How is this for bullet performance.....
 

After reading some of the post in here it seems that when you go against the grain,have a gripe about a bullet ....you are either a liar, a dummy or a corporate troll. Well I feel that I am none of those, just a normal guy that's been around firearms and reloading all my life and have taken my share of game. With that said I had this happen to me about a month ago. This bullet was fired from a 300 WSM, the load consisted of 67.0 grs of R-19 behind a Barnes 168 TSX. I never chronographed this load but by the manual it should be doing 3000-3100 fps. The bullet entered the chest of a whitetail deer facing head on and slightly quartering and traveled through the vitals destroying them and then passed through the guts and stopped just under the hide just forward of the hindquarter. The deer was a mess inside and it appears the bullet tumbled some. The deer didnt run far after being shot but did not bleed a drop of blood. I am not saying that the bullet failed, though it did fail to expand. The range was slightly over 100 yards and I am certain the bullet had enough velocity at that range to expand properly. This is show some here that it can happen.

As I have said before, I have used X's in the past and have always had pass through's. There are many examples of pefectly "X" shaped mushrooms from the barnes bullets taken from inside of animals, great they did their job perfectly. I sometimes think that many pencil through game and one will never know without recovering the bullet.They are known for having small wound channels compared to conventional jacketed bullets.Any thought's?


The bullet on the left is an unfired 168 gr TSX and the bullet on the right was recovered from a Canadian Whitetail and weighed 166.8 grains. Good weight retention eh?

RE: How is this for bullet performance.....
 

Now thats pretty amazing, i have never seen a recovered bullet from a deer with such little expansion, and like you said, awesome weight retention, glad the deer didnt go to far, sometimes things just happen and theres nothing you can do to stop them, however, you killed your deer and i think thats the only thing that matters here. congratulations on your deer,

RE: How is this for bullet performance.....
 

It's the exact reason that when i use a premium bullet, it's a Nosler Partition. In the hundreds i've shot, i've yet to have a failure!

I stand by what i keep posting here, NP's have the widest working range of any bullet made! They expand well at low velocities, and drive deep or on through, at high velocity!!!

In all the NP's i've shot at game, i've only recovered two bullets and i have never had one fail to expand!

For me, i'd call your bullet a failure.

BTW, i've seen other bullets do the same thing yours did. (not a TSX)

Drilling Man

RE: How is this for bullet performance.....
 

DITTO!

RE: How is this for bullet performance.....
 

double, I think you and I learned the exact same thing this year. I had the same type of result in my 300 RUM with 180 gr Accubonds. The bullets are obviously not made for whitetails. I have sinced shelved the gun and load and will only use it for bigger game then a whitetail. I guess I could try a softer bullet, but then at those speeds it may do the opposite.

RE: How is this for bullet performance.....
 

I agree that is a failure of your bullet. I had the same thing on a grand slam fired from a .270 win at about 50 yards It took two rounds in the boiler room to finish the job. Now I stick to NP's or for varmits v-max

RE: How is this for bullet performance.....
 

That sucks, I had a similar occurrence with a 175 grain sierra once for some reason, I now shoot mostly all nosler!

RE: How is this for bullet performance.....
 

Interesting, thanks for posting. I'm loading the 180's in my 300RUM. Haven't had the chance to take anything with it yet (it's my elk rifle and it was a bad year for me). Now I'm anxious to know what it'll do.

RE: How is this for bullet performance.....
 

That is an odd one for sure.I have witnessed several kills with the tsx and have seen a few more recovered bullets,and all seem to have expanded.

RE: How is this for bullet performance.....
 

But see mossy, I have taken deer with 300RUM and partition and the effects were the completely opposite of mine.

Guys sooner than later, you will see this behavior out of any bullet. Kill enough game and it will happen.

I load 270 130gr gamekings kicking about 2850fpsfor a friend. For years, he has always raved about bullet performance from these rounds. This year he hit a spike and it left a very faint exit wound and very little internal. He was shocked. Does this mean its a bad bullet to use for deer? Not hardly. Does it mean they will all not expand? Again not hardly. Just in this circumstanc, it didn't work the way he wanted it too.

I believe this poster, but also beleieve it could have hit something at the last moment and it tumbled and caused what he has seen.

RE: How is this for bullet performance.....
 

I've only shot a couple of deer with Triple Shocks and in both cases bullet performance was superb. See my new post in the Reloading forum.

RE: How is this for bullet performance.....
 

Looks pretty aweful to me. Might as well be shooting FMJ's

RE: How is this for bullet performance.....
 

You may have solved the mystery here. Hit a twig as big as a toothpick, and the bullet is going to become de-stabilized and tumble. I had a Nosler Partition do this once out of a 7 Mag - even found the small branch it clipped about 25 feet in front of the animal.

RE: How is this for bullet performance.....
 

I would not jump the gun at one bullet failure. There are a ton of factors that go into it. It is not a given at every shot. It may have glanced off something on the way or when it struck the target and it prevented it from opening.

I have seen bullets do some pretty strange things that they shouldn't have.

Paul

RE: How is this for bullet performance.....
 

Great post. I am not a Barnes fan. I couldn't get the XXX to stabalize in my .243 Sako which just happens to be the least fussy rifle I own. Now it seems, not only are they are spastic.....they don't work!!!....Same with the worthless Hornady SST's .....pure junk. These bullets are just plain spastic IMHO.I went back to the basic Nosler BT and the Sierra Game King and am a happy camper.....although the Noslers are not 100%. Regards, Rick.

RE: How is this for bullet performance.....
 

The Barnes and the Partition are both Premium bullet but from differeny classes. The barnes is Primarily penetrator. The Partiion is primarily a expander although both normall do both jobe pretty well. On deer with a caliber of any decent size, a non premium bullet is really a better bet. Except for the Partition which always seems to work even on this skinned game.

RE: How is this for bullet performance.....
 

BINGO!!!! In the couple hundred i've shot, they have worked perfectly!!!

Drilling Man