These two .308 TSX bullets were recovered from a smalish mountain grizzly.
They were shot as handloads from a 300 Win Mag at 60 and 90 yards.
What happened? The shooter does not recall any unsusual recoil that could made us suspect a deficient load...
Hmmm... maybe, after all, there was a real need for the MRX with the plastic insert to promote expansion.
Montero

What grain bullet

What muzzle velocity

What did they hit in the bear

Did they pass through

How the hell did you recover them

Poor load or poor rifle maintainance.Same with the bullets recovered from Hartebeest.

That's why alot of folks don't use them on animals such as deer and antelope. I've heard quite a few stories of them penciling but, usually only on thin skined animals. A TS is a darn accurate bullet. Good design but, I personally feel the MRX is a much better design.(now, if the MRX wasn't so darn expensive...)

Good Luck

Reloader

They must have been squib loads if they didn't expand and were recovered when shot from a 300 mag at close range.

Even a smallish grizz whould offer up enough resistance to cause expansion, especially at those ranges. I think a call to Barnes is in order. Any bullet can & has failed, even my beloved NPs, but I have always had good luck w/ the NPs.

quote:

Originally posted by Paul H:
They must have been squib loads if they didn't expand and were recovered when shot from a 300 mag at close range.

...I would say so

There sure aint much rifling marks on them bullets. Where were they recovered from? Sounds funny to me....

The rifling marks look strange to me in that they do not even touch the bullet shank.

The bear was hit brodside, twice. Both shots were properly placed in the lung heart area (low in the chest).

A finishing shot was fired and it did not go through either. All three bullets were recoverd under the hide when skinning the bear.

One got lost, and that is why I could only post pictures of two of them.

Mi idea was that the loads were faulty and that the bullet left the muzzle at a funny speed, but the hunter assures me that he did not notice anything starnge with the noise or the blast or the recoil or nothing.

I think this, because if the bullet had been travelling at the expected .300 Win Mag velocity without opening it should havezipped thruogh like a solid.

A very strange thing.

Any Barnes expert around?

Regards,

Montero

Sorry not a Barnes expert - but I did shot app. 100 heads (mostly reds and boars) with 8x68S factory Hirtenberger's ABC bullet that is/was X-type bullet and only recovered 2 bullets - both have lost one of the four petals...IMO - yes they would definitively had zipped right trough if velocity would be right...

Someone chrono the rest of that batch of reloads..... You can see the bullets tumbled, but even then, those bullets should have exited if they had been fired at normal 300Mag speeds. JMO, Dutch.

Those are boat tail bullets so the rifling would stop where the taper becomes less than the land diameter.

I can't believe all three full velocity loads didn't exit either. Something is wrong with that load.

I shot an elk at 340 broadside with a 180gr TSX from a 300win, large exit hole...has to be a bad load.

I totally agree that those bullets have to have been sub-velocity to have NOT expanded and stayed in that bear at those ranges from a .300 win mag.

see "esteemed" mentor. i tried to tell you.

Maybe a compressed "ball" powder charge with a standard primer? Just a thought...

I have to agree with the majority opinion here. At 60-70 yards from a 300 Win I would expect the loss of all four petals and the complaint to be that the TSX didn't have sufficient toughness to hold together and penetrate adequately.

Wish I had an answer but speculation will have to do. I had a 400 gr Barnes X do virtually the same thing as these two. I was shooting at a brown bear that my client had wounded - distance close to two hundred yards - muzzle velocity around 2250fps. I hit the bear exactly where I aimed - so at that distance I doubt a squib load can be claimed. Velocity was probably around 1900fps. The bullet hit on the point of the bear's shoulder and was found on the far side, just under the hide and looked like the two pictured here. I sent it to Randy Brooks at Barnes. He also asked for the box it came in so he could check their records. His explaination was that it was from an older batch of copper that they had received from a former supplier and that there had been a few other complaints from that batch.
I also have recovered bullets from Swift A-frame, Nosler Partition and Trophy Bonded that failed to open in much the same way. Shit Happens. Failing to open is a lot better than coming apart in my opinion.

I would measure those bullets. Might be undersized. That would explain alot.

I doubt it was a low velocity load. The bullets didn't exit because they tumbled.

458. You got that right!!!

/

When a barrel is shot-out bullets don't stableize and impact sideways.

remarkable recovered Barnes! those that I have used in a variety of calibers have never produced them kind of results. as mentioned poor material used in the process or "squibbs". My bullets look perfectly "petaled" or no petals at all-them look like a birthing defect-or slooooow. oh well sounds like they succeeded anyways.

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:
The bullets did not expand because the cavities became plugged by hair and skin at impact or got pummeled into closing the cavity on imapct. This has nothing to do with squib loads and or velocity issues. It is a commonly known factor in bullets of this design to happen at times. It happens from time to time with Barnes as well as GSC's. Attempts by some past manufacturers to add an 'Expanding plug" to the cavity mouth have failed because of this very reason.

Further, once this happens the bullet is nothing but a highly unstable ogived bullet, ( it needs to expand or lose it's petals to become stable) thus the bullet tumbles and does not shoot through, both bullets did in fact tumble as shown by the banana shaped deformation.

I agree 100%.

Cheers,
Canuck

Very interesting.

When you guys say "bullets of this design," are you refering to solid copper bullets or "hollow point bullets?"

I have been shooting the TSX out of my .30-06 and the Woodleigh Weldcores out of my .338 Win. Still can't decide which is the "better bullet." I LOVE the TSX, but reports such as this seem to crop up from time to time...

/

I must point out that we have had three complaints of this nature in 13 years. Two were bad designs and the bullets were discontinued. Canuck's one we have some theory about but it is only that, theory.

Hydrostatic pressure??? Why do they expand when they are shot into boards of dry wood or mounds of dirt?

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:
The bullets did not expand because the cavities became plugged by hair and skin at impact or got pummeled into closing the cavity on imapct. This has nothing to do with squib loads and or velocity issues. It is a commonly known factor in bullets of this design to happen at times. It happens from time to time with Barnes as well as GSC's. Attempts by some past manufacturers to add an 'Expanding plug" to the cavity mouth have failed because of this very reason.

Further, once this happens the bullet is nothing but a highly unstable ogived bullet, ( it needs to expand or lose it's petals to become stable) thus the bullet tumbles and does not shoot through, both bullets did in fact tumble as shown by the banana shaped deformation.

...sounds reasonable - but 3 in a row !?

In a previous post of this thread I asked if there wasn any Barnes expert around. I meant if there was any expert FROM Barnes around...

Now, ALF, you say that a bullet needs to expand or loose its petals to become stable?

I would have said that mushrooming reduces its angular momentum and spin rate and that is what creates unstability.

Just corious...

Montero

Sorry, I forgot to ask if anyone has any comment on the fact that the groove did not "bite" the shank".

Is this the norm in TSX bullets?

Montero

quote:

458Win: I sent it to Randy Brooks at Barnes. He also asked for the box it came in so he could check their records. His explaination was that it was from an older batch of copper that they had received from a former supplier and that there had been a few other complaints from that batch.

Note Phil's comments that Brooks has had other complaints, so along with Phil's experience, montero's pics are "rare," but not "unique." It happens - send the rest of the box back to Barnes for replacement.

Jaywalker

Looking at these bullets, it's hard to argue that the nose got plugged: they clearly show signs of SOME expansion. As a matter of fact, when I go back to the photo's Gary Sciuzietti made ten years ago of X's and Fail Safe's at different velocities, these bullets look just like the bullets that impacted around 1800 fps.

Someone please chrono the rest of that batch! JMO, Dutch.

about a week after I found the AR web site, I was reading a post where someone said that a Nosler had never failed and shed both cores. I posted pics of the remnants of a partition I dug out of amoose I killed. All it was was the jacket with BOTH cores gone.

It was like someone tied a bunch of steaks to me and threw me in a pit of hungry dogs!!! My God. people tried to discredit me every way possible. Said velocity was too high, range too close, but most folks said it was not a partition an dI was making it up for some reason. I took pictures of the bullet from 9 (I think) different agngels to show that it REALLY WAS a failed partition, and folks still beat me up. THis was a 160 gr bullet out of a 7x57 with impact range of 110 meters or so. NOT high velocity by any stretch of the imagination.

What does this have to do these failed X's you ask? Well, i'll tell you. MOST people (not all, but the majority), here on this board and anywhere else you meet in life, are more interested in defedning their position then opening their mind to learn soemthing new. This is doubly true if the new data means some pet of theirs is not the greatest in its field. The Barnes X is many people's pet bullet, and they will trash anyone who points out its shortcomings.

And yes Virginia, the X does have soem shortcomings. In spades. I will not use them at all unless they leave the muzzle at over 3000fps. Below that and they usually just punch through. When loaded in a 7x57, I have yet to do an autopsy on a deer where I found good internal damage. Exactly zero of the deer I shot where the CNS was not hit showed any reaction at all to the shot. In certain areas of the country this is a critical flaw. In the Southeast US, where fresh cutovers and pine plantations are the rule, a deer who runs off with no sign of being hit and practically no blood trail will usually be lost and trun into a coyote's entree that evening.

Even with the .270 the deer do not show signs of being hit. That can be a problem even up here in northern MN where "thick" is NOTHING compared to "thick" in Louisiana. I came within a fraction of losing a doe last year that hardly bled at all and showed exactly ZERO(!!!) signs of being hit. It was shear luck I found her, as I had already figured I missed soemhow and was walking back to the stand and found one drop of blood.

Well, I know this won't be popular, but I am just relating my life experiences. The X bullet has some serious flies on the ointment. In open territory such as on the plains or in the open mountians, you can get away with a bullet that leaves little blood and game that does not act like it has been hit. In an 8 year old cutover in LA, MS, AR, east TX, NC, SC, wherever, you are screwed and you WILL lose game you killed but can't find.

TH erecovered bullets show at the top of this thread do not surprise me in the least

And regarding the rifling not cutting the shank-that is how they all do. The grrovs are deeper than the rifling. The only TSX I have dug out of game was not cut. Rifling is often only .004" deep, while the grooves in the TSX are much deeper.

BTW-I had soemthing like 4 TSX's stay in deer with a .270 last year. I olny found one. The others were in there soemwhere, but I did not do exhausted searches to find them

And yes, the deer that I recovered the TSX from showed exactly ZERO signs of being hit, and I hit him 3 TIMES out of 4 shots. Now one was a flesh wound, but they other 2 were good shots. It iw what I call "Typical TSX Performance." Luckily I had decent snow coverage and he was easy to find. Had it been in LA, I might would have lost him

Marc, when you refer to the Barnes "X' bullet are you referring to both the original X bullet and the TSX bullet? I was under the impression that the original X bullets did have a reputation for "pencilling" ie. not expanding at all. That, combined with the inaccuracy of the X bullets in my rifles led me to drop their use. However, the TSX's do seem to have developed a reputation for expansion, and that, combined with their very high accuracy has led me to start using them, although I have not hunted with them.
Peter.

Guys,

Let's not get into a pissing match over real experience. What is ... is.

Terminal ballistics is subject to a whole bunch of things including the velocity, cross sectional area, weight, and design of the arriving projectile. A great deal depends on the target struck as well. There are a bunch of variables involved. Even with the best of bullets there will be a few anomolies at impact.

It is probably not appropriate to draw general conclusions from a small sampling of data. Best to try to classify the data into related clusters in some way that helps to draw rational conclusions.

My choice of bullets has been driven by the belief that NPs open up faster and should be reserved for more lightly constructed targets. As a result, my experience with X and TSX bullets has been in larger calibers ... .375 and .416 for trips that might involve larger game. I have not seen this kind of problem at ranges from 30 yards to 110 yards on animals from Hartebeast to Bison and Cape Buffalo in size. Performance has, in fact, been excellent.

By the same token, the performance of NPs has also been simply impeccable on game ranging from whitetails and pigs through Kudu and Wildebeast.

/

Failure is a relative term when it comes to bullets. I shoot 10k plus high powered rifle rounds a year on adverage and have done so for the last 15 years. I do alot of bullets "testing"...mostly for personal reference and craps and giggles. Living close to a dairy farm, I get to use cows that die untimely deaths for testing media before I take the backhoe to bury them( glad my neighbor is also a rifle looney..lol).

One thing I have learned for sure is that given the right set of circumstances, all bullets can and do "fail". Some come apart at close ranges ( smaller caliber Nosler BTs)while other fail to expand at longer ranges ( Branes X and Nosler FailSafes) Still others open to quickly and fail to penetrate very far when driven at high speeds( Norma Oryx). There are no bullets that are the end all for every situation. Circumstance will dictate how they will perform on game. It is our job as hunters to try and predict those curcumstances the best we can and match the bullet to them. It isnt perfect folks..plain and simple.

Now for the current situation of the Barnes TSX not expanding. The hollow point was plugged by hair and they tumbled as mentioned above. No doubt about it. It takes a fluid media, i.e. fat, flesh, blood or a strike to solid bone ( bone, being living tissue does have enough hydro content to open the cavity) to cause them to expand. If the hole is plugged by hair before entering, they will not open up. This theory has been proposed before and got us thinking....

I have done testing to back this up. We filled the nose of a few Barnes TSX with bison hair and coated it with just enough rubber cement to hold it in place. Fired from a .270 win, they failed to open. Instead, we found by tracing the wound path in the dead cow, that after about 6 inches, the bullets began to yaw ( turn side to side). The yaw did cause quite a bit of damage but not as much as an expanded bullet would.

We also filled ten original barnes X bullets, .308 cal, with lead in the hollow. We then placed them in a hydraulic press with a chunck of meat on top. 8 of the 10, instead of opening, bent to the side. The other two split down the lines into the four petals. 10 unfilled bullets we also pressed with meat on top, all of them expanding into the classic X bullet shape.

The only conclusion we could reach was in the end, a simple one. Without fluid tissue to expand them, they wont expand MOST of the time.

Will they expand on other hard surfaces? Sure but you dont hunt wood and dirt, do you? And the physics involed are totally different from the physics of hydrodynamics. In cases of hard surface impact, the bullets are opened by blunt force resistance, no hydrodynamics as they we designed to do on living critters. To say they should open on critters because they do on dirt is a comparison of apples to oranges.

Hope this helps clear things up.

Peter-

I have had the EXACT smae performance with both the original X's in the early 90's as well as the TSX starting in '04. I found both to be very accurate, but the TSX's foul considerably less.

The TSX-shot deer have shown ZERO signs of being hit unless the CNS was take out.

I will say this-if a rifle will shoot at all the TSX usually makes it look like a superstart.

Alf-

Given my backgound I understand everything you wrote. To again state what I hav eseen, the X and TSX will not open at times. I know how to fill in the variables in all of the formulae, but that does not change what I have lived.

mstarling-

I think you hit on soemthing there in a way. I do beleive that when you get up to around .375 that th ehole in the hollow point is large enough to ensure good expansion.

And personally, I just love the Nosler Partition and have killed most of my game with it. They do not shoot worth a damn in my .270 sheep rifle though. Only rifle I ahve owned where they did nor perfom like a champ. I won't be using TSX's this year if I shoot the light .270 (which I probably won't anyway).