Barnes Ballistic Test

[OXN939]

Set up a ballistic test with gallon jugs of water this weekend for the blackpowder load I'll be shooting this year. It's the same one I've used successfully on VA whitetail several seasons in the past- 250 grain Barnes T-EZ over 85 grains by volume of Blackhorn 209. MV out of a .50 caliber CVA Wolf a modest 1800 FPS, so impact velocity at 100 yards was probably around 1550. Here is the recovered projectile:



I'm not surprised by the performance, as all Barnes bullets I've ever used show boringly consistent expansion, but was happy to see this occur at a relatively slow speed. The projectile passed completely through 4 jugs of water, and was touching the edge of the fifth jug. I have yet to recover a projectile from game, as all of my shots have been complete pass throughs, but this definitely confirms that I'll be sticking with these for everywhere their use is legal.

 

[menhaden_man]

Thanks for posting... I’ve got some Barnes for my CVA. Only one deer with that round but it did the job!

 

[OXN939]

Thanks for posting... I’ve got some Barnes for my CVA. Only one deer with that round but it did the job!

Yep, had a pretty good idea about how this was going to go via on-game results. Can't seem to find a negative about them- group wonderfully in every rifle I own, killer terminal performance, super consistent.

 

[HntnFsh]

Recovered this Barnes 295 grain bullet out of this bull. Have recovered a few others from animals that look identical. Shooting a Knight Bighorn and 110 grains of Triple 7 fffg

 

[nrhoffman93]

Neat stuff. I was shooting Powerbelt hollow points but they are so soft they completely pancake in a deer. I bought some Barnes 295 gr spitfire MZ bullets to try this year. I'm determined to get a pass through. I have shot 4 whitetail with the 245 gr Powerbelt and haven't had a pass through yet.

 

[OXN939]

Recovered this Barned 295 grain bullet out of this bull. Have recovered a few others from animals that look identical. Shooting a Knight Bighorn and 110 grains of Triple 7 fffg

Beautiful bull and mushroom. Which state?

 

[HntnFsh]

Beautiful bull and mushroom. Which state?

Washington. Dayton tag. Rocky mountain elk.

 

[HntnFsh]

Some Roosevelt elk.
My sons from last year. His recovered bullet. Shoots same load as I do.

 

[HntnFsh]

Couple rag horns for me. Last years and the year before.
Think both bullets came out of year before lasts bull. Put him down with a quartering towards, base of neck shot. Then finished it off.

The cool thing to me was that where I harvested the bull in the second picture was a place I hauled logs from right after Mt. St. Helens blew. It was huge old growth fir and was all blow down from the blast. Heck I could have hauled the log that the stump is from. It was crazy up there then. All ash and blown over trees. No greenery left. We hauled 3 log load for months on end. More than once I had a log loaded 1 end at a time, or a yarder loading 1 end and a huge cable shovel loading the other end.. We went up the hill and around the corner about a mile and could look right into the mouth of the crater and down the hill to an eerie looking Spirit lake. You could see where the water was blown up the hillside from the lake for 100s of yards. The Toutle river valley looked like a moonscape.
The biggest log I hauled out of there was a little over 11' in diameter. Hauled it on a hiway trucks that they put 10' wide dog leg stakes on and used it off hiway. Two big bunk logs then the huge peak log hanging over 1 side about a foot. Made for a hairy load it was pretty side heavy. Got down to the scale shack and 1 of my dads buddies that was an old time scaler looked at me and said. Thats the damndest load Ive ever seen! LOL Cant look at the picture without reminiscing. Sorry.

 

[HntnFsh]

That stump and most others were still attached to the tree when they blew over. They would buck the log off and a lot of times the stump would stand back up because of the roots on the lower side still being in the ground.

 

[HntnFsh]

Neat stuff. I was shooting Powerbelt hollow points but they are so soft they completely pancake in a deer. I bought some Barnes 295 gr spitfire MZ bullets to try this year. I'm determined to get a pass through. I have shot 4 whitetail with the 245 gr Powerbelt and haven't had a pass through yet.

They probably will pass through on a deer. On elk we find most of them against the hide on the offside.

 

[huntsd]

will pass through deer

 

[alexanderg23]

Looks like great results.