Red - this may be one of the great debates of current bullet technolgy. It seems like if you have to choose between penetration and expansion, obviously you go for penetration. But there don't seem to be any free lunches here. A bullets that has 50% more penetration than a regular soft nose is going to do so at the expense of a smaller wound channel. Something along the lines of there is only so much "volume" a wound channel can produce with a certain weight bullet and a certain impact velocity. So the volume can be long and narrow or short and wide - or some of each, like the Nosler partition.

From what I have seen so far, the Barnes X has the most reliable "kill from any angle" performance of any bullet out there. The Swift A-Frame also has similar terminal performance. But theirperformance on broadside rib shots, particularly in standard calibers, is not as good as many other more conventional bullets. For instance, the performance of the 165 Barnes X, out of a .300 Win Mag., onelk was not realconvincing on rib shots. It did not appear to make as bigofa hole through the lungs as a .25-06 with conventional soft points and allowed several elk to stay on their feetmuch longer than I would have preferred.

But, as you say, they have absolutely reliable penetration - and theelk is going to go down . . .it just might take 6 or 7 seconds to happen on the classic broadside rib shot with standard calibers. Shoot for the shoulders - or end-for-end(either coming or going) - and its usually DRT.

One other thing folks really seem to like about the Barnes X bullets is the general lack of bloodshot meat. Even a Texas heart shot won't usually ruin more than five pounds of meat.

Personally, I kinda sold on the Swift Scirocco's. I usually wait for the broadside rib shot and these bullets, at least in the .270 Magnums and .300 Win Mag, will put an elk on the ground quicker than any bullet I have used so far.