Anyone besides me having trouble with triple X's leaving a lot of crud in the bore to clean out?

Group good for a few rounds, then start to open up. CZ left hand rifle.

Barnes bullets suck IMHO, and that is why! They foul like there is no f ing tomorrow. That and they shed their "pedals" and become underweight solids.

Thanks ScottS.

I was thinking of using them on elk as they run faster than Hornady spire pts. and have a good shape to shoot rather flat.

Thinking about what jeffeosso posted maybe CZ will rebarrel it for you.

your bore is rough ... i can shoot 20-30 of them and keep having good groups, but obvious fouling .

known for high weight retension and can't spit a core

quote:

your bore is rough ... i can shoot 20-30 of them and keep having good groups, but obvious fouling

Yes. My .30-06 will go over 40 rounds with the 168 TSX before accuracy starts to degrade.

LWD

They are great elk bullets. Push them hard and have some fun!

I have never seen a barnes shed a pedal. My Ruger No1 was rough and bad at fouling until i did some polish work. It's much better now.

quote:

Originally posted by ScottS:
Barnes bullets suck IMHO, and that is why! They foul like there is no f ing tomorrow. That and they shed their "pedals" and become underweight solids.

Well, you know what they say...opinions are like a$$holes, everybody's got em. The TSX bullets I have been able to recover weighed a few grains off of what they did when I initially loaded them and I have never had any issue with shedding pedals. As far as fouling, maybe more than others but their performance makes it worth it to me. Just my .02 cents.

Try giving your barrels a GOOD cleaning with J&B Bore Paste thinned up a little with Prolix.

Then finish up with Prolix on a patch to remove all the J&B.

Yep barrel must be rough. Files foul pretty darned badly. Both of my 500 foul terribly with the 570gr TSX, but they are only highly polished match barrels. Had less fouling with the 30-06, which is a fairly rough looking Milsurp barrel, go figure.

Anyway, my experience with the Barnes is limited, I didn't like the little bit I saw so I quick using them. The pedals I have lost were in 0.416 and 0.510 calibers. Perhaps the smaller bores are better, don't know.

I would use a 250gr Aframe or 260 Accubond first before I ever considered a Barnes, again just my opinion.

YJ, your right about opinions and that is why I clearly stated it was mine.

quote:

Originally posted by ScottS:

Anyway, my experience with the Barnes is limited, I didn't like the little bit I saw so I quick using them. The pedals I have lost were in 0.416 and 0.510 calibers. Perhaps the smaller bores are better, don't know.

I would use a 250gr Aframe or 260 Accubond first before I ever considered a Barnes, again just my opinion.

YJ, your right about opinions and that is why I clearly stated it was mine.

Now you got my curiousity peaked. On the flip side my experience with Barnes TSX is .375 and lesser calibers. I've only shot the solids on my .458 Lott and haven't loaded any of the TSX. I may have to try some of them and see if I have any of those problems you refer to.

barnes bullets suck and they do shed there peddles. I used them in Uganda and will never use them again IMHO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have limited experience with the Triple X...6mm and 30 cal into a sand box. Almost all the recovered rounds had at least one petal gone...BUT shoting into a sand box is a very hard test for ANY bullet. I use the bullet types and brands that survived and stayed together, relatively speaking.

I would like to see a Triple X with the slick blue coating tho', that would shut the whiners up maybe...I've shot thousands of the now discontinued 22 cal, 40gr "bluepills"...no more fouling and usually less than Vmax or Noslers.

And they did foul...simple solution that works very well for "normal" bullet also.

The thing here is ...

How many shoot 20-40 rounds at a game animal, fer chrisake??? Clean and polish the dam barre...well and often. You're shooting a hard, solid bullet...that's why there are bands...expect some "tiger stripes".

If you recovered the bullet that means the game is dead and the bullet MUST have penetrated a littl bit and done it's job...

And no one knows WHEN the bullet shed it's petals.

I've tested most brands of bullets in almost every caliber in my sandbox and EVERY one of them got chewed up to a greater or lesser extent.

Cup and cores turned inside out. Bonded stayed together but lost weight AND petals. Solids just bored almost through and through depending on the caliber etc, the 3 ft deep sand box.

There is NO perfect bullet and I think hunters are prone to blame the bullet first, rather than themselves or some other reason.

Pick a modern bullet and be happy...bullet making has come a LONG way since Rem Core-loks and W-W PP and they still do a credible job thousands of times a season.

Luck

quote:

Originally posted by N E 450 No2:
Try giving your barrels a GOOD cleaning with J&B Bore Paste thinned up a little with Prolix.

Then finish up with Prolix on a patch to remove all the J&B.

JB was on ,my list to try next. Just haven't got to it. Need more bullets to test. Kind of expensive for shooting up tests to see if it continues to foul!

I shoot ttsx and Tsx in 404j, 416rigby,2- 375h+h, 2-300wm, and 2-'06. Have never had problem with fouling, have to admit I don't go more than 20-30 rounds without cleaning. My experience on game, both here in the U.S.,Canada, and Tanz., with the bullets has been great. What bullets that have been recovered had great weight retention. Accuracy has been excellent in my rifles.
As far as original poster was asking about the 235 in his 375, I don't get any more fouling with them than the 270 gr.

TSX bullets are my favorite expanding bullets these days. I haven't had the problem you describe.

But it's hardly a news flash to say that different rifles handle the same bullets differently.

Sounds like yours is a bad match with the TSX. My sense is that it's probably the barrel, rather than the bullet.

I run triple Shocks in 25, 6.5, 7mm, 30 cal, 338, 358, 375, and 416. I have never had one shed a PETAL. Do they foul a little more? Sure do. Who cares. I have never had an animal yet that required 2-030 rounds to bring down.

Me thinks people are concerned with inconsequential trivialities.

I've heard about more fouling with the barnes bullets, but I have personally never experienced any more fouling than other bullets. The fouling from them does seem to be more viable though. Either way I don't care because they are one of the most accurate bullets I've ever shot.

I had terrible fouling with the original X Bullet in a Remington .243, and gave up on Barnes. Then three years ago while preparing for a Namibia PG hunt, my PH, Johann Veldsmann, suggested I try some 250-grain TSX's in my CZ 9.3X62. I am glad I did. They were accurate, fouled no worse than any other bullet, and when applied to 2 kudu, 2 gemsbok and 2 Hartmann's zebra, they performed very well. The two bullets recovered under the hide on the far side showed picture-perfect expansion and no loss of petals. That said, I would like to try the North Forks.
I had high hopes for the Accubonds, but I work in a large sporting goods store and a number of customers have complained about the Accubond being a bit soft on elk.

Try lubing them. Either moly coat or just a good cast bullet lube. If you are going to use them in a really hot climate use a hard lube that won't melt. Rooster Jacket maybe.

Srose: Interesting idea. Might have to try an experiment with Lee's Liquid Alox tumble lube and see what happens.

Bill, I too hunted with Johann Veldsman at his beautiful camp on the Huab river. I would encourage anyone wanting to hunt Namibia to get in touch with Johann. I just returned fron my 4 th trip to Africa, and have used Barnes triple shocks on all of my trips. The 270 grains group like varmit bullets in my .375 H&H with 70 gr. of Varget. We revovered 2 from my Sable and they were picture perfect. The solids from my .458 lott just went on through the buffalo. Don't shoot these in a herd! My wife and I had a great hunt with PH Terry Anders on his Savuli Concession in the Save conservency.

Since I run a year 'round hunting operation in an area where non-lead bullets are now required, I've seen an awful lot of kills with Barnes bullets. We ran the hunting service around 20 years before the non-lead law, so I've seen my fair share of lead core bullets used on animals too. We're mainly just hunting the lowly feral pig, but the gristle shield on boars can be a pretty good test on bullets. Depending on the pig population and the season, we'll go through up to 2 to 4 pigs per day and as many as 15+ in a week (numbers haven't been nearly that good lately).

While I HATE being FORCED to use non lead bullets, I'm really impressed with their performance on game. My ONLY complaint is that I think because of their more controlled expansion they sometimes kill a bit slower and lose a bit less blood for trailing than more rapidly expanding bullets. But in my experience the incredible penetration and weight retention makes them worth the trade-off. This whining about losing a petal now and then is silly. So what if they lose a petal once in a great while? Even with a missing petal they'll usually retain a higher percentage than the best of the lead bullets. In my experience a nice entrance AND exit hole are much more common than missing petals. And the penetration is typically rather straight-line, making the utilization of the deep penetration quite valuable.

People not shooting Barnes bullets because of them losing petals reminds me of the duck hunters who "Never missed" back when they were using lead shot.

Now the exception to that is ridiculous velocity. If you push one 3,000++ fps and hit something really close you can regularly rip off all the petals and be left with just the shank penetrating the animal. But lead core bullets won't retain weight any better under those conditions. The simple fact is that a given bullet can only be designed for optimal expansive performance in a finite range of velocities. In my experience that range is at least as wide with the TSX as any other bullet.

Rough bores may foul more quickly, but a bigger culprit may be that standard copper jacket fouling remaining in the bore can cause fouling more quickly with the softer copper in a Barnes bullet. Its been written many times; clean out that other fouling and you'll have less fouling when you shoot the Barnes.

BTW the TSX design has made a huge leap forward in reducing fouling (and increasing accuracy) compared to the old solid shank "X" versions.

Specifically the 235 gr. Barnes in the .375 H&H has been one of my favorite combos. Flat shooting, relatively low recoil and tons of penetration for medium sized animals. I've got a bunch of 300 grainers to burn and then I'll probably switch back to the 235 gr.

I don't own any stock in Barnes and as I said I would rather not be forced to shoot them, but I get tired of people running them down after a statistically insufficient number of trials.