Field report - Barnes TSX (WARNING: IMAGE HEAVY)

['Boo]

168 grain Barnes TSX @ 2900 fps muzzle velocity. Impact velocity ~2500 fps. (30-06)

150 pound Mule deer doe. Range was ~175 yards across a clear-cut. The deer went about 12 feet at the shot and fell into a 3 foot deep hole. (The logging block had been “mounded” ) Both lungs were soup and the top of the heart was chewed up. I would have taken pictures of the internal organs but it took us over an hour to get her out to the nearest trail. (Remember the damn clear-cut had been “mounded” !!)

This is the first animal I have shot with a Barnes bullet since I poked a needle-like hole through a mule deer with an original “X” a few years ago. It took me a half-day to track that one down and I was leery of using any Barnes bullet after that. After reading about how the TSX had solved the expansion problems I decided to give them another try.

Well …………………….
It seems Barnes has taken care of the expansion problems. This particular shot indicates that the TSX opened to full diameter on the near side hide. The entrance through the ribs is about ¾” in diameter and the exit is large enough to allow a golf ball to pass through without touching the edges. In short the terminal performance was identical to what I would expect using a 165 grain, 30 calibre Nosler Ballistic Tip.

More testing to follow …………



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Exit

 

[Jay]

Nice clean harvest, congrats! Gonna be some great eating. Thanks for the report on the bullet performance.

Cheers
Jay

 

[martinbns]

Consistent with the performance I've had with the same bullet from a 30-06, 300 WSM and 300 Win mag.

 

[MHUNT]

Good to know. I had the same problem a few years back. I've recently come up with an accurate load for my son's 338 W/M, using the 225 gr TSX, and even with lots of folks telling me that it's "problem solved", I have been a little scepticle. Thanks

 

[Ruttinbuck]

thanks for the report Boo.
Thinking about trying those in my 06 next.RB

 

[pharaoh2]

Where did her lungs go?

Nice shooting.

 

[krazy]

Thanks for the info boo! Coincidently, I was just thinking of starting a nosler pt/ab vs barnes tsx comparison thread. I have been saving recovered bullets for a long time and have taken a picture of 7 that were taken from some of our moose. All bullets started out at 140 grains. 5 were shot from a 7STW and 2 from a 7WSM (the 2 tsx's). There is about 100 - 150 fps difference between the STW and the WSM. All but 1 moose (the 77% nosler pt 300 yard moose) were shot around 100 yards. My conclusions were a bit different than yours.

The 5 moose taken with the noslers (4 with pt's and 1 with an ab) were all 1 shot bang flop kills. As you can see from the picture, each of these bullets only retained 60ish% of their original weight - and that was one of the reasons that I decided to try the barnes tsx.

The 2 moose taken with the barnes tsx both required second shots.

The first shot on TSX moose #1 was a neck shot (typical for me in most of the moose taken with the pictured bullets). Unfortunatley, after the shot the moose did not collapse as I had become used to and I fired a second shot to finish the job. Upon the autopsy (sorry I don't have any pictures of this) I discovered that the first shot penciled right through the neck but did not hit any bone and obviously did not create enough shock to knock out the CNS. The finishing shot, which I recovered, shows that the tsx hardley expanded, lost it's petals, and did not retain as much of it's weight as I thought it would (first bullet in picture). It did however successfully drop the moose.

TSX moose #2 was almost a repeat of tsx moose #1. This time my son (shooting my rifle) penciled a 140 TSX through the neck. Once again the moose took off instead of dropping in it's tracks. [Side note: he was not aiming for the neck he was aiming for the engine room but must of pulled the shot] Believing it was a fatal shot we waited a while and then began to track the moose. When we found him he was bedded facing away from us. He finished it off with a head shot (back of the head between the antlers). Once again the autopsy showed a small in and out hole in the neck. The recovered bullet in this case shocked me. First of all I could not believe that I found it right beneath the scull (only about 2 to 3 inches of penetration max?). Secondly I could not beleive how 'mushroomed' it was (last bullet in photo). I have never seen a picture of a tsx that reacted this way.

Having said all that the tsx are extreemly accurate and in both cases I believe the first shot would have eventually killed the moose. I also did have good results on a moose from a 168 tsx fired from a 300WM (not in picture as this was just a 7mm comparison) but in the same year with the same rifle/load had a mulie react like he wasn't even hit even though it was a perfect double lung shot (340 yards). The deer walked over a little hill like nothing happened - I found him stone dead about 50M from where he was shot. Good? Bad? I'm not sure. It killed him so it did it's job but not in the manner that I was used to.

From my experiences it turns out that even with only 60% weight retention the pt/ab is hard to beat. If I can get them to shoot in my new rifle I think i'm going back to the noslers. Remember these are just my observations - your milage may vary.

Check out the picture:

 

[hannibal]

very interesting.... I hope all you guys who have the data continue to post for those of us who are curious.

 

[BCWILL]

Looks exactly like what I experienced from my 130 grain TSX I put through a Buck a week ago......very good expansion and a complete pass through

Nice Pics, thanks for the field report

 

[BC Bigbore]

Excellent shot placement 'Boo