I've carried a 7mm Mag since I was 14. I've taken it to Africa 5 times and have used it extensively in North America for game up to and including elk. The round is more than powerful enough. As others have noted, what you experienced was bullet failure, not cartridge/caliber failure. I've been using 160 gr Noslers in mine for years and it has always performed well.

As to the old "a bullet that exits wastes energy" stance, I say B.S. I want 2 holes if I can get them. 2 holes means more blood going out and more air going in through the holes. Any energy "wasted" isn't important if you have 2 holes in the animal.

Post some pics of the recovered TTSX if you can. I'm curious if they are mushroomed out nicely or if the petals are broken off. I don't see how they wouldn't pass thru, a Berger I could understand being recovered but not a Barnes. If it was a "failure" of a Barnes bullet then it would've just penciled thru, no expansion at all, and that does happen with Barnes bullets sometimes. Being recovered, to me, seems like it would've had to expand a great deal and therefore isn't a "failure". Perhaps just unlucky shot placement and didn't connect with any vitals?

Red Herring... :sheep:

The only impact performance issues I have had with a Barnes have been the occasional apparent failure to open, and in one instance the bullet did not travel in a straight line. The straight line issue was odd as the bullet entered the shoulder of a 500 pound antelope broadside at under 100 yards and somehow turned and ended up under the skin very far back on the opposite side. The bullet expanded normally and the antelope was very dead but the skinners and PH were baffled at the path of the bullet. Strange thing do happen but the OP's reported experience is a bit too strange.

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I do realize one is more tarnished than the others. Anyways, I appreciate all the feedback. My 7 mm mag is a fun gun to shoot and the barnes bullets are very accurate in it. I liked the fact the Barnes are lead free and many people have posted great results. It's possible that on the slight quartering away shot, my bullets could have entered a bit far back and then made it through the rib cage. My point is I was expecting an easy pass through and more reaction from the deer. The results had me questioning if I could use this gun on an elk sized animal with a heavier bullet and get ample penetration. As stated most of my previous hunting had been done with a 270 and I don't recall recovering any bullets. Now, some of those kills were with the ballistic tips on whitetails and antelope which can produce crazy amounts of devastation, but no expected bullet recovery. I'll probably add the A-bolt in the 300 mag caliber to my gun cabinet because I feel like I should own one, but hopefully my 7 mag can remain my go to gun. I did try the partitions in my 7 mm mag but the accuracy seemed to suffer.

Sounds like a good time to start the fine tradition of Re-Loading your own ammunition! It comes out cheaper if you shoot a lot, you can fine tune a round to your own personal rifle and trust me, every single rifle made is different to an extent. you can get several bullet brands and roll a few differently for each lot for accuracy testing. Once you get a load down that your rifle likes the best, you can then test out the performance level on terminal ballistics on an animal. Accuracy always takes first place with ANY round. If you don't put it where it needs to be, no amount of "magic" will help.

Those bullets look like they performed exactly how they were designed. Not over expanded or anything of the sort. Must have been one tough a$$ Muley.

I've used Barnes bullets almost exclusively in my .375 RUM and .300 Weatherby. They shoot sub-moa 3 shot groups in each of these rifles, with a couple of bullet weights in either TSX and/or TTSX bullets.

I started using them in 2005, and have since killed over 30 big game animals with them in North America, Africa, and New Zealand. I have only recovered 6 Barnes bullets from those animals as many were complete pass throughs, but I did not try to recover bullets from many of the animals where the bullets did not pass through.

Here's a pic of the .30 caliber Barnes bullets that I did recover. Each of these bullets hit a major bone in the animal, and only one broke a petal off. The other two retained 99% of their original weight.


I have not lost any animals that I have shot with a Barnes bullet, and I do not believe that any of my bullets "penciled" through any animal, as all of the complete pass throughs, had a greater than caliber exit holes.

The first elk that I shot with a Barnes was a complete pass through, just behind his shoulders. When the 168 grain TSX bullet hit him, he turned around, ran a couple of steps and fell dead. There was 15 feet of blood splatter on the snow on each side of him.

In all of my years of hunting, I think that 99% of the bullet failures that I've had were the bullets that I failed to put in the right place.

I know there are a ton of guys with much more experience than me, which is what I was looking for. Thanks for taking the time to reply. I will mark this one down to operator error. I will still probably look at a heavier round going foreward.

I've killed a lot of game and quite a few with Barnes X, TSX, TTSX and LRX. Never an issue with any of them penetrating, expanding or killing. Quite frankly, the op's experience is totally out of character with the performance I have experienced. I'm not sure if Barnes had some issues with a specific lot of 7mm mag or what happened, but my expectation of a Barnes X of any kind would be to zing through a mule deer at 200 yards like nothing, and the deer to drop within 20 yards.

I would not hesitate to load a 7Mag with a 140 Barnes to good velocity and tackle anything in NA.

I agree completely. If an animal is hit marginally, I want an exit hole for a blood trail. I realize a marginal hit needs to be avoided through practice and shot judgment, but if you hunt long enough, it will happen. An exit hole is desirable in those unfortunate situations. That is one thing modern bullets have given us; the ability to use a lesser cartridge than back in the "good 'ol days" with acceptable results.