Making my way to BARNES.
There was one person in my entire extended family who ever reloaded ammunition themselves and, in that case, it was only for a Shotgun and only target shooting to boot.
Eventually, I started to shoot enough Sporting Clay targets that it became more economical to reload shotgun shells myself. I got some instruction from the manuals, found the basic supplies, purchased a simple MEC reloader and started reloading shotgun shells. I borrowed a chronograph to test the speeds and, thenceforth, set out to make various loads to ensure that I would increase my score and numbers of game in the bag each fall.
I eventually became a proficient shotgunner on clay targets and wild birds and even managed to have won a Championship or two in Sporting Clays. How much the reloading played in that success I could not differentiate, beyond the confidence that I gained in the load I was made. Knowing that reload and the proper lead required on longer game-bird shots made a significant difference in the accuracy I enjoyed.
I had never even considered reloading rifle ammunition, why would you? I had a perfectly good, inexpensive ammunition, that was a very accurate load, straight from the store. No muss or fuss and it worked in my rifle and was accurate on targets out to ridiculous ranges that you would likely never shoot at game animals. So why change anything?
That change process was initiated with my hearing the advice of several PH’s in Africa. I kept getting feedback about “premium” bullets and “Heavy for caliber” bullets being required to hunt in Africa. I am not one for change for the sake of the exercise. I want to have a rational basis for all the effort to move me from my incredibly comfortable rut. What was a premium bullet?
But first, I went to the local sporting goods store and started the search for factory ammunition and wanted to see what would work in my rifle. I was not married to any manufacturer at this point and spent a small fortune buying a large variety of factory ammunition with “premium” bullets. I wanted to see what might work in my rifle. I was working on the .270 Winchester platform at this point and ended up with 130 and 150 grain cartridges from all the likely suspects. Hornady, Winchester, Federal, etc. They were all taken to the range and it became evident that I was going to have to reload myself. Not one was providing the accuracy I required. With these poor results, the slow creeping progression to my new happy place had begun in earnest.
A friend of mine reloaded his own rifle ammunition and was an accuracy junky. He loves to try to put one little round hole in targets at the range. I like to put three under a quarter and let’s go hunting. It was a rare day when I was gifted with the patience to try and shoot bullets into the same hole at the range.
He has a few hobbies that he dabbles in and they all require being quite finicky. Finish Carpentry is one and another is reloading for his rifles. With the generous sharing of his significant experience and ongoing guidance, I was soon acquiring the tools to start down the path to reloading for my own rifles.
First the equipment; the press, the dies, calipers, primer pocket cleaner, primer seater, powder scale, tumbler etc., etc.
I had helped him get into shotgun-shell reloading a little while before this. He had avoided shotgun-shell reloading because he thought the process would require the same detail and diligence that rifle-reloading did. He did not know that, for shotgun shell reloading, you just “threw” powder into the shells and that was good enough.
He explained that rifle-reloading would be a different game. Was he ever right on that count!
COAL, grains, 1000ths of inches, pressures, twists, distance off the lands, etc. This would not be shotgun-shell-reloading, for sure.
There is a lot to understand, and I can see why there are so many squabbles on little details on the internet, when it comes to rifle-cartridge-reloading. Sit back and think about it, what type of personality loves to get into so much detail? I was not interested in a squabble over anything and wanted to be able to accomplish some simple goals from the outset. I wanted an accurate load that mirrored what I already had, but would now include this “premium bullet”.
I had more empty brass than I knew what to do with. Think decades of shooting the same ammunition. That small fact decided the brass for the recipe. Powder would just come from a recipe that was suggested by whomever was supplying the projectiles I was putting on the front end.
Somewhere along the line, I recalled that this same finicky friend had also shown me these truly ugly blue bullets he used in his .338WM a few years back. I watched the result of one of those bullets on a very large Mule Deer buck and was shocked that a chest shot would make something drop like a stone. I had never witnessed that one before.
I also remembered that they fouled the barrel something awful and, thankfully, they were no longer on the market.
My friend told me to go get some of these “new” bullets; BARNES TSX, “they were great”. Being new to this reloading thing, I just did what I was told and made up some reloads with various recommended powder charges.
I had read nothing but good things about this bullet, but the TSX bullet was so inaccurate out of my rifle, I compared it to throwing rocks. This was a repeat of all the factory ammunition purchases I had made earlier. It was starting to look like I was going to be out of luck.
One last chance. I would only be reloading for my .270 and knew what worked in that rifle. Instead of buying entire stores full of projectiles, reloading all these different recipes I decided to take the 130 grain Core-lokt bullet with me to the store for simple comparison. This cartridge worked in my rifle and there had to be something similar out there.
This is when I truly discovered Ogive. I just picked up bullets and put them beside the Remington Core-lokt bullet I brought along with me to the store. The one that most closely matched it would be the winner.
I looked at and compared plenty of options. I finally put the 130 Grain TTSX BT up beside my old faithful and did my Sesame Street science experiment. There it was!
The TTSX the TSX are incredibly different shapes. The TTSX looked so similar to the Core-lokt bullet that I could not tell them apart; the curve I mean. The designs of these two projectiles are so vastly different that they are not even comparable when you look at the details. Core-lokt are made of a thin copper jacket cup with a lead core and the TTSX are a solid piece of copper with a small central cavity and a plastic tip, a “Premium bullet”.
I chose TTSX Boat Tail (BT) with a very sophisticated methodology. It came down to a voodoo belief that BT are better than flat bottom bullets. Even though the Core-lokt bullets are flat bottom, I chose the TTSX BT. The BT had to be more accurate, right?
I did not care about more accurate, matching accuracy to Old Faithful would be fine, given all my recent failures. We would soon find out.
Recipes researched, primers and powder gathered, and we were off to the press.
Mr. Finicky suggested that I do 5 cartridges each, in half grain increments, down from maximum load, and see what worked.
I was also told about this “jumping to the lands” idea.
How many thousandths off the lands, can make a difference, etc. I decided to take the Core-lokt cartridge and figure out what distance it was from the lands on my rifle. I used an empty case, made a dummy cartridge, and made a duplicate of Old Faithful. The same dummy, with a TTSX, was created. The process was finalized when we discovered that 3 thousandths off the lands seemed to be the magic number.
At that point, I was wondering if this development process would ever end. It seemed to be “just” one more detail to play around with; and they kept adding up. No wonder all the reloaders on the internet get so grouchy about their loads being questioned. They have invested so much of their life in raising this small child, they have to love them.
Finally, I was off to the range with five possibilities to test. All the same length, same type of powder, same primer, same casing, same projectile.
A few of the more mature folks might have heard, “What a difference a day makes” - Esther Phillips
I discovered, “What a difference a grain makes”.
All shots were cold or cool barrel and I cleaned the barrel between each different recipe (powder weight included). It was 8 degrees C, at an elevation of 4100 feet above sea level (ASL), taken at 100 yards, with no wind to speak of.
Those five sets of shells were loaded from 55 to 52.5 grains of powder. I did wonder what those tiny differences would do.
I started shooting with the 55 grain of H4350 loads and they provided a useless result; 3-inch group. Uh, oh.
I worked my way down the list and the magic finally happened. A ¾ inch group with bullets coming out of the barrel at 3057 fps. One small grain of powder lower and the accuracy improvement was astonishing. It is all in the littlest details, which was proved further when I progressed down the list and had groups opening back up again.
On to the next suggestion, where I began to work on that “heavy for caliber” load.
I had some 150 grain BARNES MRX to try out. For some reason, I could not get them to tighten up beyond 1.5 inches. I decided that would be good enough for the shorter ranges that I would be encountering in Africa and left it at that.
At that point in time, if I am being honest, I must say I had lost the desire to continue. The fact that the 130 grain BARNES TTSX BT was grouping so well without very much work, sank the battle ship “Experiment”.
In Africa, I ended up abandoning the MRX out of confidence in the TTSX BT. Nothing wrong with the MRX, I just can’t bother to fight the incredible accuracy of the TTSX BT from this rifle.
Now that I have found my groove, I have reloaded these bullets into every caliber I regularly hunt with, including 375H&H, .300 Win Mag, .270 Win.
I am no Sniper, I am a decent shot, nothing extraordinary beyond long years of shooting practice. I have done some target shooting with this ammunition, just for fun, out to 720 yards and realized six-inch grouping out of my .300 Win Mag hunting rifle.
I am very happy with the performance of this “premium bullet”.
The TTSX BT has shown itself to be accurate and effective in the field, in both North America and Africa, from each of these rifle calibers. Anything I have shot in the proper place, has gone down quickly and cleanly with one shot. In the end, a great bullet cannot overcome poor shooting. If you do your job, this bullet will do its job.
The proof in the pudding:
With the 130 grain BARNES TTSXBT .270 Win: Blue Wildebeest (520 yds.) and in close on Zebra (100 yds.), Kudu (80 yds.), Common Reedbuck (100yds), Bushbuck (40yds), Mtn Reedbuck (60 yds.), Impala (120 yds.), Nyala (200 yds.), Ostrich (200yds), Steenbok 90 yds.), Red Duiker (60 yds.), Warthog (80, 120 yds.), Vallies (200 to 420yds) and Giraffe (30yds) (injured).
With the 180 grain BARNES TTSX .300 Win Mag: Giraffe (240 yds.), Eland (60 to 140 yds.), Blue Wildebeest (200 yds.), Red Hartebeest (40 to 80 yds.), Kudu (250 yds.), Impala (80 to 250 yds.), Gemsbok (60 to 220 yds.), Steenbok (30 yds.), Waterbuck (80yds), Spotted Hyena (90 yds.)
With the 250 grain BARNES TTSX .375 H&H to take Vaalies (380 yds.), Oribi (220 yds.), Bushbuck (300 yds.), Black Wildebeest (320 yds.) and Bushpig (80 yds.).
Some of the load development and penetration results posts:
https://www.africahunting.com/threads/i-blame-all-of-you.17339/page-3#post-145276
https://www.africahunting.com/threads/i-blame-all-of-you.17339/page-5
There was one person in my entire extended family who ever reloaded ammunition themselves and, in that case, it was only for a Shotgun and only target shooting to boot.
Eventually, I started to shoot enough Sporting Clay targets that it became more economical to reload shotgun shells myself. I got some instruction from the manuals, found the basic supplies, purchased a simple MEC reloader and started reloading shotgun shells. I borrowed a chronograph to test the speeds and, thenceforth, set out to make various loads to ensure that I would increase my score and numbers of game in the bag each fall.
I eventually became a proficient shotgunner on clay targets and wild birds and even managed to have won a Championship or two in Sporting Clays. How much the reloading played in that success I could not differentiate, beyond the confidence that I gained in the load I was made. Knowing that reload and the proper lead required on longer game-bird shots made a significant difference in the accuracy I enjoyed.
I had never even considered reloading rifle ammunition, why would you? I had a perfectly good, inexpensive ammunition, that was a very accurate load, straight from the store. No muss or fuss and it worked in my rifle and was accurate on targets out to ridiculous ranges that you would likely never shoot at game animals. So why change anything?
That change process was initiated with my hearing the advice of several PH’s in Africa. I kept getting feedback about “premium” bullets and “Heavy for caliber” bullets being required to hunt in Africa. I am not one for change for the sake of the exercise. I want to have a rational basis for all the effort to move me from my incredibly comfortable rut. What was a premium bullet?
But first, I went to the local sporting goods store and started the search for factory ammunition and wanted to see what would work in my rifle. I was not married to any manufacturer at this point and spent a small fortune buying a large variety of factory ammunition with “premium” bullets. I wanted to see what might work in my rifle. I was working on the .270 Winchester platform at this point and ended up with 130 and 150 grain cartridges from all the likely suspects. Hornady, Winchester, Federal, etc. They were all taken to the range and it became evident that I was going to have to reload myself. Not one was providing the accuracy I required. With these poor results, the slow creeping progression to my new happy place had begun in earnest.
A friend of mine reloaded his own rifle ammunition and was an accuracy junky. He loves to try to put one little round hole in targets at the range. I like to put three under a quarter and let’s go hunting. It was a rare day when I was gifted with the patience to try and shoot bullets into the same hole at the range.
He has a few hobbies that he dabbles in and they all require being quite finicky. Finish Carpentry is one and another is reloading for his rifles. With the generous sharing of his significant experience and ongoing guidance, I was soon acquiring the tools to start down the path to reloading for my own rifles.
First the equipment; the press, the dies, calipers, primer pocket cleaner, primer seater, powder scale, tumbler etc., etc.
I had helped him get into shotgun-shell reloading a little while before this. He had avoided shotgun-shell reloading because he thought the process would require the same detail and diligence that rifle-reloading did. He did not know that, for shotgun shell reloading, you just “threw” powder into the shells and that was good enough.
He explained that rifle-reloading would be a different game. Was he ever right on that count!
COAL, grains, 1000ths of inches, pressures, twists, distance off the lands, etc. This would not be shotgun-shell-reloading, for sure.
There is a lot to understand, and I can see why there are so many squabbles on little details on the internet, when it comes to rifle-cartridge-reloading. Sit back and think about it, what type of personality loves to get into so much detail? I was not interested in a squabble over anything and wanted to be able to accomplish some simple goals from the outset. I wanted an accurate load that mirrored what I already had, but would now include this “premium bullet”.
I had more empty brass than I knew what to do with. Think decades of shooting the same ammunition. That small fact decided the brass for the recipe. Powder would just come from a recipe that was suggested by whomever was supplying the projectiles I was putting on the front end.
Somewhere along the line, I recalled that this same finicky friend had also shown me these truly ugly blue bullets he used in his .338WM a few years back. I watched the result of one of those bullets on a very large Mule Deer buck and was shocked that a chest shot would make something drop like a stone. I had never witnessed that one before.
I also remembered that they fouled the barrel something awful and, thankfully, they were no longer on the market.
My friend told me to go get some of these “new” bullets; BARNES TSX, “they were great”. Being new to this reloading thing, I just did what I was told and made up some reloads with various recommended powder charges.
I had read nothing but good things about this bullet, but the TSX bullet was so inaccurate out of my rifle, I compared it to throwing rocks. This was a repeat of all the factory ammunition purchases I had made earlier. It was starting to look like I was going to be out of luck.
One last chance. I would only be reloading for my .270 and knew what worked in that rifle. Instead of buying entire stores full of projectiles, reloading all these different recipes I decided to take the 130 grain Core-lokt bullet with me to the store for simple comparison. This cartridge worked in my rifle and there had to be something similar out there.
This is when I truly discovered Ogive. I just picked up bullets and put them beside the Remington Core-lokt bullet I brought along with me to the store. The one that most closely matched it would be the winner.
I looked at and compared plenty of options. I finally put the 130 Grain TTSX BT up beside my old faithful and did my Sesame Street science experiment. There it was!
The TTSX the TSX are incredibly different shapes. The TTSX looked so similar to the Core-lokt bullet that I could not tell them apart; the curve I mean. The designs of these two projectiles are so vastly different that they are not even comparable when you look at the details. Core-lokt are made of a thin copper jacket cup with a lead core and the TTSX are a solid piece of copper with a small central cavity and a plastic tip, a “Premium bullet”.
I chose TTSX Boat Tail (BT) with a very sophisticated methodology. It came down to a voodoo belief that BT are better than flat bottom bullets. Even though the Core-lokt bullets are flat bottom, I chose the TTSX BT. The BT had to be more accurate, right?
I did not care about more accurate, matching accuracy to Old Faithful would be fine, given all my recent failures. We would soon find out.
Recipes researched, primers and powder gathered, and we were off to the press.
Mr. Finicky suggested that I do 5 cartridges each, in half grain increments, down from maximum load, and see what worked.
I was also told about this “jumping to the lands” idea.
How many thousandths off the lands, can make a difference, etc. I decided to take the Core-lokt cartridge and figure out what distance it was from the lands on my rifle. I used an empty case, made a dummy cartridge, and made a duplicate of Old Faithful. The same dummy, with a TTSX, was created. The process was finalized when we discovered that 3 thousandths off the lands seemed to be the magic number.
At that point, I was wondering if this development process would ever end. It seemed to be “just” one more detail to play around with; and they kept adding up. No wonder all the reloaders on the internet get so grouchy about their loads being questioned. They have invested so much of their life in raising this small child, they have to love them.
Finally, I was off to the range with five possibilities to test. All the same length, same type of powder, same primer, same casing, same projectile.
A few of the more mature folks might have heard, “What a difference a day makes” - Esther Phillips
I discovered, “What a difference a grain makes”.
All shots were cold or cool barrel and I cleaned the barrel between each different recipe (powder weight included). It was 8 degrees C, at an elevation of 4100 feet above sea level (ASL), taken at 100 yards, with no wind to speak of.
Those five sets of shells were loaded from 55 to 52.5 grains of powder. I did wonder what those tiny differences would do.
I started shooting with the 55 grain of H4350 loads and they provided a useless result; 3-inch group. Uh, oh.
I worked my way down the list and the magic finally happened. A ¾ inch group with bullets coming out of the barrel at 3057 fps. One small grain of powder lower and the accuracy improvement was astonishing. It is all in the littlest details, which was proved further when I progressed down the list and had groups opening back up again.
On to the next suggestion, where I began to work on that “heavy for caliber” load.
I had some 150 grain BARNES MRX to try out. For some reason, I could not get them to tighten up beyond 1.5 inches. I decided that would be good enough for the shorter ranges that I would be encountering in Africa and left it at that.
At that point in time, if I am being honest, I must say I had lost the desire to continue. The fact that the 130 grain BARNES TTSX BT was grouping so well without very much work, sank the battle ship “Experiment”.
In Africa, I ended up abandoning the MRX out of confidence in the TTSX BT. Nothing wrong with the MRX, I just can’t bother to fight the incredible accuracy of the TTSX BT from this rifle.
Now that I have found my groove, I have reloaded these bullets into every caliber I regularly hunt with, including 375H&H, .300 Win Mag, .270 Win.
I am no Sniper, I am a decent shot, nothing extraordinary beyond long years of shooting practice. I have done some target shooting with this ammunition, just for fun, out to 720 yards and realized six-inch grouping out of my .300 Win Mag hunting rifle.
I am very happy with the performance of this “premium bullet”.
The TTSX BT has shown itself to be accurate and effective in the field, in both North America and Africa, from each of these rifle calibers. Anything I have shot in the proper place, has gone down quickly and cleanly with one shot. In the end, a great bullet cannot overcome poor shooting. If you do your job, this bullet will do its job.
The proof in the pudding:
With the 130 grain BARNES TTSXBT .270 Win: Blue Wildebeest (520 yds.) and in close on Zebra (100 yds.), Kudu (80 yds.), Common Reedbuck (100yds), Bushbuck (40yds), Mtn Reedbuck (60 yds.), Impala (120 yds.), Nyala (200 yds.), Ostrich (200yds), Steenbok 90 yds.), Red Duiker (60 yds.), Warthog (80, 120 yds.), Vallies (200 to 420yds) and Giraffe (30yds) (injured).
With the 180 grain BARNES TTSX .300 Win Mag: Giraffe (240 yds.), Eland (60 to 140 yds.), Blue Wildebeest (200 yds.), Red Hartebeest (40 to 80 yds.), Kudu (250 yds.), Impala (80 to 250 yds.), Gemsbok (60 to 220 yds.), Steenbok (30 yds.), Waterbuck (80yds), Spotted Hyena (90 yds.)
With the 250 grain BARNES TTSX .375 H&H to take Vaalies (380 yds.), Oribi (220 yds.), Bushbuck (300 yds.), Black Wildebeest (320 yds.) and Bushpig (80 yds.).
Some of the load development and penetration results posts:
https://www.africahunting.com/threads/i-blame-all-of-you.17339/page-3#post-145276
https://www.africahunting.com/threads/i-blame-all-of-you.17339/page-5
Last edited:
If anyone wants data for these cartridges I have Barnes/Swift/Nosler/Hornady data and I have data minus the Barnes for other cartridges. PM me with an email and I can scan it to you.
