I'll answer your question, since X Factor/Relentless Pursuit et al is, once again, no longer a member of this forum. I'm sure he'll be back tomorrow under another guise because he's too arrogant and/or stupid to get the hint that he's not welcome here... but I digress...

The "X" referred to is the Barnes X bullet, or in the current form, the Triple Shock X bullet (TSX for short). It's a wicked all copper bullet that expands fast into four sharp and nasty petals almost 2x the original diameter of the bullet, retains 97%+ of it's weight and penetrates better than just about any expanding bullet out there. They cost a lot, but the performance on game is excellent, and I've always got good to excellent accuracy from the TSX too.



I found this picture of three 270 grain TSX bullets (375 H&H) recovered from an 1800lb eland in Africa. The left bullet was at 200 yards, middle at 40 yards and the right was to guarantee it was down and dead at 8 feet according to the story associated with the pic. All retained greater than 269 grains (98.8% weight retention).

Mike

I have a box of 160gr A-Frames in 7mm Rem Mag...maybe they discontinued them, but I know they did produce them...

depends if you like putting pencil holes in and out on deer.
For the 7 mag and great big holes.
140 gr hornady BTSP's or SST's

I was under the impression that the xp3 bullets left pretty good sized holes.

I appreciate all the help guys.

prolly not in a 160 gr bullet, to me thats a lot of lead for a light thin skinned game like a deer.

I just started using the 7-08 and used a 139 gr interlock and it penciled in and out.
I would think that would work great at 7 mag velocities.
Going to load some up for a friend with a 7 mag. Ill let you know when he shoots something. It just seems a bullet made for moose aint that great for deer. Of course it will kill it. I just like seeing lung sprayed out the other side

Well, most everyone here has really good points (no pun intended) about bullets. I used to get all worked up over it and finally found that when shooting at whitetail deer, any old popular brand bullet works great. After shooting many does (antelope and mule deer) I have found that the unbonded bullets (core lockt, interloc, ballistic tip's, game kings and power points) expend all of thier energy and usually drop the animal in its place or not far from it.
Now, bonded or solid bullets perform well too but they are way more expensive. Like zrex said, do you want pencil holes? Really doesnt matter if you put the bullet in the vitals.
Bigger than whitetail and mule deer? Yeah, go with a bonded or solid, you'll probably need it. EJ

Never used the XP3's on deer, but they work well on elk.