Barnes 290 T-EZ Repeat

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I've always wanted two holes and it's one of the reasons I like to sneak in close and only take double lung shots. If I took longer shots and quartering shots i'd have to settle for one hole sometimes or maybe all the time.

My way has always worked and I don't see a reason to change.
 
Muley Hunter said:
I've always wanted two holes and it's one of the reasons I like to sneak in close and only take double lung shots. If I took longer shots and quartering shots i'd have to settle for one hole sometimes or maybe all the time.

My way has always worked and I don't see a reason to change.
Click to expand...

I’m a double lung hunter as well, bow and gun. Recovered every deer I’ve ever shot there, Barnes is what I have used for the last 10 years in my ML until this past season when I tried a 300 grain Harvester that I believe uses a Hornady bullet? It worked well on a 7 point buck, knocked it over then it got up and ran 10 yards before piling up into the ground and immediately expired. I will try and find that bullet when I go back to the property next time.
 
Do you mean the PT Gold? If so, it's a Harvester bullet. I've never used one but a lot of guys like them. Good price too if you buy in bulk.
 
ENCORE50A said:
Well lets just call it debatable instead. ;)
I am 100% the opposite, wanting entry and exits along with proper shot placement. Two holes have always been better than one. Why on earth would you believe a bullet that passes through didn't expand? Must be some old hunting camp story..............
There are a ton of videos showing quite the opposite, including videos from Barnes.
Click to expand...

It's very hard to write so every reader understands what you are trying to say... I didn't mean to imply that ALL pass-through's mean the bullet didn't expand. Just that non-expanded bullets are more likely to pass-through than well-expanded ones. If two holes are your highest priority then shooting a bullet that doesn't expand as much gives you a better chance of achieving that. Especially on elk sized game. Pass-through's on deer are much easier to get than on elk, and I'm relating to my personal experience with elk.

I would rather see max damage and only one hole than less damage with two holes. Pass-through's depend a lot on bullet weight, velocity, and size of the animal. Recovering pass-through bullets on live game is rare, so it's hard to read the expansion. I'm just saying that given the choice, I would prefer to have full penetration through the entire vital cavity, with max bullet expansion and thus max vital tissue damage. If the off-side hide stops the bullet then that's fine. The damage has been done, and the animal absorbed all the impact shock. Whether or not that bullet punches through the off-side hide isn't vitally important. I agree that two holes are better than one IF ALL ELSE IS EQUAL. But the only reason is for blood trail. It doesn't matter how quickly blood leaves the body cavity, only how quickly it leaves the cardiovascular system. In other words, heavier internal bleeding kills faster than lighter external bleeding. So the amount of internal damage the bullet does is more important than how many holes it pokes in the skin. I'm not criticizing those that want two holes, and I understand why you want that. Just saying it's not the #1 most important aspect of bullet performance, in my opinion. I would rather have an elk drop in it's tracks, or run 50 yards and expire in just a few seconds, leaving a lighter blood trail; than to have it live longer and run several hundred yards with a heavier blood trail.
 
My favorite shot regardless of the bullet type is a quartering towards me shot. I aim for where the neck meets the body. Most times the bullet will exit at about the last rib with minimal meat damage. I find the deer or elk will always drop in their tracks with this shot.
 
I've always used bullets that always expand. Nosler Partition in the 30-30 and PRB in muzzleloaders.

This will be my first year to use a conical in a muzzy.
 
like.2.fly said:
It's very hard to write so every reader understands what you are trying to say... I didn't mean to imply that ALL pass-through's mean the bullet didn't expand. Just that non-expanded bullets are more likely to pass-through than well-expanded ones. If two holes are your highest priority then shooting a bullet that doesn't expand as much gives you a better chance of achieving that. Especially on elk sized game. Pass-through's on deer are much easier to get than on elk, and I'm relating to my personal experience with elk.

I would rather see max damage and only one hole than less damage with two holes. Pass-through's depend a lot on bullet weight, velocity, and size of the animal. Recovering pass-through bullets on live game is rare, so it's hard to read the expansion. I'm just saying that given the choice, I would prefer to have full penetration through the entire vital cavity, with max bullet expansion and thus max vital tissue damage. If the off-side hide stops the bullet then that's fine. The damage has been done, and the animal absorbed all the impact shock. Whether or not that bullet punches through the off-side hide isn't vitally important. I agree that two holes are better than one IF ALL ELSE IS EQUAL. But the only reason is for blood trail. It doesn't matter how quickly blood leaves the body cavity, only how quickly it leaves the cardiovascular system. In other words, heavier internal bleeding kills faster than lighter external bleeding. So the amount of internal damage the bullet does is more important than how many holes it pokes in the skin. I'm not criticizing those that want two holes, and I understand why you want that. Just saying it's not the #1 most important aspect of bullet performance, in my opinion. I would rather have an elk drop in it's tracks, or run 50 yards and expire in just a few seconds, leaving a lighter blood trail; than to have it live longer and run several hundred yards with a heavier blood trail.
Click to expand...

Everyone would like max damage, but having shot an awful lot of game in a lifetime, I can tell you for certain even the same (identical) bullet will react differently in different circumstances, and that shot placement with entry and exit holes are best.

Again, its debatable. One of the least "reactive differently" bullets has always been Barnes as long as minimum velocities are exceeded.
Every professional guide, especially those in Africa want a bullet to do two things, maximum damage and an exit. Fact check it.
Most all problems with hunting, blood trails, knock down, tracking, etc., comes from PP shot placement. Period.
You put a through the pump station, especially with an exit hole and things get over quickly. Single entry holes through the lungs, especially higher in the lungs, have caused a lot of lost game over the decades. Its heard every season.
There is no best bullet............
 
ENCORE50A said:
...You put a through the pump station, especially with an exit hole and things get over quickly. Single entry holes through the lungs, especially higher in the lungs, have caused a lot of lost game over the decades. Its heard every season.
There is no best bullet............
Click to expand...

Good points. But the exit hole is not what gets things over quickly, and the fact that the bullet exited the animal makes absolutely no difference as to how long it lives after being hit. The longer it lives the harder it gets to recover. I agree that two holes can make a difference in tracking/recovery IF the animal lives long enough to run very far. My priority is to prevent it from running very far in the first place. Kill it as quickly and humanely as possible. Then you don't need an easy blood trail to follow, and recovery is 100%.

Funny things do happen though, and some we can't control. But we can control shot placement, and which bullet/load we use. I agree there is no one "best bullet" for everyone and every situation. But there are definite differences to be aware of, and it's worth the effort to study it and have a good reason for choosing the one you do.

These are the questions I ask, and why I prefer the Barnes T-EZ in most of my situations:
  • Can I shoot it accurately out of my rifle with my load? CHECK.
  • Will it have effective velocity and retained energy at my likely shot ranges? CHECK.
  • Will it expand consistently and reliably, and cause a max damage wound channel without excessive fragmenting or exploding on impact, even with imperfect shot placement? CHECK.
  • Is it legal in my hunting area? CHECK.
  • Does it minimize the chance of ingesting meat fowled with lead particles? CHECK.
"Is a complete pass-through likely?" is not one of my questions, because to me it's irrelevant. If I do get a pass-through then all the better, as long as the more important requirements are met first.
 
I think the only real difference is T-EZ is straight walled, where the T-MZ is boat tailed giving it slightly better ballistics at long range. They use different sabots because of their different shapes. But both are all copper, of the same basic construction; and terminal performance should be nearly identical. The T-EZ gets its name from using a slightly thinner sabot that is easier to load in tight bores than the T-MZ.
 
like.2.fly said:
Good points. But the exit hole is not what gets things over quickly, and the fact that the bullet exited the animal makes absolutely no difference as to how long it lives after being hit. The longer it lives the harder it gets to recover. I agree that two holes can make a difference in tracking/recovery IF the animal lives long enough to run very far. My priority is to prevent it from running very far in the first place. Kill it as quickly and humanely as possible. Then you don't need an easy blood trail to follow, and recovery is 100%.

Funny things do happen though, and some we can't control. But we can control shot placement, and which bullet/load we use. I agree there is no one "best bullet" for everyone and every situation. But there are definite differences to be aware of, and it's worth the effort to study it and have a good reason for choosing the one you do.


"Is a complete pass-through likely?" is not one of my questions, because to me it's irrelevant. If I do get a pass-through then all the better, as long as the more important requirements are met first.
Click to expand...
I don't believe anyone has stated that an exit hole creates a difference in how long an animal lives after being hit. Animals that are bleeding profusely, especially from a properly placed pump station shot, with entrance and exit holes are not hard to recover. If you want an immediate kill or displacement, bust them shoulders down, take a head shot, shoot'em in the teeth while they're looking at you. Also, no one is disagreeing with you that you/they want as quick and humane kill as possible.
However........... If you've been hunting long enough and harvested enough animals, you realize that quick is not always the case. Again, every year we see it and hear it from hunters that think they know..... 'Yup, put it right in the boiler room and we never found the animal'. 'I put that bullet right where it was supposed to go and there was no blood and we never found the animal.'

Shot placement is everything and quality bullets matter. How many times have we heard on this site about a PB pancaking hitting an animal? Even small deer size game. Place the shot right and you can kill an animal with a marble. You take your single hole shots, I'll take my entrance and exits, which most others IMO will also.
 
Need a boat nearby if I hunt where that picture was taken. Late season, when the deer have been pushed around for a few weeks, this area is loaded with deer.IMG954735.jpg
 
On a deer it’s pretty easy to see whether a bullet expanded by looking a the exit hole. That’s especially true when that exit is in the chest cavity. I’ve never seen a exit wound In the fifty+ years of deer hunting that didn’t show expansion when judged in that manner.
 
Well... I guess I'll take my turn. I'll use science to build my opinion on...and over 50 years afield. Hydrostatic shock...the damage done to both soft tissue and the central nervous system and how shortly after impact it's effects shows itself. Personally, I'd rather unleash every single ft lb of energy a bullet possesses inside the body cavity of a thin skinned, relatively light boned animal like a deer than have some of it used to create an exit wound. Now I'm going to ruffle some feathers...I'm not a fan of bullets that don't mushroom. I don't use Barnes type bullets on game. If I was trying to stop a man? Oh yeah.. definitely. But a game animal like a deer or an elk or a moose? Nope. If someone could build me a muzzleloader bullet that performs like a Nosler Partition then I'd buy 500 of them. Bottom line...I want to turn as much soft tissue to mush as I can. Virtually every deer I ever dropped in it tracks was shot with a rifled slug out of a shotgun and when I unzipped it's belly it's guts poured out like Campbell's Chunky Soup. Or it was shot with a high velocity center fire round like a 30/06 with a 180gr Partition and the end result was the same.
 

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