Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Pressure CX v LRX v TTSX

I have also "visited" with the technical folks at Barnes and was NOT told the LRXs were "softer," just designed to open at lower impact velocities. This is done through the mechanical design, not using a different copper alloy, or annealing.

Don't know about recovered LRXs, as I haven't recovered an LRX yet. The only one that didn't exit was a 127 6.5mm that went into an almost-facing mature cow elk (right around 500 pounds) and ended up inside the guts somewhere. Looked for a while but couldn't find it, which has happened with various other deep-penetrating bullets on elk.

But will also comment that Eileen and I have recovered quite a few Barnes Xs and TSXs, which retained just about everything from no petals to all four. (Haven't found any only retaining two petals.) They all killed animals very similarly.

I'd be curious how the 129 work on those 3, esp the Eland.

John,
I don’t know why the LRX expands more easily. Was also told by a different Barnes representative that the front was annealed. Rumor and conjecture are common everywhere.

What I am certain of is that they loose petals more frequently compared to the TTSX. Just about all of the recovered TTSX’s have all petals. Not unusual for the LRX to be missing some.



bwinters
I have gotten three eland with the TSX (1) and TTSX (2). One shot each down and out.

Does the ogive shape make a difference in the LRX?

The first 130gr TSX's I used had a secant ogive. The LRX mirrors this secant ogive. The current TTSX's and TSX's have more of a tangent ogive.

I used up the last of the sleeker TSX's this spring at the range. I am switching to the 129gr LRX in this rifle.

One son is using the latest production tangent ogive 130gr TSX's. Other son is using 130gr TTSX's. Both worked fine last fall.

The only LRX I have killed game with is the 155gr LRX out of a 1:8 twist 270 WCF.

Excellent! I've only seen eland in a zoo. They are massive. I can't imagine trying to butcher one in the field without a bunch of help.

For me, I'm not concerned if an LRX loses a petal, or all of them frankly, esp if they act like an LBT style hard cast. An LBT style hard cast bullet shot from a pistol cuts a goodly size hole through whatever it hits, and penetrates a long way. If the LRX does that after losing petals, I'm good.

Huh, didn't realize Barnes made a LRX in 0.277/155 gr. Learn something every day. I'm guessing a guy could drive that bullet to 2900 with Re26 and it would penetrate into next week.

What velocity did you get?

Rick,

Here's a post made on 5/03/2023 by GSSP, who's a member here, and on his profile lists his occupation as ballistics lab tech at Barnes:

I've been using the 127 LRX in several different 6.5's, taking mule deer as close as 50 yds and elk at......WAY out there. They work. The copper is not softer than the TTSX. The LRX's have slighter better BC's for improved velocity retention and less wind drift. In 7mm the 139 gr LRX has the lowest impact velocity (1400 fps) of all the LRX's and TTSX's on the market, sans the .458" 300 gr Socom bullet (1100 fps). At 1400 fps that bullet expand to at least 1.7x the bullet's original diameter. If 2x expansion is wanted then add approximatley 100-200 fps. For the record the 7mm 150 TTSX will expand down to 1500 fps and have a BC only 20 pts less than the 139 LRX.

Alan

He's who contacted me after I suggested on a thread the LRX might be annealed to open easier. Maybe things have changed in the past year, but would tend to doubt it.

John

John , have you tried annealing other bullets?
I have only read about this.
Strangley, a .277 , 150 grain SST which is very frangible anyways

Thanks for that additional info, John.

Again, I’ll reiterate my comment about the grain of salt and limited data points that are certainly not conclusive. As far as the LRX goes, I mainly have experience with the 6.5 mm 127 LRX and the 7 mm 145 LRX. In two recent cases, a 7-08 and a 7 RM, I tended to see traditional pressure signs with the 145 LRX well before I did with the 140 TSX and TTSX, beyond what I could explain due to the weight difference alone, IME. My experience has been that TSX and TTSX typically produce similar pressures to C&Cs in the same weight range, but my impression so far has been that the 127 and 145 LRX bullets show signs of excess pressure at lower velocities and charge weights. I haven’t put much thought or investigation into this, but my observations would be consistent with a hypothesis that these bullets have a longer bearing surface, and therefore more velocity-robbing friction, even if the chemical makeup and metallic lattice structure is identical to other Barnes bullets. Of course, this is not necessarily the case if the primary difference is simply a sleeker, longer ogive.

My data points are primarily qualitative at this stage, and I haven’t dug any deeper, but I suspected that LRX models had longer bearing surfaces than TSX/TTSX bullets of similar weight. I appreciate your comment that this appears not to be the case with the one comparison you made. I’ll look further into this, but once again, I only have a few data points with little statistical merit and it’s possible that any perceived correlations were due to confounding variables, and not the bullets themselves.

Reading about the 7mm 150 TTSX opening to 1500 fps has really flung a craving on me. Now I want a 7x57...I can get 2700 fps in this caliber.....what else would I ever need ?
Charlie

I took interest in the 7mm/150 expanding down to 1500 and 1.7x diameter as well.

I’m leaving looking at it for long range in my 7RM as it ticks a lot of boxes.

Still, the Hornady 180 ELDM hold energy better.

I’ve always liked the solid copper concept and have used Barnes bullets since high school. I have a collection of Barnes bullets I’ve recovered and it would be tough to quantify much by that collection other than to say that animals are extremely hard on bullets.

I mentioned earlier that I was going to try hammers. I did that yesterday. I started with a 338 WM that I just can’t get to shoot with anything. Here is shots 2,3, and 4 after the first one went in the dirt. The second target is the first 4 shots with hammer bullets in my 7MM RM.

Interesting comments about ETips. My cold weather testing partner loads the hunting rifles for his whole fam damily—kids, their spouses, and grandkids. They’re mostly 30-06 loonies.

He used mostly TSXs, then switched to primarily TTSXs, and has begun using ETips recently. He has mentioned the ETips are sometimes quite picky about seating depth, and changing depth can see a significant change in group size. But eventually can find the magic number. He says the ETips seem more consistent on game as far as penetration and expansion based on exit hole size.

My 308 with 150TTSXs has a very wide range the bullet can be seated at without a difference in velocity or ES.

Have begun loading 150ETips in my 308 and have seen a noticeable change in ES and group size at slightly different seating depths. But I’ve been able to come up with a load that’s just as accurate as my TTSX load.

Bwinters and RinB,
The 270 cal 129LRX has an advertised BC of .463 and the 130ETip an advertised BC of .459–not much difference.

I’ve learned to take advertised BCs with a grain of salt and shoot for actual drop.

Some more comments on various points to far:

Just went through my recovered-bullet list and found that only 16% of the Barnes Xs, TSXs and TTSXs retained all their petals--and several lost all their petals. This includes the first one I ever recovered, a 120-grain 6.5 pre-TSX (no grooves on the shank) started at around 2950 from a 6.5x55, which killed the biggest axis buck I've taken. The range was around 150 yards, and the buck was quartering toward me, so I aimed for the near shoulder joint, and hit it. Found the bullet under the hide just behind the ribcage on the far side. But the bullet behind the sheared-off petals had expanded to a pretty much flat face, measuring .41" in diameter. (That was in 2003, a year before TSX's appeared.)

In fact, most the X's of various kinds that I've recovered hit bone, which may be why they lost petals, and stayed in the animal. One exception is a 168-grain .30 from a .300 Winchester Magnum, which landed just in front of the left hip of a mule deer buck in Sonora, Mexico at around 150 yards. It ended up under the hide on the front of the buck's chest, retaining all its petals.

Have been carefully sectioning the front ends of two .30-caliber bullets, one a .30 TTSX and the other a 175-grain LRX. As mentioned in a previous post, externally they're close in dimensions as far as number, width and placement of the grooves on the shank, ogive and plastic tip. So far haven't found any vast interior difference between the two either, but need to do a little more sectioning to be sure. Will post the results.

I’ve used this picture before. Same bullet, same rifle, same elk with very similar shot placement.

John and all,

Several things to consider which haven’t been discussed thus far….

1. All of my on game experience is confined to .277” 130 TTSX & 129 LRX at around 3080 MV (excepting .375” 270 TSX and 250 TTSX used on Cape buffalo).

2. The grooves in those two .277” bullets are pretty much the same whereas many of the newer LRX designs have fewer grooves which are also farther forward ala CX and ETip.

3. Very few of my .277” 130 TTSX bullets from game have lost any petals. The .277” 129 LRX are more likely to loose petals but I have not recovered nearly as many.

4. I suspect that the different diameter LRX bullets perform differently. Said another way, I suspect that there are different outcomes for each of the other diameters and weights.

Here are some pictures for Rick. I’ll let him comment.

Have asked pathfinder76 to post two pictures. The 4 expanded bullets are .277” 130 TTSX. Will look for some 129 LRX but I don’t know where they are.

Notice that the number and placement of the grooves on the unfired bullets are different.

p76 thanks R

I have failed to mention that my all around favorite .277” bullet was the 130 Swift Scirroco FIRST GENERATION. They were a fabulous combination of accuracy, frontal area, BC, weight retention, and obvious hurt on game performance. Then Swift decided to redesign the bullet. I have never been able to get acceptable accuracy with the Gen2 bullets. SAD!

The SwiftAF and the Federal Trophy Tipped and the Woodleigh…all 130’s, are excellent.