Barnes bullets and OAL

P

pyscodog

Active member
Talking with another member, I thought I might try some bullets that he was having good performance with. Bullets are 100 grain TTSX and the caliber is 260 Remington. Barnes suggests starting at .050 off the lands for accuracy. This is all well and good but the loaded round is 2.855,(.050 off the lands). My mag is only 2.837 so the rounds will not fit in the mag. This will be my Whitetail hunting rifle and I don't want it to be a single shot. If I seat to mag length, minus a little for clearance, I'm at about 2.827. I haven't been to the range yet to see how they shoot but was wondering if you folks had suggestions? There is a possibility that I might be able to open my mag up a little to allow for the extra length but I haven't tried that yet either.
 
Load them up about .030" shorter than your magazine and go give them a try.

My Barnes manual shows 2.800" as the Max COAL for the Rem 260, minimum is 2.530" COAL

I have some Rem 260 rounds loaded with Barnes 100 gr TTSX bullets and they are seated at 2.750" COAL and they shoot pretty good.
 
I have been shooting the Barnes X bullets since the original X which did not have the grooves. As stated above don't worry about the jump measurement being long. I start at magazine length and see where that gets me when compared to the Barnes recommendation. I will go no closer than .040" and as far as jump, I have jumped them well over .100" with no issues. They are just like every other bullet, they will shoot well jumped. But do heed their recommendation when it comes to starting length. Solids do not obturate like a cup and core bullet and will pressure up quick.
 
I got to shoot them this morning. Conditions were terrible as we had very high winds. Three loads wid seating depths from .050off t .080 off and all three shot pretty good. All three had a flyer in the groups but like I said it was WINDY!!!!! I used Benchmark powder so I still want to give a few other powders a try and I'm just going to seat them where they fit the mag.
 
I've been using Barnes since 1992, and at one time loaded them in 14 different rifles. You could say I like them.

Regarding the TSX and the TTSX, in all those rifles, I only had to change from published COL with one rifle in order to get better accuracy, and we found it when we seated the bullet deeper.

Something else I've noticed is the TSX and TTSX give me the best accuracy as I approach maximum powder charge.

Good luck with them.
 
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WE found the 127g barnes long range to be super accurate and easy to tune, I would urge you to give them a try, mag length seating depth only.
 
The one box of 100 gr TTSX was the only box of Barnes 6.5 bullets in Tulsa. I've been told they aren't big sellers so the shops don't stock them. Go figure??? Bass Pro has a few box's but no 6.5's.
 

I love the Barnes TSX bullets and seat them just so the bolt closes easily. Never had a problem and get great accuracy.
 
I shoot the 80 ttsx, 85 tsx in 6mm's, then the 110g in 270, 120 and 140 in 7 mag and 7 STW.

I work up loads with the bullet .050 off the lands, get tiny groups, leave well enough along.

We recently tried the 127g LONG RANGE in the 6.5 Creed(two rifles), and a 6.5x47L, holy cow, what an accurate bullet and very easy to tune. The load in the 6.5 Creed was at 3000 fps shooting a bug hole, we have killed about a dozen deer, couple of coyotes and pigs with this bullet...stuff just dies.
 
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