. The critters we've hit all hit the terra firma awfully quick so I'd not be for fretting.

I personally worry about the effects on game and what I see for wound channels and what I find if the slug is found in the critter than I do about how the bullet looks out of dirt.

That's just me, good luck, if you're not comfy then by all means find a new slug and get to shooting game with it.

MD

Alf

This year I took my 6,6x57R to SA and Namibia. It was loaded with 130gr TSX for close to 2,900fps.

The largest animals I shot, bodywise, were Namibian kudu and gemsbock. Both shots were taken at the same 120yds or so, both were completely broadside, and both were hit low in the shoulder above the knuckle joint and inmediately behind the humerous.

Exit holes were small, so small that I considered they might not have opened up at all. But both the reaction of the animals falling after a 40 meter dead run and careful observation at the larder confirmed, from the amount of tissue damaged that expansion must have taken place correct.

Up to when I shot kudu and gemsbock I had had no worries with the expansion of the TSX because it had been an extremely efficient killer, exit holes hade been correct, and internal damage had been good.

The small exit holes in the larger animals could have been because after so much penetration, the bullet was travelling slow at the point of exit. (?)

No conclusions may be drawn after such a small sample, I know. These are just my 2 pennies.

best regards,

Montero