Esshup
What about the BT in 100 grn for .25-06?
Pat, what's the impact velocity? That has a lot to do with how the bullet performs. Too fast and it acts like a varmint bullet, exploding to pieces and not getting a lot of penetration. The bullet manufacturers have design parameters that they design the bullet around. Impact velocity too fast and they blow up, too slow and they pencil right through. Barnes TSX bullets that I've looked at tend to not expand at impact velocities under 1,800 fps. I'm not sure on the TTSX bullets.
I shot a whitetail in the lungs at 100 yds with a 115g .25 cal BT in my .257 Wby. Impact velocity was a hair under 2990 fps according to my ballistic program. The bullet slipped between 2 ribs and blew up in the lungs. No exit. The deer ran 90 yds before collapsing, but since the bullet entered high in the lungs there was no blood trail except for the last 10 yards.
Luckily I was able to watch the deer from bullet impact until it fell down. If it was in heavy cover, I don't know if I would have recovered the deer. If I would have hit in the shoulder, I don't know if the bullet would have penetrated past the shoulder blade. I have since switched to either a 115g Barnes for under 300 yds in that gun or a custom bonded bullet in 125 - 130 grain weights for longer shots (much better bc).
Another case in pushing a bullet too fast was shooting the 175g Sierra Matchkings in my 7mm Allen Magnum. Once the throat roughened up a little after 200 rounds were sent down the tube, the bullets were blowing up in mid-air at about the 50 yd. mark. I called Sierra and after the 3rd phone call the tech said "Wait a minute, HOW fast did you say they were going?" When I told him (the sweet spot for accuracy was 3.495 fps) he said "Just what the he.. are you shooting them out of? We've never shot them over 2,900 fps." When I told him, he said I was in uncharted territory and what he thought was happening was the jacket was getting a hair thinner due to the roughness of the throat and the RPM's was pulling the bullet apart at around the 50 yd. mark.
I switched to 180 Berger VLD bullets & the sweet spot was about 50 fps slower for those and I haven't had any bullet "poofs" since then.
