HEAD0001

Why is Barnes so proud of these bullets? What is it that could make these bullets cost so much? They cost as much as Berger Match Bullets. I have been trying Barnes bullets for years. Never could get them to shoot that well. I never could see any advantage to them for day in day out shooting and hunting. May be as an elk load? But even as an elk load the Partition's are hard to beat. I hunt alot with 30 caliber's. I have heard alot of people knocking the BT's. I can not understand this. We kills tons of deer with the BT, and have never had a problem. I would bet that the BT would outshoot the Barnes any day for accuracy. So what more could the Barne's do? I do not mean to sound so negative, could somebody please set me straight.

Rammer

I will say that Barnes are very proud of their bullets. The $25-$28 for a box of 50 TSXs tells me that. None-the-less, I did buy some 120gr TSXs for my 7mag for Xmas. Hopefully, I will get a chance to work them up this week an see how they shoot. In my experience (200 Barnes TSXs and a few X bullets) they did shoot extremely well for me. The deer I shot with them didn't know if they were hit by a corelokt or a $.50 chunk of copper......

Ripstop

I just bought a Super Shadow in .300wsm last month.To try something different I bought the Barnes 168gr TSX. They are $9 more per 50 than the Accubonds I shoot in my 7mm wsm, but if they work as advertised I will be happy. I am using RL19 and the first batch I was very disappointed. However, Barnes states the bullets should be seated between .030" - .070" from the lands. I had no ideahow farthe bullet was seated off the lands on the first batch. So I bought the stoney point gage and accessories. Well the next batch I loaded upwere .048" from the lands and what a difference. Here is the target from Saturday.

Ripstop

here is the target from a week ago. I had no idea exactly how far from the lands I had seated the bullet. You can tell a big difference.

RWK

The reason or part of the reason the price of copper is of the wall. Rich

ranger140892

They are expensive. I too tried them for years and never could get good acceptableaccuracy until the TSX. Barrel fouling with X bullets was horrible and I just couldn't get any of my guns to group well after about 5 rounds.
TSX's don't foul my bores near as much and now I'm getting the accuracy I get out of Sierra's, Nosler's, and Hornady's, evenafter 25 rounds.Plus, most of theTSX's I've recoveredhad 85% or more weight retention as apposed to sometimes 25% retention with lead core bullets.
Since they don't break up too much, I'm using lighter bullets with more velocity and flatter mid to long rangetrajectory

skeeter 7MM

TSX is the only barnes I have found to be worth the hype. They are not near as finnicky as the reg x bullet,shoot extremely well, don't foul as much and work as advertised in terms of game performance. While the Partition is still the bullet which all others are measured against the barnes has the ability to be loaded down in gr size without comprimise and still hawg highretention for pentetration purposes even when fired at faster MV's. IMHO the TSX has to be one of the best big game bullets (elk and up) available today. I've used the TSX for a couple years now and have been tickled by its performance on elk and moose. Though I still switch for deer sized game to the NBT's as it has proven to be a great bullet for this application over many years and harvested animals. While others have also worked I see no reason not to use the highly accurate and affordable BT's for my paper/deer sized use.

358WINMAN

I've shot a few whitetails with my .35 Whelen and 200 gr Barnes X bullets, handloaded of course. The accuracy was ok at 100yds but the damage to the deer was impressive. I've never been able to recover a bullet from any of them. Exit wounds were quite substabtial. However, the price of these bullets is high. I do most of my loading and hunting with Nosler Bal Tips and Partitions. The ballistic tips are awesome for two very necessary hunting reasons: 1) They are very, very accurate, specially when you can play with the powders and charges until you get 1/2" to 3/4" groups at 100yds. 2). They never fail to quickly and cleanly kill whitetails, antelope, mulies, coyotes and moose. Yes, I said moose! A friend of mine and I are .35 caliber buffs. We both had .35 Whelen that we customized and shot a lot of deer and bear with. We handloaded Noslers 35 cal Ballistic tips, 225 grainers and shot them with very good accuracy. He went to Newfoundland and shot a moose with that load at 175yds. The moose stepped and fell dead. No second shot needed. When they got to the moose the damage was extensive. He was dead before he hit the ground.
So, In my humble opinion, I still love and will always love Bal Tips and Partitions. They work very well and cost far less.

jrchurch254a

358WINMAN,

I shoot the .35 Whelen myself, I love the cartridge. I bought the rifle, Ruger M77 RS on a whim when I got home from my first deployment to Iraq. I thought I might use it to hunt the dark woods of Idaho for elk if I ever get back home (Idaho). Last year my son went out to cull some whitetail does off a friends ranch outside of Copperas Cove, Texas. My son shot two does with his .25-06 that I hand loaded with 120 grain Speer Hotcore bullets. The shots were right at 100 yards and I could not believe the blood damage to the shoulders. Both deer ran about 50 yards before expiring. Both shots went right through the shoulders with lots of damage to the lungs. I assumed that the speed of the bullet was pretty high which caused the blood damage. So I decided to use my .35 whelen when it was my turn to shoot. My son thought I was really going to "blast" the poor little whitetails with that big 250 grain Speer hotcore. But when I did get to shoot, that doe went right to the ground like someone smashed her on the head with a sledge. When I cleaned her out I was surprised by the extrance and exit hole. The entrance was about the diameter of the .35 bullet and the exit about twice that, the lungs were pulverized and the blood shot area was only about the size of my palm.I hit bone going in and bone going out.I guess old Elmer Keith had the right idea about using the slow moving, big bore bullets to hunt with. I love the caliber and if you have some good home cooked reloading data I would be interested in getting it from you.

Thanks

358WINMAN

Mr. JrCHURCH,

First of all, thank you for serving the USA and makingthe sacrifice of your free time, family time and hunting time, let alone the giving of your life if it came down to it. We all owe you a firm handshake along with a friendly thank you!
You're absolutely right about the .35 Whelen and big bullets. After messing around with 200's, 225's and 250's, I found the Whelen liked the 225's the best. I was loading 225 grain Sierra Gameking SPBT at the time. Super bullet with 54 grains of IMR4320 in my Rem 700. You are right when you say "deer die quickly" with the big round. All of my Whelen kills have hit the ground hard and most were dead before they hit the ground! Gotta love those .35's
But, this forum is about the Barnes TripleShok bullets. I don't know a damn thing about them. Never loaded or shot one. However, today I was at the gun shop buying a belated XMAS gift for me from me in the way of a Ruger No.1 in .338 Win Mag. The gun guy there deals with many, many hunters from all socioeconomic levels. Blue collar to wealthy come to this shop.
We were talking about the new factory loads for the .338WM and he showed me a box of Federal 225grain TSX's in .338WM. $52.99 plus tax per box of 20!!!!! Thats $57.00 bucks a box. WOW!! This must be some bullet I thought. So, I picked his brain a bit and he began to tell me about hunts that some of his customers have gone on using the TSX bullet and the impressive one shot kills they were making at very long ranges with it. One story was about a gent who killed a bull elk with a .243 and a TSX bullet past the 200 yd mark!
One of his customers is going to a certain part of Africa where .375 cal is not the legal minimum for MBOGO's(Buffs). This customer, who has several african hunts under his belt is going over with a .338 Win Mag and TripleShok bullets to hunt this nasty beautiful bugger! The PH is very OK with it because he's seen what the TSX can do! Go figure!!!
So, in the defense of this new bullet, maybe we should sit back and see what comes to press in the next 6 mos or so and read some of the facts( truthfully quoted I hope) to decide if we follow or stay with what we like now.