Barnes .308 130 grain TTSX

[R boar]

I have been shooting the 150g TTSX, why did you drop down to the 130’s?

More velocity and less drop at my effective range, maybe slightly more accurate. Granted I'm comparing 150 TSX vs 130 TTSX. The TSX doesn't have a ballistic tip.

 

[Hschweers]

I ran 130 TTSX over Varget in a 22” Tikka at 3050.

Shot a deer with em (170yd). Deer didn’t react hit. Grid searched with 2 buddies a hundred yards around the site of shot with 0 blood, 0 sign, nothing. Assumed a clean miss. Found him via vultures 2 days later and it had a pencil entrance, no exit, and no blood even around where he laid to die. Didn’t give me warm and fuzzies

Shot another deer later (100yd), great entrance and exit, but still almost no blood. Deer ran about 70 yards with no blood until the last 5 or so yards. The exit was huge, so I’m guessing it was some weird internals clogging the hole or something. Not necessarily bullet’s fault. However, I lost the confidence in the bullet and don’t plan to use em unless monos are required. Will prolly go to 150s if that’s the case.

Edit to add: both shots were standard heart/lung shots. Not breaking shoulders or neck shooting. Can’t attest to that.

 

[JimIsland]

You heart/lung shot a Deer at 170 yards with a 130 TTSX running over 3000 FPS and didn't get a pass through? I believe what you're saying but that is crazy. Regardless of expansion, there should have been an exit.

Last year my son shot a Buck across a bean field at 180 yards with a .300 Blackout. Handloaded SST running around 2200 and got a pass through!

 

[Hschweers]

You heart/lung shot a Deer at 170 yards with a 130 TTSX running over 3000 FPS and didn't get a pass through? I believe what you're saying but that is crazy. Regardless of expansion, there should have been an exit.

Last year my son shot a Buck across a bean field at 180 yards with a .300 Blackout. Handloaded SST running around 2200 and got a pass through!

Man, the whole thing was weird. Didn’t act hurt. Grid searched the area and saw absolutely nothing. Vultures showed us 2 days later where he was, but we legitimately would’ve stepped on him during our grid search. Don’t know if he ran a longer ways and circled back to die? Really not sure. But no, no pass through, no blood, no external damage to speak of but a pencil hole in. Really turned me off of them right then, but knew that one off weird things can happen.

So I tried again. Bullet appeared to work great, but (again probably weird circumstances) still no blood. I like blood.

 

[Thegman]

Man, the whole thing was weird. Didn’t act hurt. Grid searched the area and saw absolutely nothing. Vultures showed us 2 days later where he was, but we legitimately would’ve stepped on him during our grid search. Don’t know if he ran a longer ways and circled back to die? Really not sure. But no, no pass through, no blood, no external damage to speak of but a pencil hole in. Really turned me off of them right then, but knew that one off weird things can happen.

So I tried again. Bullet appeared to work great, but (again probably weird circumstances) still no blood. I like blood.

Not sure about the second deer shot placement, but high lung hits can take quite a while to bleed as the blood isn't at high pressure in lungs and gravity is pulling the draining blood down and pooling in the chest cavity. I've seen that quite a few times. Low heart/lung hits tend to bleed more, leak faster and leave better blood trails.

 

[Hschweers]

Not sure about the second deer shot placement, but high lung hits can take quite a while to bleed as the blood isn't at high pressure in lungs and gravity is pulling the draining blood down and pooling in the chest cavity. I've seen that quite a few times. Low heart/lung hits tend to bleed more, leak faster and leave better blood trails.

This was the exit side. Pretty low, right behind shoulder. Again, bullet appeared to perform flawlessly. Found blood about 5 yards from her, about 65y from where she was shot. Backtracked it from her to see if I just missed the initial trail and don’t believe I did. Think I just got ~5 yards of blood.

 

[Thegman]

This was the exit side. Pretty low, right behind shoulder. Again, bullet appeared to perform flawlessly. Found blood about 5 yards from her, about 65y from where she was shot. Backtracked it from her to see if I just missed the initial trail and don’t believe I did. Think I just got ~5 yards of blood.

Well, there goes my hypothesis!!

You couldn't really have hit it any better for an expectation of a blood trail. Weird??? And yeah, weird stuff happens sometimes, but I can see someone being leary of a bullet with the first two uses being "weird occurrences".

I hit the grizzly with the 130 TSX is a similar spot and remember thinking it looked like blood was sloshed out of a 5 gallon bucket for the 40 or so feet it ran.

 

[Hschweers]

Well, there goes my hypothesis!!

You couldn't really have hit it any better for an expectation of a blood trail. Weird??? And yeah, weird stuff happens sometimes, but I can see someone being leary of a bullet with the first two uses being "weird occurrences".

I hit the grizzly with the 130 TSX is a similar spot and remember thinking it looked like blood was sloshed out of a 5 gallon bucket for the 40 or so feet it ran.

My “5-gallon bucket” bullets are partitions. Accubonds are like a 3 or 4 gallon bucket lol. So those are my two preferred bullets. Everyone’s got their own flavor!

I still have a dozen or so 130 TTSXs loaded up. Shot fantastic out of my gun. I’m sure they’ll get another chance some day since people really do like them.