Anyone have a prohunter "fail"

It is a reasonable question, and I am sure that I do gt quite obsessed to find that "holy grail" of perfect performance.....knowing all the while that the law of Entropy says that there can be no perfect performance, no matter how much we test, and develop.

OTOH.....what I have found through 35 years of hunting, is that one can do some homework, to find some "edges," let's say. My friends and neighbors all say "if it aint' broke..." but every once in a while it breaks.

So, when they hear me say, "hey, have you guys tried these Barnes TSX's on pigs?" they usually say, oh, we just use FMJ's...." But, after a bunch of them run off, they occasionally will ask, about them and what load I used, etc.

I personally use the 110 SPH for deer. It is simple, brutal and it just plain works. It did not take a lot of scientific study to find that out. Just a few massive holes and DRT's. Given that target , it SHOULD work and it does not disappoint.

But, for pigs, well, they are a totally different milieu. They are 100% tougher than a deer, and your bullet must be, too. The SPH will work on them in a pinch, but if I had my choice, I am going into the field hunting pigs with the 85 TSX or the new 85 TTSX if / when it comes out.

ron169 said:

I think I can answer that for HTR. The Barnes is a solid piece of copper, and retains as close to 100% of mass after expansion. So the result is if you shoot a hog in the shoulder, which is really really strong, you typically get complete pass through with full retention of bullet weight. Most other bullets are going to break up and not exit. Thats as simple as it gets. 2 holes in an animal are easier to track that one with 1 hole.

Click to expand...

Ron has it exactly right. The SPH is designed, classically as a soft point, to deform rapidly on impact, and when striking a thick skinned animal or bone like the shoulder of a pig, is subject to jacket / core separation. I have seen this happen with pigs shot with them. One such pig was recovered only because I shot a second and third time, finally hitting it in the head. The Barnes TSX goes right straight therough, so you can shoot when they are running, at center of mass, and count on a pass-through with full expansion, and enough weight retention to kill the animal with one shot. There is no jacket to separate. thus, I find I shoot fewer rounds of the Barnes 85 TSX, because one shot usually kills them.

Don't get me wrong. I Love the SPH, but moslty for deer. I shoot more hogs in a year than most people do in a lifetime, and while I would gladly take a mag full of SPH's afield for pigs, I don't really consider the 85 TSX as less "cost effective" by any means. About 85-90% of my hog kills with TSX or TTSX's are one shot DRT's, and I shoot alot of them running, so I simply cannot corroborate the idea that "well, you can always shoot them in the head..." No, you can't.

I will also add this: the 85 grain TSX gets more muzzle velocity, which makes it flatter, out to about 300 yards. I hunt in soybean fields sometimes shooting pigs, and when zeroed to MPBR, I can hold "dead on" from 50 to 250 and never be more than about 4-6" from the POA. This is another situation where a torso shot is more desirable and practical. You aren't exactly going to have an easy time hitting them in the head at 250 yards, through a NVD, especially if they are moving.

RedTx said:

Yes I get that, and understand that complete pass throughs are what we are striving for. With that being said if you make a good hit on an animal it doesnt matter if it goes 8" or 18" the animal is still going to die in a relative short distance to where it was shot

I just started using the prohunters as well the 6.8. I have a thread up where I shot a hog just last week with the pro hunter. It was not a very good shot being forward and high on the shoulder. The shot was 127 yards and the hog weighed in at 242 lbs. I thought he weighed around 180 but the scales said something else. Defnitely not a huge hog by anymeans, but a good sized adult or atleast where im at

I think I would love the Barnes bullets but I guess it boils down to that im just to cheap. I can definitely see using them from the other prospective of shooting deer and other game animals that I prize more valuable. I hate hogs they are destructive animals that can wreak havoc on agriculture fields. I would rather have more bullets than quality bullets when shooting hogs, because in the end if I hit it its going to DRT or it going to run off and die either way Im happy about it.

Click to expand...

Actually, if you study Hog anatomy, this is a perfectly good shot on a hog. this transects a large part of the thoracic spine and it paralyzes them from the chest down. They always go down with this shot and the scapula is actually pretty thin at its crest.

If you shot that same pig square in the side of the shoulder, that bullet might have stopped just under the skin. I have seen this many times with all soft points, including some fired from 30-06, .270. .243, etc. in my many years of guiding.

Bullet construction and shot placement are the 2 things that determine kills. You can use the very dainty, fragile (and awesomely accurate) Speer 90 grain TNT and kill hogs with head and neck shots, but H and I watched one fall, and then get up and run off after being hit right square in the shoulder with one, which also happened to be going 3030 FPS, BTW. Reasonably good placement of a fast bullet, but wrong bullet construction = lost meat.

We wanted the meat.