I Screwed Up, and I Knew Better !!!

c-fbmi said:
we are all free to draw our own conclusions in matters such as this and use which ever projectile we damn well please.
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Now there is something well said!

I feel so left out! Lots of animals killed with TSX's and all I have to show for it is a bunch of dead animals and no recovered bullets! :(:(:(

Guess I will have to keep trying...
 
Eagleye said:
bearkilr; Love your term "trending" bullets. It seems there is a trend toward using thin jacketed match type bullets to hunt with. [VLDs SMKs, etc]

I will never use such bullets to shoot living creatures with. They are just too fragile to get the job done, particularly at high velocity/close range.

I have been in the habit of sectioning any jacketed bullet to see what the jacket/core relationship is like. ........very revealing, to say the least!

After sectioning a Berger VLD "hunting" bullet, I immediately rejected it as such, regardless of the claims.

After killing game with the Nosler Partition over a 50+ year period, and recovering roughly 20% of these, the rest making exit, I have come to expect reliable performance from them.
So reliable in my personal case, that it has been somewhat boring.

Therefore, to see several failures to expand from the TSX/TTSX in the short time they have been in existence, makes me just a bit cautious about performance.
I think they are very good, perhaps even better than C&C type bullets, bonded or otherwise.
But I also believe there is more to learn about them as yet. I am certain that Barnes and others who offer monometal bullets are working on it.

Because I occasionally hunt logging clear cuts, where shots can be stretched out considerably, I load the Scirocco II for such hunts, since it is proving to be an excellent alternative.

Regards, Dave.
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Dave, an honest question... So besides the two failed ones you show in the pictures that were not loaded by you, how many big game animals have you killed with success using TSX or TTSX bullets? Have you been impressed or not impressed with Barnes bullets on big game that you have hand loaded yourself for your own rifles?

I know you are an honest guy, just looking to see your honest opinion. And not of the ones you posted pictures of.
 
c-fbmi said:
bearklr......this is the most asinine statement I have seen posted by you...........I have killed game stone dead in their tracks with bullets that have utterly and totally failed, little bits and shards of copper and lead everywhere......dead sheep, still total bullet failure. Like wise in this case, bullet did not expand to any noticeable degree and did very minimal damage. It also imparted virtually no energy on target as the deer in question barely, if at all, indicated the hit. Just because a bullet goes into the vitals doesn't mean it hasn't failed and similarly just because a bullet doesn't hit the vitals doesn't mean it didn't fail. When an expanding bullet doesn't expand and impart significant energy and tissue damage on target it has failed. If you hit the heart of an animal with an FMJ it will surely die, but this does not mean that it is a good hunting bullet, just an excellent shot with a bad bullet, thus bullet placement is not an indication of bullet performance. An expanding bullet hitting 12" of solid muscle at much less than 100 mtrs should have done significantly more damage if it had properly expanded, this is much greater resistance than a lung shot............conclusion; very poor expanding bullet performance = bullet failure !!!!
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The point of a neck shot is to hit the animal in the spine. A hit anywhere in the neck other than the spine is a misplaced shot, and you know it.
Expecting a bullet to "explode" and take out the spinal cord when it's path is nowhere near it is ludicrous and you of all people should know better. It was a misplaced shot, it happens. Shooting an animal in the ass and expecting the bullet to take out the lungs is equally asinine.
 
Of course the shot was misplaced bearklr, that was never in contention. No I never expected the bullet to explode and damage the spine, but I would have expected the bullet to expand enough to at least give a couple inch across exit hole, after 12" of solid sinewy meat, and maybe take him off his feet and disorient him for a minute or two, or even a few seconds. Had the TTSX done this I would say it had done it's job admirably. You seem fixated on the fact it was a less than perfect shot and not the bullet performance, if the bullet had, as you say exploded and killed the deer stone dead but failed to exit or even penetrate 6", I would still be on here reporting a different kind of bullet failure. Whether or not the animal dies on the spot or later is somewhat irrelevant to bullet performance. A bullet that explodes within 4-6" of the entrance wound is a failure regardless of where it strikes an animal and likewise a bullet that zips through imparting minimal damage and shock to that animal is also a failure, REGARDLESS OF WHERE IT STRIKES THAT ANIMAL.
And just for the record, I have shot several medium sized animals in the ass and have taken out a lung or lungs, with a 35 cal 225 gn AB, a 30 cal Partition of either 180 or 200 gn, and a goat with a 250 Part from the 340, but no real surprize there, is there. Likewise I have shot a good many animals looking straight on to me and found the bullet under the hide in the ass somewhere, just started out from the right end instead, but still the same performance................
 
chuck nelson said:
Here are TSX's I have personally pulled out of game this year alone. I did not shoot them all, but I did personally pull them out of the game.

Yep CN, I have a bucket load of TSX that look the same, but they are not the same bullet as a TTSX. The open ended cavity reacts much different when it strikes flesh and bone and I have never had a TSX that failed to expand or appeared to fail to expand from the wound channel, as non expanding bullets are seldom recovered and the conclusions must be drawn from the wound channel as I have done in the case of my son's deer.
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c-fbmi said:
Of course the shot was misplaced bearklr, that was never in contention. No I never expected the bullet to explode and damage the spine, but I would have expected the bullet to expand enough to at least give a couple inch across exit hole, after 12" of solid sinewy meat, and maybe take him off his feet and disorient him for a minute or two, or even a few seconds. Had the TTSX done this I would say it had done it's job admirably. You seem fixated on the fact it was a less than perfect shot and not the bullet performance, if the bullet had, as you say exploded and killed the deer stone dead but failed to exit or even penetrate 6", I would still be on here reporting a different kind of bullet failure. Whether or not the animal dies on the spot or later is somewhat irrelevant to bullet performance. A bullet that explodes within 4-6" of the entrance wound is a failure regardless of where it strikes an animal and likewise a bullet that zips through imparting minimal damage and shock to that animal is also a failure, REGARDLESS OF WHERE IT STRIKES THAT ANIMAL.
And just for the record, I have shot several medium sized animals in the ass and have taken out a lung or lungs, with a 35 cal 225 gn AB, a 30 cal Partition of either 180 or 200 gn, and a goat with a 250 Part from the 340, but no real surprize there, is there. Likewise I have shot a good many animals looking straight on to me and found the bullet under the hide in the ass somewhere, just started out from the right end instead, but still the same performance................
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I am not fixated on the fact that it was a misplaced shot, but let's call a spade a spade,it was. What you're expecting a Barnes TTSX or TSX to do is just not something that they are designed for. At best, under perfect expansion, it will be approximately double the diameter of the original bullet and it will only damage things that are in it's path.
Like I said in an earlier post, it is quite alright for a youngster to learn that missed shots happen and you have to adapt your follow-up as you did. I'm in no way trying to take anything away from the experience of a great buck and hunt but let's be honest about what caused the failure in this instance.
 
The young lad flubbed a shot and there is no great save us all bullet for when we screw up. It may have been his first but won't be his last if he keeps to the hunting game. Anyone here that says they have never made a bad shot are either full of it or have about as much practical hunting experience as sunray. The only real problem I am seeing in this thread is guys expect more from the buck they spend to stuff in the end of each case. If hunters used the great selection we have in front of us they way they were designed the game at the other end of the barrel would be better off. The tsx and ttsx are designed to be shot light for caliber at top velocity. Where guys have issues with them is they always loaded 180's in their trusty 308. So they buy a box of tsx load them up in their 08 to plod along at 2600fps. Then they shoot a 120lb doe and the bullet just whistles on through with out causing the same damage they are used to from their old load of a 180 corloct. If they loaded the way the barnes is designed they would push a 130 at over 3000fps and get lightning like kills again from their old 08. I fell for the same thing on the other end. I had great results with 168tsx in a 300 rum I had. Bergers hit the shelf along with the vids of a so called hunting show of elk and elephants being dropped by thors hammer at 1327 yards by Joe Wyoming who had never killed a squirrel before today. A couple boxes of 168 hunting vlds quickly found themselves riding in a big chunk of brass with way too much Retumbo behind them. A nice whitetail buck had the misfortune of being the first animal to meet a vld at 3500+ fps. The result was a splash on his shoulder the size of an icecream pail that never broke his scapula. These bullets went on to kill many a coyote with very few exit wounds. If I would have used these like they were designed to be used (heavy for cal and low in velocity) my results would for sure have been better. As the grey hairs increase and the total hair count decreases I have started to make more and more right decisions and I know there is many others here that are still learning every fall and every time we pull the trigger. It doesn't mean we still don't make mistakes or make bad shots. We just do it with better rifles loaded with the best bullet we can use for the job at hand.
 
If they loaded the way the barnes is designed they would push a 130 at over 3000fps and get lightning like kills again from their old 08
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How about a 80 grain TTSX at 3950 fps? You'd almost think that that driven through the near shoulder and both lungs then exit at 68 yards would flatten a deer? You'd be wrong in the case of my buck this fall. It did go down in 30-40 yards but I've had faster kills with a muzzleloader. Plenty of them.
 
An expanded .264 TTSX is probably smaller in diameter then the nail on my little finger. How big of a hole through meat (no vitals) should we expect? Serious question.
 
First off great job Douglas! Nice bucks for both of you! Good on you for getting him into the outdoors!

Secondly, I have read many of. Douglas' posts and with his vast experience, he knows what he is doing. I can't believe that so many people seem to be internet experts. I think a lot of people could use all of the knowledge that Douglas shares and listen to the voice of experience and the knowledge behind that experience.

According to many people on here I must take "bad" shots on many of my animals... I shoot many in the neck, with a good old partition. The only time I ever had an issue with a nexk shot was a berger bullet and even though it failed, we recovered the deer after a 10 foot wide blood trail. Out of the 6 or 7 animals I was in on this year, 3 were neck shot every one down right now, spine hit or not... The others were high spine shots or boiler room. Way more wasted meat and lots more tracking with those shots most on here would call "good hits"
 
Well I joined the Barnes wagon a few years ago . at that tim the were the cats a-s Suposedly. I tried 100gr loaded hot in 25-06 in a 2506 and 140's in a 7 mag,
.The first caribou was with the 7 and the animal showed no reaction. I could see it was a good hit but put another one into him. He eventually dropped And bot shots through the lungs. The lungs were not turned into jelly. A couple of days later I had a chance with the 25-06, First shot was through the lungs and he bolted for about a hundred yards and stopped. I shot again and he bolted again for another 100 yards. There was thwaaack when the bullet hit. Examination of this carcass showed 3 shots and 3 " apart through the chest cavity and the lungs looked like they had been penetrated by broad heads without a lot of tissue damage. I quite using the Barnes X. The were quite a few hunters shooting the x bullet and the story was always the same. Watch through the spotting scope and see the bullet kick up a cloud of dust or gravel about 200 yards behind The animal reacted as if missed and usually took 15-29 seconds to die, Up until this time I had used Partitions Swift Scirroco Horandy interlock and Rem coreloke. About 80% of those fell in their tracks or shortly thereafter. Then came the tsx which I would not try. I did not see any bang flops with them unless major bone was hit to increase the overall shock. These bullets all killed Game but the Barnes not so quickly. A few of the tsx were found to shed petals. I personally want to hear the solid whack of a well placed shot than have to follow a blood trail. Moose in particular. I want him dead in the spot that he was when I shot.
I've also experienced just the opposite performance in some bullets Game kings driven hard, ballistic tips ( although there explosiveness made foursome spectacular kills under the right circumstance) Hornady and Rem coreloks have good terminal performance if you match the bullet to you rifle. 150 and 165 gr hornadys seem to be designed for a 308 and have a tendency to come apart if you fire them at too hot a velocity. Coreloks are a bit tougher All in all now I tend to stick to partitions, accubond, scirocco and the matrix bullet. I want a bullet that is accurate and solid enough to not come to pieces but expands enough to provide a good energy transfer.
I can be long winded but one thing that I have trouble accepting that a certain writer likes the mono metal bullets and things like the berger at the same. Why not compromise and shoot a bullet that will cover both situations.

Thanks for listening and i was not necessarily a poor shot the youngster made, I have seen bullets deflected from a twig that is not attarent in the riflescope.

These ar my opinions and I stick with them.

Neil
 
Gatehouse said:
An expanded .264 TTSX is probably smaller in diameter then the nail on my little finger. How big of a hole through meat (no vitals) should we expect? Serious question.
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Nobody ?

We often talk about using the correct bullet for the job. Can we really say this was a bullet failure when we all know that a TTSX isn't going to fragment in meat?
 
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