I Screwed Up, and I Knew Better !!!
- Thread starter c-fbmi
- Start date
What do you call "moderate velocity"? I've only used 120 TSX and TTSX in my .260 Rem. I've shot small dinks in the lungs that turned into jelly and bang-flopped and bigger bucks through both shoulders who also bang-flopped. It's my favorite bullet in my .260 Rem. The few deer I've shot and my newspaper test always showed plenty of expansion.
Awesome looking buck too!!! Congrats to #2!
Awesome looking buck too!!! Congrats to #2!
Wrong Way
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
I dunno how to respond....I'm 6 or 7 (15 or 16 counting yotes) animals in with a VERY similar load/rifle (7/08 Mod 700 LSS and 140 TTSX)..deer-bear-moose...and every single one dropped within 40 yards. Then again, I don't shoot them in the neck...
and none of them went anywhere. Haven't ever recovered one to check on expansion either...I think this 260 cartridge is a perfect candidate for a 130 gn Matrix bonded RBT bullet, at least it will open up and is always available. Given my experience with them so far, I trust them more than most other bullets I have used on game. I too have used TTSX in other calibers on game and had satisfactory results as far as I could tell, but this one experience has opened my eyes and I'm not impressed with them at all in this 260. I will continue to use them in my 300 WSM and my one 375 H&H (270 TSX) as they have proven to be good on game and the rifles that I use them in really shoot them well. I doubt that I will be testing them in any more rifles or calibers though, availability is too sketchy and the price has gotten stupid.
- Location
- AB foothills
I have been using TSX's in a bunch of different calibers for almost ten years now. In those years I have killed piles and piles of animals. I would say well over 30 big game animals, everything from bighorn sheep, mule deer, whitetail, elk, bears and well if we are including coyotes, too many of those to count. I have shot animals everywhere from 550 yards all the way down to about 15 yards. Never an issue with any. All the way from 25 caliber to 375. I have never lost an animal and never recovered a bullet.
I have heard of the bad experiences, never had any myself. I have close to $4000 worth of them on my shelves right now and that is only for three different rifles, that should keep me busy for a while! I guess I will continue to use them for now. They have been a very consistent bullet for me. Partitions are my second favorite. Accubombs, you can keep them, tried and tried but was never impressed...
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There was one mule deer that at first I thought I had a TSX failure with. When I walked up I could see the super small exit hole, flipped over, super small entry. Once opened up it was a different story, The internals looked like a bomb went off inside. It was absolute internal devastation.
I have heard of the bad experiences, never had any myself. I have close to $4000 worth of them on my shelves right now and that is only for three different rifles, that should keep me busy for a while! I guess I will continue to use them for now. They have been a very consistent bullet for me. Partitions are my second favorite. Accubombs, you can keep them, tried and tried but was never impressed...
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There was one mule deer that at first I thought I had a TSX failure with. When I walked up I could see the super small exit hole, flipped over, super small entry. Once opened up it was a different story, The internals looked like a bomb went off inside. It was absolute internal devastation.
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- Location
- AB foothills
The price is basically the same as partitions or Accubombs and I have actually had better luck finding Barnes over Nosler. Some retailers prices are stupid for all of them.
- Location
- AB foothills
Here's some photos of his deer anyway......................and a happy hunter regardless that he didn't make a perfect shot................
Super cool looking buck no matter what it was shot with or where it was hit! Congrats to you both, both deer are very, very nice!
This thread really should be titled "my son made a really bad shot on a great character buck but we tracked it down and got it"
There was no bullet failure at all. If the bullet had gone in the right spot the only story would have been about the great buck!!!
There was no bullet failure at all. If the bullet had gone in the right spot the only story would have been about the great buck!!!
I have two TTSX bullets recovered from deer shot under 70 yrds on quartering towards deer (chest entry) that did not expand at all, not one bit. Both close to full charge loads, one from a 280, the other 30-06. Both recovered in the hind quarter of different deer. One, can't recall which has a slightly bent tip, but in no way any signs of expansion.
This is when I quit using the TTSX bullets.. Two failures too many! I do however use the Barnes Starefires for 30-30 with very good results..
Awesome deer by the way!
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- Location
- Somewhere on the Hudson Bay Coast
I don't think a neck shot that fails to hit the spine is a very good index of bullet performance, and it certainly isn't a sufficient measure of performance for praise or condemnation of either the bullet or it's cartridge. The old X bullet that many claimed expanded irregularly, expanded to nearly an inch, after penetrating 32" of my buffalo, yet the impact velocity was only 2000 fps. So bullet performance relates not only to impact velocity, but also to target density. There is little fluid bearing tissue in a deer's neck, the catalyst for X bullet expansion, to produce optimum expansion. A pal of mine swears by the 140 gr TTSX loaded to 2900 in his (formally my) Brno 600 7X57 for moose, and he has a bunch of recovered bullets that Barnes could use in their adds to illustrate textbook performance. Those moose, for the most part, were found where they had stood. Now, would a Partition have anchored the deer with the same shot? Perhaps, if the forward section of the bullet expanded rapidly enough to shock the spinal cord, but its by no means a sure thing, that would work every time.
That aside, congratulations to both father and son for having the fortitude successfully make the followup despite the difficult and challenging conditions. Many hunters would have written that one off long before 3 hours had elapsed. That speaks highly of your character. #2 earned that one, and likely learned a thing or two about bullet placement and tracking, so all in all, the experience was valuable.
That aside, congratulations to both father and son for having the fortitude successfully make the followup despite the difficult and challenging conditions. Many hunters would have written that one off long before 3 hours had elapsed. That speaks highly of your character. #2 earned that one, and likely learned a thing or two about bullet placement and tracking, so all in all, the experience was valuable.
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Shoot my first deer this year, I used a 130 gr ttsx loaded to I guess around 2950-3000 fps. Shoot at 40 meters frontal shot. Tinny entry hole, never found the exit hole or recovered bullet, it did cut some fillet at the back. The deer made it 100 feet, and no blood, like in 0 (I taught I had missed it). However when we oppened it up... there was all the blood, the bullet blew up both lung, like in the there was no more lung and half the heart was missing!
So GH what you're trying to say is that a bullet, which appeared to have not expanded in 10-12" of solid neck muscle meat, will somehow magically transform and expand well and do a whole bunch of damage on the minimal resistance of skin, lung and air. Is this your hypothesis, is this the kind of BS you expect me to believe? The rationale of this statement flies in the face of logic and common sense where bullet expansion in different mediums is concerned. Let's get down to pure terminal ballistics for a minute and forget where the bullet hit and whether or not it was a good shot......you're trying to tell me that a bullet, which did minimal damage in 10-12" of solid muscle, showed virtually zero damage to the neck tissue AND the deer was still running around 3 hrs later with his head held perfectly erect after losing about 1 oz of blood, will somehow magically transform into a super killing projectile when slipped between 2 ribs and perforates the hide some lung tissue and a lot of air..........REALLY? We all know that even an FMJ will terminate a deer when put through the lungs, eventually, and will do it significantly quicker when put there through the shoulder due to secondary projectiles and that the same shot through the neck will likely not, certainly not in a reasonable time frame. So to say a better hit would have done a better job, goes without saying, my question is .......how much better job would it have done given the damage I observed on a much more dense muscle hit? I am sorry to burst your bubble GH, but terminal ballistics are relatively linear, the more resistance to the path of the bullet for any given velocity the greater the bullet disruption (expansion) will be..........PERIOD !!!
You guys are doing it all wrong. What your supposed to do is jump on a feller when the animal escapes. That way the deer takes off with the evidence and you can then claim everything was due to shot placement. It doesn't matter if you weren't there, or saw nothing, or even whether you've ever used that caliber, or bullet or shot one of that species yourself. The shooter can't prove different because the evidence is gone.
This situation is different. The animal is recovered, and a hunter who has killed hundreds of animals with more calibers, in more countries than most can dream about examined the hit and doesn't like the wound channel through the center of its neck. The same hit with his 7 RUM and 160 Accubonds would have nearly cut its head off. Whether the TTSX would have killed it deader than a dinosaur if the spine was hit isn't exactly the point. The wound is small, and a small wound doesn't give you the margin for error as a bullet cartridge combination that will make a hole that you can look through and see the sky. I'm not so convinced that a shot through the center of the neck is such a bad hit to tell the truth.
This situation is different. The animal is recovered, and a hunter who has killed hundreds of animals with more calibers, in more countries than most can dream about examined the hit and doesn't like the wound channel through the center of its neck. The same hit with his 7 RUM and 160 Accubonds would have nearly cut its head off. Whether the TTSX would have killed it deader than a dinosaur if the spine was hit isn't exactly the point. The wound is small, and a small wound doesn't give you the margin for error as a bullet cartridge combination that will make a hole that you can look through and see the sky. I'm not so convinced that a shot through the center of the neck is such a bad hit to tell the truth.
Boomer.........I agree that with the TSX bullet, body fluids introduced into the bullet cavity promote expansion and I have used this bullet with great success in my 375 H&H many, many times. However the TTSX can't claim the hydraulic expansion attribute with the polycarbonate tip closing off the entrance to the cavity. Therefore the TTSX must rely on target density to promote expansion and this is where the crux of my argument lies........if dense muscle didn't expand the bullet, how could it be expected to wreak havoc if slipped between 2 ribs and through the lungs?
Dogleg.........EXACTLY you explain it so much more graphically and understandably than I...............I shot a stone sheep with a 150 gn BT in a 7X300 Wby once upon a time, because that was all I had to hit. There was absolutely nothing left between the spine and windpipe and the ram was most certainly dead. One could see a great deal of sky through that hole.
Dogleg.........EXACTLY you explain it so much more graphically and understandably than I...............I shot a stone sheep with a 150 gn BT in a 7X300 Wby once upon a time, because that was all I had to hit. There was absolutely nothing left between the spine and windpipe and the ram was most certainly dead. One could see a great deal of sky through that hole.
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