Barnes .458 TSX 300g

Long long ago i believe jsteurrys mailed me these bullet to test shoot through juice jug filled with water. At the time i had a steady supply of them jug, and tested several different bullet using a standard of 6 juice jug. The supply of jug dried up. It seems years ago i received them bullet, but never tested them. Today substituting four 1 gallon milk jug, and a 5# powder jug, the bullet was given the test.


Test Video


The set before the shot.







1/3 second after impact.






After things settled. Note the water leaking out of the entrance and exit holes though the powder jug.





It was quite difficult for me to find the bullet; it bounced forward off the phone book stack. X marks where the bullet was found.





The bullet veered left through the jugs, and almost missed the powder jug, and the phone book stack. The holes in the powder jug were on the very edge, as was the impact of the bullet on the stack.






This in spite of the fact the exit hole from the first jug was virtually dead center.









When received these bullet came with black crush rib sabot, so that is what was used today in the 50 Knight Disc Extreme. The fit was about perfect even though these are .458 bullet. Range was about 50'. The powder charge was the same as most of the other bullet tests--105g BH209. The unfired bullet was almost exactly 300g. The spent bullet was about 300.5g.

Impressive!

Do you have enough of them to see if they're accurate?

I was sent 3. One was used to see where they would hit at 50'. A second was used at the jugs. One remains.

It was not me that sent you the bullets. It may have been Hornet22savage or GM54-120. Nice test though.

Actually ive never tried the 300gr with the pointy ogive. Those are made for 458WinMag instead of 45/70 speeds and expansion isnt as reliable even at Savage speeds. Ive got some of the 275gr XPBs made for 460S&W and even those dont expand as well as the bullets made for 45/70.

These 275gr XPBs were shot down into a 55gal drum at really high fps by Deadeye. Some were also annealed to soften the copper.

I do recall you writing the expansion of these bullet was questionable. What is your impression of what they did today? Muzzle velocity was probably around 1875 fps or so. Perhaps the hydraulics made them work better. Once thing i did notice was the exit holes from the first and second jugs was nearly caliber sized.

Myself, i am not much familiar with Barnes bullets. At the Barnes website it seems to me that a load is provided at the low end for the 450 Marlin using this bullet. Speeds are near non smokeless muzzle loader speeds, if i understand correctly.

No load data seems to exist on the Barnes site for this bullet. The load previously mentioned for the 450 Marlin is for the flat nose bullet, not this bullet. It seems to me the best bullet to use in a loose barrel muzzle loader could be the Socom in a sabot made for boat tail. That bullet should be good at muzzle loader speeds one would think.

I really like the SOCOM but only because it shoots so well in my Brush Gun. The tipped Barnes seem to expand very well. In a loose bore, you might use the MMP short sabot with a .451 or .452. All my other Barnes are resized to .449 for use in a .500 bore and the MMP short.

Ive shot a few of the .451 275s in the Harvester Short Black into jugs/media and not one failed to expand. Penetration was excellent but the first jugs didn't vaporize like they do with the 225gr XPB with the big hollow point. The 225gr is moving 300fps faster and usually sheds petals almost like a Lehigh.

I can post the 225gr and 275gr videos but they may not be appropriate in this section. They were shot from my ULA.

Maybe the 290g TEZ, with a different sabot could be tried. Then there is the 325g FTX. What about the Nosler 300g ballistic silver tip? It is for use in the 45-70.

Im not sure which sabot would be a good replacement for the TEZ sabot. The MMP short might be too short. The only other one i can think of is the Harvester RED Crushrib but ive never tried them.

The 290TEZ will probably perform as well as the SOCOM 300gr. Possibly more accurate too for most people. Chuck didnt have much luck with them in the ULA. It prefers a lighter bullet.

The 325gr FTX is my favorite in the FTX lineup. Ive shot them pretty fast into media and got very good results. They have become very popular with the Savage shooters as a replacement for the over priced Barnes Original 300gr.

I haven't seen much interest in the tipped Nosler 458 yet, at least not in a ML. Some of the centefire forums have a few reviews. The new Hornady 458-250gr MonoFlex hasn't gotten much interest either.

I did find this on Dougs about the Nosler BT. Smoketeer reshapes them.

They look like they have a VERY thick jacket compared to most 458s except the Barnes O.

I tested the TSX out of my KRB in the MMP Orange back last year. THe load was 110 gr. BH and I got about a 2 inch group at 100 yds with my williams peep. I got mine from Omega45. He also sent me some of the SOCOMS in Harvester Yellow CR sabot and I found them extremely hard to load in my gun. I would tend to beleive that the expansion of the TSX would resemble the standared spitfire series.

Measuring the TEZ, i find them to be quite small compared to other 45 caliber bullet. This surprised me because i thought the reason they loaded loose was because of the sabot. The TEZ wouldn't be good for my 50 extreme. The boat tail bullet seems silly for muzzle loader velocities. I totally don't understand the reason for a boattail intended for use in a muzzle loader or a .223 case. Could the boattail really make them bullet used in these application fly better? Seems, the TSX is the best choice for my rifle.

The bullet the rifle shoots best right now is the 300g 44 caliber XTP, in the smooth Harvester sabot. This rifle has never shot any other bullet as accurately. This bullet expands readily. This bullet is about 1/3 the cost of a Barnes. This bullet i wouldn't use on elk, or moose, but i will only be hunting deer and antelope.

The Nosler has piqued my interest; who knows if i ever will get around to trying them.

Ive got some 325gr FTXs you can try and some Sierra 458-300gr HPs. I can resize them to .454 or maybe less if you wish to use them in other sabots. The Sierras have a thin jacket and should expand very well. The FTXs are quite a bit tougher.

IMO a boattail at ML speeds has very little advantage. BC has to exceed .300 to see any big benefit. I only used the SOCOMs in my 54-120 and the 52cal, mainly because they cost a tiny bit less than TEZs....and i was curious.

The next bullet i test through milk jugs will probably be the 325g FTX. Thank you for the offer; i already have a box. Now must wait for sister to drink milk.

I've got a ton of empty cat litter and jusice jugs and have been wanting to test the 265 FTX that I'm shooting throught them. Only problem is I don't have a chrono to check speeds the estimates I got from Omega45 put them at the 2150 mark for muzzle speed.

What is the load, and what is the rifle? We can make a guess at the muzzle velocity.

The load started out being a 265 FTX in a Hornady Green sabot over 120 gr. BH touched off by a W209. The things I have learned since then are my powder measurer is off by 10 gr. and my load is actually 130 gr. verified my a scale to be 91 gr. weighed after a ten count average. The hornady Green sabots are MMP Greens but not their HPH series. My rifle is a Knight Rolling Block that I have modified to shoot BH. barrel is 27 inches.

Now I sent six bullets and sabots to Omega45 and asked him to run them acrost his clock, this was before my revalation about the powder so the load was 120 gr. He fired them from his triumph and gave me the average of 2150. He also noted that the bullet loaded very hard and the could cause velocity spike, his were aslo lit off by a W209.

All the tests done by me were made with a load of 105g of BH209 without my knowing much about the muzzle velocities of any of the bullets. Range was about 50'. Suggest you load up a weighed 73.5g charge of BH, and have at it. Usually what i did was shoot one bullet at paper at 50' to see where it impacted; the second bullet was shot at the jugs. Most of the bullets i tested i wasn't able to really sight the rifle for the bullet. A few folk sent me 3 bullet to test, so i didn't have the ability to really do a normal rifle sighting at 100 yard or some such.

You know I just realized that you never mentioned speed just the load. I got caught up in the fact that I was going to test my load to see how well the bullet holds up to the speed. Beingt that the 265 FTX is a rifle bullet meant for the .444Marlin I beleive that it will do quite well.