After a decade of selling and using other bullets during my first decade of hunting I mostly switched to Barnes about 20yrs ago and seldom use or recommend anything else! Yeah they are THAT danged good, but honestly it's not just the Barnes it's their design. Essentially every ammo/bullet maker is now offering a solid copper/gilding metal/monolithic solid like the Barnes design and I'm sure they work equally as well. Initially the original Barnes X-bullets weren't known for their accuracy and typically the best they would do is 1.5"-2" groups at 100yds. That's FINE for "minute of deer" inside of a quarter mile but obviously when other bullets are capable of sub 1/2" groups then you kinda had to make a decision. Well in the late 90s Barnes figured out that by machining grooves into the bullet they would give the copper somewhere to "flow to" as it traveled down the barrel, they would also decrease pressure and accuracy would REALLY improve. Thus the Triple Shock was born! Now we COULD have our cake and eat it too!!! Then a couple of years later, as a response to the market, the Tipped Triple Shock was born. For a hunting bullet I could careless which I use, they perform the same. Barnes just put a tip in the TSX because "the rage" then (and even still today) was for a bullet to sell well it simply HAD to have a plastic tip in the nose.

WhiteOak, when you say "spin" how much force are you using to make the bullet turn in the case mouth? If you used pliars then that's a no-no to begin with. If you really had to "sit down on them" to get them to initially break free, then again you probably don't have anything to worry about. If however they ARE turning with simple finger force but AREN'T moving up/down (sliding in/out) of the case mouth then I doubt you have to worry about any firing issues but you DO need to worry about moisture getting in the case! Some neckbonder would help in that case or perhaps let a buddy who reloads take a look at them and perhaps he could run them through his crimping die to make sure they are up to snuff? (You DONT want bullet that you can push in or pull out of the case with simple finger pressure, besides the obvious things like malfunctions, moisture intrusion, bullet seating depth which can alter accurace etc... it can really effect case pressure which "could" potentially be dangerous in older weapons.

Sadly I now fear we are beginning to see the results of Barnes having been bought by Remington's parent company (Freedom Arms which is a division of the monster Cerberus Capital) about 4 years ago! I thought by their leaving the Brooks' in charge of Barnes that maybe that would keep everything "as before" but seldom to the Wall Street holding companies/investment bankers leave things "as is". Their egos and drive for lower costs force them to tinker, manipulate and otherwise screw things up royally! They've managed to screw up essentially EVERYTHING ELSE they've bought over the last 2 decades (Remington, Bushmaster, Marlin/H&R, Dakota Arms, DPMS/Panther, Parker, Para etc) and while I hoped they would leave their hands off Barnes, I fear that as well is coming.

GOD HELP US if/when the likes of Hornady, Nosler etc are sold to Wall Street suits...