As stated before, Barnes bullets are fairly sensative to seating depth, in my experience they like to jump. The number one reason I see & read/hear about failures with Barnes bullets is folks using too much bullet for their particular cartridge, i.e. >160 TSX in a 7 RM which seems to induce penciling at extended ranges. Many hunters including myself have found the best results with lighter for caliber bullets @ higher muzzle velocity, that seems to be the recipe to get the TSX to perform magnificently on game.
In the last 6-8yrs I've used ONLY Barnes bullets to harvest everything I've hunted, why? Because I get ~1/2moa (5 shots) accuracy, & as long a I do my part from behind the rifle I KNOW the Barnes bullets will do their job from the other end.
The most definite accuracy load so far is with my M700 SA/LH chambered in 7.82 Lazzeroni Patriot & the 150 grn TSX at a nominal velocity of 3200fps (sd & es were both <10fps which is why I stopped there). This load produces consistant 1/2 moa accuracy (furthest I've target shot is 967yds which was just over 1moa 10shot string w/ one called flyer) .
I've taken Whitetail, Mule deer & antelope in good numbers, I cannot recall a single time where more than one round was needed (as long as I did my part
)I've now moved on to the 168TTSX.... yup, you've guessed it, I suffer from tinkeritis.
Just my experience only, a VERY high percentage of the gents I hunt with use & absolutely love Barnes bullets, we aren't the long range precision crowd (not all of us
), honestly most shots are <500yds, so there may be the caveat to my info... who knows?? Maybe LTLR will chime in on his long range experiences.