My son shot a spike last year with a .50 cal. using a Barnes x-bullet. The deer ran less than 50 yards, however the bullet didn' t make an exit hole. We recovered the bullet and it had opened perfectly. The bullet obviously did its job, however all animals don' t fall within sight and I like a bullet that makes two holes for a better blood trail. I' ve heard similar comments about Power Belts. I' m interested in anyone else' s experience with Barnes.

The Barnes X bullet isn' t designed for pass throughs . It' s designed to hammer game with massive shock . Since the deer dropped in 50 yards who needs a blood trail anyway ? Blood trails are for bowhunters , gun hunters strive to drop the game in it' s tracks whenever possible .

As I said in my post, all animal don' t always fall within sight, even with solid hits. If they all fell in their tracks, a trail wouldn' t be necessary. I have had lung shot deer to run 100 yrs. The areas I hunt are rugged, not flat midwestern land. I' m only interested in other hunter' s experience with the Barnes bullet. If the Barnes drops all deer in their tracks, I guess I don' t need to look any further.

I have hunted with barnes for years and the reason I use them iss the deer are almost almost stoped in there tracks even with a marginal hits .It will stop a deer a lot faster than my 7 mag

I am using the same bullets. I have not shot a deer with them yet but I also have some concern on the hollow point bullet design. I am concerned if the front leg gets hit, will the bullet have anough energy to get through it efficiently into the animals vitals.

is this the bullet with the giant hollow point?? im new to muzzleloading and looking for something that will tear a deer up.....now im using powerbelts....and so far i dont like them....i hit 1 and lost it...barely any blood...might not been a great hit but i should still had a blood trail.......and the der made it over 150 yds till i lost hte blood trail...the trail was tiny tiny drops not noticable unless you were on your hands and knees.....and many times it would stop then id loose it and have to circle and grid to find it again.....im going to stick with them this year only becuase all the wonderful thngs i hear about them.....but so far i dont like them...we' ll see though.....but is this barnes bullet the one with the giant copper hollowpoint? it looks like agood design if it is...only concern is the mushrom falling apart because its so big and thin.....

tenn, I hunted with the bigmouthed 250Xbullets in my Knight for several years and NEVER lost a deer with them. I just wanted to shoot farther and went to 200 grain " RedHots" wich are also Barnes but have a different profile and much smaller hole in them. I have several " in their tracks kills" in the 100-150yds with them. And they' ve always exited btw!

Might wanna try em.

Gentlemen ,
MLs won' t take game reliably outside 150 yards , no matter what you shoot . The hype over magnum loads , sabots , and other supposed " super improvements" is crap . All it does is create " brown and downers" .

MLs were designed to take game of all sizes at distances of 200 yards or less , simply because they were born in an era where they were the dominant firearm , and that was the maximum range most of our " frontier heroes" felt comfortable with . Let' s not deceive ourselves , no matter what improvements we make , MLs will always be short range weapons . An average .22 can easily outdo the most technically advanced ML on the market today on distance. The race for the " 300 yard ML" is a fool' s errand at best . Don' t fall for that trap , you will be disappointed .

Know what your equipment can do , not what you want it to do , and respect that limitation . Use the wepon as it was intended and you will take game if you' re good enough .

Closer is always better, but there is no reason at all that deer-sized game cannot be cleanly dropped at 200 yards or so with a muzzleloader-- providing you practice a reasonable amount with a reasonable load.

http://www.prbullet.com/DCenter.wmv

At 200 yards, the exact load I used to drop this 350 lb. Bull Caribou at 157 yards has 1200 ft. / lbs. of kinetic energy left-- and that is much more than needed to cleanly harvest a deer.

Randy you got that right percision sabot do drop them in there tracks .Just last week in the early PA m/l season I took a doe with a 300 grain silver lighting sabot in my 54 cal thunderhawk with a charge of 70 grains of triple 777 deer drop in here tracks