Barnes bullet expansion in large calibers (375 and up)

[SRvet]

It seems like if you recover a bullet from a dead animal, it worked OK?

My experience is bullets can do funny things, especially once they hit an animal. With hundreds (or more) observations with all sorts of bullets, crazy shit happens.

This is true but I am of the opinion that I see less craziness and more reliable straight line penetration and reliable expansion with the TSX and TTSX than many others I have tried.

 

[GMcQ]

No problems with my 525 gr 505 Gibbs.. Every buffalo I have shot and recovered a bullet from looks like this. Other bullet is a 525 gr solid recovered from a coudgras shot to an elephant. Small one is my 28 Nosler 170 gr Hammer HHT. Plains game rifle.. quarter chest shot of Sable at 325 yards and found bullet in hind quarter.

 

[GMcQ]

No problems with my 525 gr 505 Gibbs.. Every buffalo I have shot and recovered a bullet from looks like this. Other bullet is a 525 gr solid recovered from a coudgras shot to an elephant. Small one is my 28 Nosler 170 gr Hammer HHT. Plains game rifle.. quarter chest shot of Sable at 325 yards and found bullet in hind quarter. View attachment 719079

Sorry, Barnes 525 gr in solid and TSX.. Same performance with my 500 NE and 570 gr TSX. Love Barnes bullets..

 

[buffybr]

I've only used my .375 RUM on two African hunts. The first hunt was in Zimbabwe and South Africa, and I used 300 gr Barnes TSX bullets handloaded at 2830 fps. A 50 yd broadside shot went through one shoulder, the chest cavity, and stopped in the off shoulder. It was a perfect mushroom:

The bullets completely passed through the smaller animals like a Chobe Bushbuck and Common Reedbuck so they weren't recovered, but they very effectively killed the animals.

On my second African hunt with my .375 RUM was on various properties and concessions in the East Cape of South Africa. For this hunt I handloades Barnes 270 gr TSX bullets at 3040 fps. I shot 13 animals on that trip, and again the bullets completyly passed through the small animals like Steenboks, Cape Bushbuck, a Jackal, and a Vaal Rhebok, and larger animals like an Nyala and a Cape Eland were almost instant one shot kills, but we didn't recover the bullets. However one Kudu did take 2 bullets, and they were recovered.

After what I thought was great performance with those Barnes bullets from my .375 RUM, when I built my .300 Weatherby, I've only hunted with Barnes bullets with it: 168 gr TSX and TTSX and now 180 gr TTSX. Again, many pass throughs, but I did recover these few: