Hornady GMX vs Barnes TTSX

[petrusg]

Thats some good info you just posted. Wont use them for Dangerous game at all

 

[ChrisG]

Hi, I was going to go with Hornady GMX but, being an engineer... I had to look up the metallurgy of the two to see what I can see. The Barnes are all made of 100% copper. I believe the TSW line is also swaged which forces the crystalline properties of the metal to conform to the new shape, making them very ductile like an incredibly hard putty. Then they cut the relieving grooves with an auto lathe. The GMX are actually made of gilding metal which is an alloy of copper and zinc and is technically brass. Brass is more brittle but more importantly is a lot stronger than copper, meaning it resists deformation in a projectile application. When it does deform, the stress also weakens the metal, making fracture more likely. Gilding metal works fine for Jackets because it is so thin, not so much for a whole expanding bullet. The upside is that it should foul less and as a solid, it will resist deformation when punching through an elephant head. Barnes all the way for me.

 

[sheephunterab]

Lots of good info here and lots of misinfo here. The two biggest differences between the Hornady and the TTSX are that the GMX is a six petal design vs the four petal of the TTSX and that the GMX is made from guilding metal unlike the TTSX that is pure copper. With a six petal design, you end up with more frontal area on the expanded bullet. It looks more like and expanded bonded bullet while the TTSX has voids between the expanded petals. There are different schools of thought on the advantages of both but the GMX will displace more tissue and if petals happen to sheer, you have a greater number of petals remaining. Despite someone's claim here, guilding metal is not brass. Brass has a much higher zinc content. Guilding metal is 95% copper and 5% zinc. Brass is in the neighbourhood of 30% zinc. Guilding metal is the same metal used in most bullet jackets. It's been long proven that guilding metal is less fouling than pure copper. It is a bit harder than pure copper though so it does require impact velocities of 2,000fps or greater. The TTSX has a bigger nose hole and will still expand at 1,800fps.

I've shot mono metals for close to a dozen years now and have likely seen a hundred or more animals go down. If they strike an animal with sufficient velocity, they are deadly but realize that with strict soft tissue hits the animals will often run off for a distance because there is no fragmentation. They typically retain 98+% of their weight. Stories of high velocity hits and the bullet zipping right through without expanding are total bunk. Velocity is the friend on mono metals and high velocity hits mean violent and rapid expansion. Exit holes may be small for no other reason than the bullet doesn't fragment. A .30 cal bullet will expand to about .60...about the diameter of your little finger. To put things in perspective, a GMX will still expand at 500 yards when shot from a 30-06.

I've personally found the GMX to be consistently more accurate over all, especially when you start pushing beyond 400 yards. I killed my Barbary sheep this year at 496 yards with a 185 grain GMX from te 338WM and Vanessa took an ostrich at over 600 with a 139-grain GMX from the 7RM. Both performed as expected. As guilding metal and copper are lighter than lead, we can use lighter mono metals. They are longer than same weight jacketed bullets so they work well in most barrels. And, as they retain weight so well, the lighter bullet also penetrates much deeper than a bullet that fragments.

I shoot the 250-grain GMX out of my 375H&H and it's a very effective 300+ yards rifle. I've shot wildebeest at well over 300 and my giraffe at 280 with a body shot. He went down almost immediately. Bit, I also shot my cape buffalo at 80 yards right on the point of the shoulder and he made it 20 yards. My very first criteria when selecting between a TTSX and GMX would be accuracy. How does your rifle shoot them. Not only at 100 yards but at 300 and 400 as well.

 

[sheephunterab]

The leopard literally had a fist sized hole with half a lung hanging out... But it was an entry wound! The cat did not present any semblance of a perfect shot angel and looked about ready to jump the tree so when I got a shot at a slightly quartering tree, I took it. The bullet had to have struck a branch which in that very green tree, I would have expected to not effect it much, but the bullet broke into at least 4 pieces and must have tumbled to make such a big hole, with another hole right behind it and a scrape mark behind that. 3 pieces were recovered after traversing the chest and ending up in the back of the digestive tract. (paying the skinner $5 per bullet helps recover them Successful as far as a dead cat fell out of the tree.. .But not what I would call great bullet performance....

.

Sometimes there's no explaining what bullets do and other times there are plausible explanations. Having seen over a hundred of these bullets run through animals with typically perfect results, I'm not so quick to blame the bullet. Here's my guess at what happened. You did indeed strike a branch and that initiated expansion. The bullet then tumbled and hit the leopard either sideways or backwards, ripping through the skin rather than piecing it. That would explain the big entry hole. Now, still traveling at high velocity and quite possibly backwards, the petals that were violently bent reward by the branch and now equally violently bent forward and they sheared as any metal would. At such high velocity the piece are now at the mercy of momentum and being irregularly shaped their path would be erratic. Considering what the bullet was subjected to, it may actually be amazing performance but I guess it is all speculation. I'm just going on my experience how these bullets typically perform. Quite possibly the other marks you saw were from flying debris from the branch.

 

[Desert Dog]

IMHO, Hornady ought to be more concerned with product development, quality control and honest assessment including serious follow up on hunters complaints rather than all the advertising, marketing claims, and denials............

Your experience mirrors mine, as stated in my post last year in this thread (post #18).

I have been shooting the non-lead options since they came to market, and all of their iterations since. This is mainly due to the fact that they have been required for my hunting areas in my state for a long time. The Barnes TTSX is just a better all around bullet compared to the GMX, the E-tip, and the standard TSX. The LRX is even better IMHO.

Compared to the GMX, the TTSX is less sensitive to loading variables, expands more reliably at lower velocities, and has proven more accurate in almost every rifle I load for (except 1). The quality and concentricity of the Barnes bullets are better than the Hornady bullets that I have measured. In fact, the box of 165gr 30 cal GMX bullets sitting in front of me has widely varying weights from the same batch. The Quality of the Barnes bullets are on par with Berger bullets - great.

But Hornady is a marketing giant compared to the other companies; they have most of the TV hunting celebrities in their pockets and are all over the pages of every gun/hunting related magazine.

 

[billc]

Your experience mirrors mine, as stated in my post last year in this thread (post #18).


But Hornady is a marketing giant compared to the other companies; they have most of the TV hunting celebrities in their pockets and are all over the pages of every gun/hunting related magazine.

Yup and that right there is a sign they buy there business anymore. Way to many horror story's for me to even think of using anything but ttsx and a frames. I know way to many guys who need to shot stuff 3 or 4 times when using hornady and not all because of bad shots.

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

No need for me to jump into the fray. But I'll say for any of you who like the mono-metal bullets and if you're a hand loader like me, you should at least give the Peregrine bullets a go. A bit more finicky on brass prep and a bit more expensive. But I've now run some 40 or so of them through my .300WM and not a sign of copper fouling. Could not even come close to that number with the Barnes bullets.

 

[Roan]

My 2cents...

I have shot plenty of game with gmx superformance factory ammo from impala to eland and most only needed one shot. Those requiring follow up shots was me shooting like my ass.

 

[Devin Twitty]

Shot a deer at 170 with the gmx and never recovered the deer. Looked for 3 days. Wife shot the same gun using a accubond and the deer didn't go 30yards.

I've shot the gmx into media and they open nice, they didn't group as well as the accubonds but better then the barnes. They have a very high min expansion velocity and limit the range game should be shot. I'd think in a bigger cal on heavy game the bullets might shine. But for me I'll stick with accubonds tell I need a solid.

 

[1dirthawker]

to all,

i have had a small bit of experience with the 250 gr gmx out of my 375 ruger with factory ammo. i shot a caribou facing me in the middle of the chest at 75 yards, it ran off 30 yards and piled up. bullet looked like a magazine advertisement. the rest of the herd ran up a steep bank and stalled out at 170 yards. i shot another bull in the lungs and it collapsed on the spot. never recovered that bullet.

another hunt, same gun and bullet, shot a bull moose in the neck at 80 yards as it was wheeling around to depart the area. traversed the neck of one of the largest bodied moose i have ever shot or seen shot (antlers were only 55") bullet was found on the off side under the hide after going thru the spine and neck. it also would have made a great advertisement photo.

i guide part time for brown bears and took this rifle along and finished a bear a hunter had wounded. recovered bullet looked like perfect performance again, this bear was shot in the spine and bullet ended up under the hide of the front of the chest/shoulder junction.

so far, i have been pretty impressed with the performance of the bullet. our game is not as big as some african game, but so far, it has done well.

that said, i am going to hand load some 300 gr north forks softs for the rifle, i would rather hit the bears with a bigger bullet and am not going to start a fight with a brown bear at long range. might even use my 450-400 if i can muster the courage up to use it on the wet alaskan coast!

 

[375 Ruger Fan]

Sort of an old thread, but worth resurrecting. I just bought some 250 gr GMX bullets in 375 and will start to work up a load for my 375 Ruger (might have to wait to buy powder and primers, but I have enough to get started). Debating whether to take it or my 338 WM next year to BC for moose.

 

[ldmay375]

Prior to each moose season, I go through the mental exercise of 338 Winchester, 375 Ruger, or 416 Ruger. I full faith in the 338, but have become very fond of the shorter barrel versions of the other 2. It has been many years since I hunted with my 338.

So far, I have been very satisfied with the 270 grain TSX in the 375 Ruger. But, if the 250 grain GMX shot well, I would certainly have no hesitation using it. Though next inline for experimentation is the 270 grain LRX.