quote:

Before any reader decides to refuse to use the TSX bullet you should wait until I finish my comments. I am going to dinner and have more to say which is good and not-so-good. Don't get too excited and reserve making judgement.

quote:

Originally posted by rd277:
Ok, I am the guy the D'Arcy mentioned in his note as doing some culling in Africa that had some issues with TSX bullets. I will elaborate but first let me tell you about my experience.

I have been fortunate and have hunted in Africa 12 times in the past 11 years. For the last 9 hunts I have used a .270 Win. with various 130 gr. bullets including Bitteroot, Nosler partition, Fail Safe, X, TSX, Swift A-frame and Scirocco, Bear Claw, and Federal Classic Hi-Shock. There may be others but I can't recall at this time. I have taken about 219 animals at ranges of 30 yards to 389 yards. I stopped using a bullet when I became dissatisfied with it for some reason. Those reasons included slow stopping/killing, lack of accuracy, or inconsistency of either performance on game or on the range.

Animals range in size from young warthogs (kitchen hogs for those interested in a very fine meal) to bull eland (which weigh as much as buffalo).

My hunting companions used .300 Win., 300 RUM, .338, .375 H&H, and .416 Rigby. So, I have seen the results of their use as well. My first trips were made with a .280 and a 7mm Rem. Mag. Perhaps I will offer my observations on these "bigger sticks" if anyone is interested.

On my last trip I used, equally, the Barnes TSX and the Swift A-Frame. I fired 12 TSX's and recovered 4. Two the the bullets failed to expand properly. Eight of them full penetrated so I have no evidence of the expansion.

First, lets discuss the "failures". I shot a bull eland, a very large bull, at 145 yards. I place two shots with virtually identical
placement. The bull spun 180 degrees at the first shot which resulted in the opportunity to make the second. The first resulted in a typical sample of a post impact TSX. There was very little weight loss, no loss of petals, and a frontal width of a little less than 2x. The nose of the second was bent over at an angle which resulted in no expansion. Imagine taking a very sharp pencil, which would have a very long point, and then exerting too much pressure when writing.

I also took two on-the-large size wildebeasts. Again, there was a difference in performance. As luck would have it, both were shot quartering towards me a the same angle. I was in thick thorn bush and the ranges were about 40 yards. Again, one bullet was picture perfect but this time the second one showed expansion only for the first 40% of the expanding portion of the nose cavity (that for which expansion is possible). It is interesting that the first beast ran over 300 yards and set a record for distance run following a solid shot and the second beast ran a distance that I have come to expect, that is 35 to 50 yards.

I was unsettled by these occurances so used the Swift A-Frames for the duration of the trip. Also, I just wanted to gather more data on their performance.

Before any reader decides to refuse to use the TSX bullet you should wait until I finish my comments. I am going to dinner and have more to say which is good and not-so-good. Don't get too excited and reserve making judgement.

Back from dinner and a movie( The Bucket List--worthwhile!).

Now for the not-so-good. I have noticed that the spacing of the grooves around the shank of the bullet varies from lot to lot. Initially this bothered me but I was bothered because I thought I had loaded the wrong weight of bullet. I quit being concerned about that issue. Thankfully the profile of the bullet has not been changed. The accuracy of the bullet has been consistent except I have noticed a slight decrease in the most recent lots. It is still acceptable for hunting. Incidently I require my rifle bullet system to be able to hit a grapefruit size target before I will attempt a shot. While the heart lung area is larger than a grapefruit, hits outside the core of the area are, on average, much less effective than those placed in the core of the heart/lung area. Shots which miss the heart/lung area predicably result in bad memories.

I believe the use of the A-Frame and the TSX substantially increase the "power" of the .270 Win. It is fully adequate for use on the entire range of plains game.

I had the best results with the first production run of the Swift Scirocco's. Every animal hit fell where they stood. In addition they were very accurate. Later production runs were never able to reproduce the accuracy of the first. Recent production consistently have at least one flier in each group. The Scirocco II's are just as inconsistent accuracy wise and the "improvement" made to decrease frontal area makes it less of a "quick stopper" than the first editions. The writers wrote that the large frontal area resulted in decreased penetration and concluded that was somehow a bad thing. Writers read their own material so much that they start believing they have some special knowledge and insight. For example you should disregard all the writings of anyone who attempts to determine bullet expansion by reducing the muzzle velocity of test bullets so they can be shot into test media at close range. Rotational velocity, which is a function of muzzle velocity and twist, does not decrease over normal hunting distances and as actual impact velocity decreases, rotational velocity has an increasing influence on expansion.

I believe that the new tipped TSX may be one of the two bullets that I would be satisfied to use. Having a tip results in a larger cavity in the nose which should initiate expansion even more quickly. My experience is that the current TSX's will fully expand on broadside shots on 30 pound warthogs.

I really like the A-Frame's. They are very accurate. Jarrett uses them. They are very well designed. It is a good thing that the rear cavity bulges foreward. That bulge serves to support the leaves of the expanded nose. Rarely, do they break off. It is also a very quick killer. In fact, for ranges inside 325 yards or so, it is my first choice.

I will provide comments on the other bullets if anyone is interested. I will post pictures of the four TSX's if I can figure out how to do so. Likewise I will provide my observations on the "big sticks" if there is interest. Hint, I don't own anything between .300 and .375.

quote:

Originally posted by kraky:
I've skimmed the posts above and maybe someone has brought this up but.....I sort my boxes of bullets when I get them. I use the really open tips for hunting....I try to load the marginally open tips for load development and barrel fouling before the hunt. I'm not worried about any of my hunting bullets opening since I've sorted em.