Accuracy or Velocity. Choose.

I'm glad it worked out well!
There is something to be said about having confidence in your components.

(Long story short, it's a good thing!)

D.B. Cooper said:

So I ended up just going witht he maximum powder charge of Superperformance. That got me a 15-shot avg MV of 3180 fps, which, according to a ballistics calculator, worked out to -2.5" at 250 yrds, -6.5" at 300 and -19" at 350. 350 yrd velocity would till have been just above 2k fps. Supported on a bench I was shooting close to 2 MOA. I went out opening day with those number in my head and on my dope card. Turns out I didn't need them. Ended up shooting a small caribou (250-ish pounds) at 102 yards.

I'll say this much: I started this because of the poor results from basic cup and core Winchester ammo, and the Barnes TSX did not disappoint. I heard the bullet impact, and the sound echoed off the surrounding hills. The caribou flopped over pretty much immediately. The bullet broke one rib on the way out. Exit wound was about 3" in diameter and air and frothy blood was geysering out of it. Never found the bullet. (didn't even look for it.)

It's an unfair comparison because I shot the Winchester ammo into a caribou at 300 yards, and the TSX ammo at 100, but I'm pretty sold on the performance thus far.

Click to expand...

Impact velocity almost 2900 fps?

TSX will surly tear'em up.

Good for you.

Think you would have been fine at 300 yds w/ that load as well.




GR

glad it worked out for you!

D.B. Cooper said:

I actually have two boxes of those on my bench. No idea how I came to own them. No recall of ever buying them.



I would say a tail-on shot shouldn't be attempted with any caliber. However, a friend of mine shot a white tail deer tail-on as it was running away. The bullet went through and exited the chest. Flipped the deer over frontward. It never moved again. I'm sure that's an exception and not the rule.

Agree about the tail on shots. I dont consider it an ethical shot at anytime.
I find that bullet to be a spectacular killer from 40 or 50 to 200 yards. Based on stout 243 velocity numbers, its probably good to 250 yards. It expands like a standard remington coreloct but flies MUCH better with a much better BC. MAYBE its a little bit more explosive, maybe not, but nothing like an original nosler ballistic tip before they redesigned them into the very explosive varmint BT and the tougher hunting BT.
At 25 yards, even with broadside, behind the shoulder shots, I dont get complete pass thru, bullets blow up moving at 3000fps. Its kind of irrelevant since the deer dont go anywhere but straight to the ground and it will liquify the chest cavity. Had 1 run 35 or 40 yards and crashed. It will sometimes cause a fair amout of bloodshot meat. Overall, a terrific whitetail hunting bullet thats easy to find an accurate load in every rifle and caliber I have reloaded for.

No. Not at all. I just want a bullet that performs better than traditional ammo. I've been there. It got the job done. But I wasn't happy about how it got the job done.

Reading it right now. It's a long article, even skipping over the factory ammo section.

Click to expand...

That site has a whole lot more than just that article. There is some pretty good info on a bunch of calibers and associated projectiles.
I would definitely try to avoid monolithics unless you're talkin about having a lot of target resistance like those shots at 25 yards where the bullets still moving 3000 fps. At 200 yards or more with monolithics in a 243 you would likely have over penetration and very little expansion so it would result in an extremely delayed kill.
For most people I believe the natural inclination at longer range is to think because the bullets going slower I need to try to aim for a soft spot to get more penetration. But we need to resist that especially with a 243 and try to increase Target resistance in order to ensure more expansion. If I were to take a shot at a white tail with a 243 at anything longer than 250 yards, I would have to aim for heavy bone like the shoulder to increase Target resistance. That's using a traditional cup and core bullet. Monolithics would just compound the problem even more as they are harder and take more Target resistance to expand. At 300 yards a 243 monolithic will act very much like a full metal jacket or a solid bullet. That website is chock full of info like I just mentioned as well as firsthand reviews and frequently pictures of kills using a bunch of different calibers and bullets.

EDIT. Just saw where you listed your velocities and those are moving so fast but you can disregard all that about distance, it appears you can go about 350 yards and still get expansion. It would probably be in the back of my mind that I would probably want an impact velocity to be 2200 fps to have a little margin of error just to be sure the bullet would expand. I would not feel comfortable pushing it and going all the way down to 2000 fps and counting on it to make a clean kill, but thats just me. Making a slow kill or worse, a nasty, festering wound eats at my conscience so I don't chance it if a shot seams borderline too far.

Glad it worked out and moving that fast, im sure it did a number on that caribou. Good job.

why not use 100gr sierra bullets with 37.6grs of Winchester 760powder as my 243 likes this load, and runs 2,700fps and shoots tight groups easy!!