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Old November 23, 2012, 09:26 AM   #26
Brian Pfleuger
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Quote:
Originally Posted by reloader28
It didnt even expand to full caliber diameter. It had lots of penetration.
As PawPaw points out, the bullet was "full caliber diameter" when it left the barrel.

What is the final diameter of the bullet?

It sounds to me like it performed exactly like every anecdote I've ever heard regarding the TTSX bullets, meaning perfectly. I've never heard of a failure to expand (at speed), I've never heard of the bullet coming apart (except a "petal" or two on heavy bone) and they always penetrate like crazy.

Of course, you're apparently not even sure that's the correct bullet so I think it's a little silly to pass judgement based on no information.
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Old November 23, 2012, 10:21 AM   #27
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jimbob86
Unfortunately, so many hunters think that picking up a box before deer season is all the ammo they need ...... "One Boxers" ....... (exits, muttering)....
Quote:
I had a rifle like that once, I didn't reload for the caliber, and just picked up a box of ammo. Four rounds later the rifle was zero'd and I had 16 rounds left to hunt with. Very accurate little rifle in 7mm-08, and as it turns out, I never loaded for that caliber. I'd pick up one box of ammo per year and I very seldom shot more than 20 rounds a year from that rifle. I didn't need to. Everything I shot at with that rifle fell over and kicked.
The "One Boxers" I was referring to only shoot the 4 rounds to "zero" .... and nothing else all year ..... in any caliber.
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Old November 23, 2012, 01:50 PM   #28
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Hmm I see I struck a nerve when I mentioned core-lokts and failure in the same sentence. We've got a guy in our club that had complete core separation at the 'locking crimp' etc. They are not a bonded bullet, just a fact.

I've shot corelokts out of my .30-06, when I was shooting groups to decide.
The regular ones and the premiums shot like crap in my Browning so I moved on. Winchester power points shot well out of my wife's Savage .243, but when we finished the box (and my son shot a nice buck with it) I moved all our centerfire ammo to Fusion. It's as cheap as a Corelokt or WWB ammo but just a superior bullet.

I have a .243 Fusion 95gr bullet that we recovered from my wife's 175-lb 8 point buck that she shot 20 days ago. I'll post a pic but here's the run down:

Buck was 80 yards, quartering away at an extreme angle. She shot him 3 inches forward of the rear ham, bullet travelled thru the deer, thru the heart, and lodged into the neck. The buck made it almost 30 yards in a death leap. My B-I-L recovered it while processing the neck roast.

It was fully expanded, completely extended petals and retained 82% of the weight. I feel like if she would have a mechanically locked or otherwise unbonded core bullet, it would have had jacket separation. Would the buck have died? Probably. But for the same money, I'll have to really work to find a better bullet.
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Old November 23, 2012, 09:20 PM   #29
Brian Pfleuger
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Didn't strike no nerve with me.

I've seen Core-Lokts fail. Fail, as in not hold together, still killed the deer. Main reason I investigated and went with TTSX for my own loads.
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Old November 23, 2012, 09:23 PM   #30
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Here's pix:



Also, at my local Dick's sporting goods,as of today Federal Fusion ammo costs $19.48 with a 2.50 mail in rebate per box. Core-Lokt is $16.98 with a rebate making it 14.98. $5.00 extra is cheap insurance. And Federal doesn't believe in sending out pre-tarnished brass in every box

Last edited by jlove1974; November 23, 2012 at 09:32 PM.
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Old November 23, 2012, 09:26 PM   #31
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Any of the name brand soft points in 100 grains should work fine.
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Old November 23, 2012, 09:34 PM   #32
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I like the TSX. This is someone else's picture:


Attached Images
File Type: jpg ImageUploadedByTapatalk1353724484.252627.jpg (27.9 KB, 161 views)
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Old November 23, 2012, 09:50 PM   #33
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no doubt the TSX is a fine bullet as well. But we aren't required to use lead-free bullets here in NC, and it's about ten to twenty bucks more a box and harder to find locally. I would try some if someone gave me a box
If I were hunting with a AR15 in .223/5.56 then I would definitely go with the TSX.
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Old November 23, 2012, 09:59 PM   #34
Brian Pfleuger
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They are pricey but if you load your own they're cheaper than any normal factory ammo. Factory TSX ammo runs like $47/20 last I looked. I load my own for about $13/20.
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Old November 23, 2012, 10:06 PM   #35
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Yep that's what they cost around here for factory loaded TSX or TTSX. I am still saving .243 brass to justify buying a set of dies for it. Once I hit 100 or so, then we will probably start working up some hot loads. But Fusion bullets are available as components too, and darn near cheap as dirt too.

Any of the electrofused or copper-core bullets are a step above cup and core, and for your average 100-150lb deer they will do just fine. My son absolutely CRUSHED a big bodied 5-pointer last year with the 100-gr Winchester power points, but it was a 40 yard shot in the high shoulder and he was done. That's when I realized that the .243 gives up nothing to a bigger caliber if it's put in the vitals. It's a 'mini-magnum' in my book
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Old November 23, 2012, 10:10 PM   #36
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Brian, in case you didnt notice, your bullet expanded to more than caliber diameter. It looks great.
I said my uncles didnt expand to even caliber diameter. To make it simpler, it means the nose didnt open up at all. It was no better than a FMJ. And it even hit a bone and was bent like a banana. I dont have pictures cause he's 80 miles away. Some people love them and get good performance with them, we will never buy anymore or recommend them to anyone. The reason they get so much penatration could be because they dont expand as they're supposed to.

I didnt mean to hi-jack this thread any further, so I wont go on about this anymore.

Sorry Jevyod.

Last edited by reloader28; November 23, 2012 at 10:17 PM.
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Old November 23, 2012, 10:35 PM   #37
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Ya that bullet I posted expanded out from .243 to around .403, and I think Federal loads it to fly around 2980 fps (probably from a 24" barrel).
If I were loading some barrel-burning .243 loads, I'd probably go with something just a tad more robust like a Barnes TSX. But the boattail fusion performs like a premium bullet at a fraction of the cost. It's pretty slippery and doesn't give up much in the way of ballistics to the tipped deer grenades like SSTs.
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Old November 23, 2012, 10:49 PM   #38
Brian Pfleuger
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Originally Posted by reloader28 View Post
Brian, in case you didnt notice, your bullet expanded to more than caliber diameter. It looks great.
I said my uncles didnt expand to even caliber diameter. To make it simpler, it means the nose didnt open up at all. It was no better than a FMJ. And it even hit a bone and was bent like a banana. I dont have pictures cause he's 80 miles away. Some people love them and get good performance with them, we will never buy anymore or recommend them to anyone. The reason they get so much penatration could be because they dont expand as they're supposed to.

I didnt mean to hi-jack this thread any further, so I wont go on about this anymore.

Sorry Jevyod.
All I can say is that your experience is the polar opposite of every story I've ever heard about Barnes bullets. The reason they penetrate is weight retention, not lack of expansion. They wouldn't kill the way they do if they didn't expand. I've seen picture after picture of TSX bullets that look just like that picture and sometimes better and they've penetrated animals, from wild hogs to deer to water buffalo, sometimes literally from end to end.

I would hesitate to completely write-off a proven performer because of a singular failure.

Also, I've interacted with Barnes reps on several occasions and found them informative, friendly and helpful. I bet they'd love to have that bullet back to see why it failed.
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Old November 23, 2012, 10:50 PM   #39
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I said my uncles didnt expand to even caliber diameter. To make it simpler, it means the nose didnt open up at all.
Okay, now you've confused me. If the bullet was full caliber when it left the barrel and it wasn't full caliber when you recovered it, did it shrink? Trust me, that bullet was full caliber diameter when it left the muzzle. It may not have expanded, but it probably didn't shrink to below full diameter.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jlove1974
Once I hit 100 or so, then we will probably start working up some hot loads.
You don't need hot loads in the .243. I'm pushing a 100 grain bullet at 3100 fps (my rifle, my chronograph) and I'm not yet to the max load. I quit when the group shrank to under an inch. I've shot some wonderfully small 3-shot groups, but this 5-shot group is about average of what my bone-stock rifle is capable of doing.



Quote:
Originally Posted by jlove1974
Hmm I see I struck a nerve when I mentioned core-lokts and failure in the same sentence. We've got a guy in our club that had complete core separation at the 'locking crimp' etc. They are not a bonded bullet, just a fact.
No, you didn't strike a nerve at all. Core-Lokt's are good bullets, but they're standard cup-and-core construction. Remington makes them, literally, by the millions. But, yeah, they're known to fail. However, if you consider the failure, you recovered the bullet, so... the game animal was laying somewhere you could find it. There's nothing especially wrong with Core-Lokt's, just that they're not premium bullets. They've killed a whole lot of game.
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Old November 23, 2012, 11:21 PM   #40
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Yep, they have killed alot of game this is true. But the cap and ball revolver has killed alot of men in the civil war, but I don't see alot of military and LEOs carrying it anymore. I think they were both designed around the same time, right?
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Old November 24, 2012, 10:34 AM   #41
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.243

I like the Fusion factory loaded ammo.....two shots = two deer , it worked for me ! I'm sure all the premium bullets like for example; Nosler , Barnes , and Trophy are great stuff....just haven't tried them yet in the .243 caliber !
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Old November 24, 2012, 11:04 AM   #42
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I am going to have to pick up a box after that picture Pfleuger lol
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Old November 24, 2012, 01:12 PM   #43
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jlove1974
But the cap and ball revolver has killed alot of men in the civil war, but I don't see alot of military and LEOs carrying it anymore. I think they were both designed around the same time, right?
The cap and ball revolver can still do the job and there are lot of them in use in the Cowboy game. Actually, the Model 1860 was trotted out in ... wait for it... 1860.

The first successful jacketed bullet is credited to a Swiss officer, Eduard Rubin, in 1882, over two decades after the Model 1860.

The Remington Core-Lokt, as far as I can tell, was introduced right after WWII, sometime during the 1940s.

I agree that there are better bullets nowadays than the standard Core-Lokt, but deer aren't any tougher than they were 70 years ago. It's interesting that you should mention cap-and-ball, because I regularly hunt with a cap-and-ball rifle. I use a patched round ball, which is pre civil war, and it kills deer just fine. The last one I shot with it simply fell over, a bang-flop. I didn't recover the ball, but I wouldn't think that it expanded. It entered at the base of her neck just above the brisket, glanced off the spine, destroyed the right lung, then traveled through the paunch, broke her hip and went whistling off thru the pines after exiting her left ham. I shot thru the length of her and that was with a soft lead ball. Virtually no BC, slow velocity, and I doubt it expanded at all. Still, she was just as dead as if I'd hit her with the newest wonder-bullet. The modern percussion cap was introduced in 1839, so I killed that deer with 1840s technology. It worked just fine.
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Old November 24, 2012, 01:43 PM   #44
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PawPaw
It worked just fine.

I'm quite sure that there's more to "working just fine" for most people than being able to kill a deer.

My bow kills them just fine but I don't keep using it when gun season starts. My Encore handgun kills them just fine but I don't keep using it when I'm in rifle zones. My Glock 33 will kill them just fine but I don't use it for my primary weapon.

Lots of things kill deer. That's not the point.

Core-Lokt's have killed thousands, probably 100s of thousands. Lots of other bullets have too. That doesn't mean that one is not more reliable than another or effective at longer range or less prone to fragmenting or penetrates better...
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Old November 24, 2012, 05:37 PM   #45
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Originally Posted by Peetza
Core-Lokt's have killed thousands, probably 100s of thousands. Lots of other bullets have too. That doesn't mean that one is not more reliable than another or effective at longer range or less prone to fragmenting or penetrates better...
Concur.
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Old November 24, 2012, 11:24 PM   #46
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At a time when I used my 243 on deer. I preferred Remington 80-gr. PSP. Fast, flat shooting, and hard hitting out of my Ruger 77. Never cared to use anyone's store bought 100 gr bullet ammo. Stuff didn't seem to work out for me in what I expected of it. (had to track deer a fair distance too often when shot with those 100 gr bullets) 80-85 gr. bullets on the other hand. Those deer succumbed to there wound within 20 yards or less usually. (rib shot most often made by me)
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Old November 25, 2012, 04:25 AM   #47
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We've used the Remington CL 100 gr and the Nosler Partition.......both work but I will admit that if bone, hard bone like a leg ( not just shoulder plate ) is hit the CL deforms more.

This one was taken with the Remington. Bullet cliped the left leg and one rib and ended up just under the skin on the oposite side. I did not weigh it but it was in one piece and about double, maybe more, in size from expansion.

While I'll admit that I personally like my bullet to pass through ( My .35 Rem almost always does.......but then unless he is close and a proper shot I don't bother shooting. ) I will also say that she has shot a bunch of hogs, which are not really harder to kill just maybe a little more sturdy if they are big, and bullet failure has not been a problem.


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Old November 25, 2012, 07:48 PM   #48
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NICE HOG! Is that a Handi-Rifle in .243? Good choice
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Old November 25, 2012, 08:42 PM   #49
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I've been saving my .243 brass for a while ... also bought some new. But I won't be experimenting much until I finish shooting up my remaining Rem CLs and some cheap Federal 100 gr SPs. None of the game hit with either has required a second shot.
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Old November 26, 2012, 08:54 AM   #50
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Nosler Ballistic Tips.
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