Barnes LRX - First Season Impressions

sealgair

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Joined
May 23, 2020
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26
Location
Scottish Highlands
I thought I'd write a brief note about my first season using the LRX as it might be of interest to some of you guys, i've used the TTSX before, but with an estate policy change for this year to shooting 100% none lead ammo I decided to try the LRX. I am a professional deer stalker (guide) here in the Highlands of Scotland and the majority of my season is spent hunting about 30,000 acres of mountainous terrain on the West Coast.

From that area between myself and another stalker we normally try and shoot about 60 red deer stags (males) a year between mid August and the 20th of October. In a normal year all of this is guided hunting for paying clients from all over the world, however because of COVID we were restricted heavily and ended up with only domestic visitors, which is a bit of a shame. Final cull was 35 stags, quite a few of which I shot myself.

I ran LRX bullets out of all three of my rifles, a Tikka T3x in 6.5 Creedmoor (127g @ 2,765ft/sec), a semi custom Remington in .270 (129g @ 2,890ft/sec) and a Sako 75 in 7mm STW (168g @ 3,250ft/sec).

Firstly I shot say that I only shot one stag with the STW all season, it does not have a suppressor which is unusual now in Scotland, so I didn't use it when we had guests out. It was quite a 8 point (4x4) stag that weighed in at 170lb and it fell on the spot to a shoulder shot at 496 metres on a nice calm day. No surprises there.

The Creedmoor and .270 both shot the majority of animals inside 300m, and I was impressed with the terminal performance with both shoulder and rib shots at these distances. The LRX for me offers a significant advantage over the TTSX bullet in this regard, which i've found to be less than ideal for shots placed behind the shoulder, as long as you break the bone they work well enough. Compared to lead bullets which I'm used to (Nosler HBT and ELD-X being favourites) I don't see a huge difference in performance, other than on two points.

Firstly the deer will stand a lot longer with the copper bullet, I have ended up shooting a number of them again even when it turned out the first shot was finely placed and 100% lethal, this seems to be the case specifically with lung shots. Occasionally with impacts that have hit the humerus rather than the scapula the bullets will fragment into two or three pieces, these fragments seem to exit the carcass in most cased. I have recovered only two bullets all season, images of which are attached.

Secondly and certainly a bonus, is the significant reduction in meat damage I have found, even with good deep wound channels there is smaller exit holes than I am used to, which is good news as long as the animals are dying quickly. As well as the images of recovered bullets I have attached a couple of other images from the season.

I suspect from an American/Canadian point of view my rambling is most relevant to Mule and whitetail deer, elk being so much larger than a red deer even though they're genetically so similar, and I hope some of you find it interesting.

We're now starting our hind cull, which we carry out ourselves without clients, and will be around 150 adult females plus calves where needed. This will be a better test of the bullets and I might report again in February when we've finished that up.

Sam
 

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We do the initial processing of the animal, we gralloch (the gaelic word for gut) on the hill, then take the carcass back to a processing larder, generally on the horse or if it's too wet with an ATV. We then take off the head, lower legs, and rest of the insides in the larder but leave the carcass in the skin.

They are then either sold to a game dealer - who collects them from our chiller and processes them for sale either to restaurants or the public, or we butcher it ourselves (if the stalker is qualified to) and the clients / local people / tourists buy the meat direct from the estate.

It's a really important revenue stream for estates, however with COVID we have seen the price paid by the game dealer cut from about £1.45 to £0.60 per pound... which is not at all helpful. It's leading more places to look at doing full processing themselves and selling it locally - which I think is great.
 
I thought I'd write a brief note about my first season using the LRX as it might be of interest to some of you guys, i've used the TTSX before, but with an estate policy change for this year to shooting 100% none lead ammo I decided to try the LRX. I am a professional deer stalker (guide) here in the Highlands of Scotland and the majority of my season is spent hunting about 30,000 acres of mountainous terrain on the West Coast.

From that area between myself and another stalker we normally try and shoot about 60 red deer stags (males) a year between mid August and the 20th of October. In a normal year all of this is guided hunting for paying clients from all over the world, however because of COVID we were restricted heavily and ended up with only domestic visitors, which is a bit of a shame. Final cull was 35 stags, quite a few of which I shot myself.

I ran LRX bullets out of all three of my rifles, a Tikka T3x in 6.5 Creedmoor (127g @ 2,765ft/sec), a semi custom Remington in .270 (129g @ 2,890ft/sec) and a Sako 75 in 7mm STW (168g @ 3,250ft/sec).

Firstly I shot say that I only shot one stag with the STW all season, it does not have a suppressor which is unusual now in Scotland, so I didn't use it when we had guests out. It was quite a 8 point (4x4) stag that weighed in at 170lb and it fell on the spot to a shoulder shot at 496 metres on a nice calm day. No surprises there.

The Creedmoor and .270 both shot the majority of animals inside 300m, and I was impressed with the terminal performance with both shoulder and rib shots at these distances. The LRX for me offers a significant advantage over the TTSX bullet in this regard, which i've found to be less than ideal for shots placed behind the shoulder, as long as you break the bone they work well enough. Compared to lead bullets which I'm used to (Nosler HBT and ELD-X being favourites) I don't see a huge difference in performance, other than on two points.

Firstly the deer will stand a lot longer with the copper bullet, I have ended up shooting a number of them again even when it turned out the first shot was finely placed and 100% lethal, this seems to be the case specifically with lung shots. Occasionally with impacts that have hit the humerus rather than the scapula the bullets will fragment into two or three pieces, these fragments seem to exit the carcass in most cased. I have recovered only two bullets all season, images of which are attached.

Secondly and certainly a bonus, is the significant reduction in meat damage I have found, even with good deep wound channels there is smaller exit holes than I am used to, which is good news as long as the animals are dying quickly. As well as the images of recovered bullets I have attached a couple of other images from the season.

I suspect from an American/Canadian point of view my rambling is most relevant to Mule and whitetail deer, elk being so much larger than a red deer even though they're genetically so similar, and I hope some of you find it interesting.

We're now starting our hind cull, which we carry out ourselves without clients, and will be around 150 adult females plus calves where needed. This will be a better test of the bullets and I might report again in February when we've finished that up.

Sam
Very useful write up thanks for taking the time to share your experience.
How the heck do you convince that horse to let you sling an entire stag over its back?? Impressive!

I'm switching to the 127 LRX next season with my shorty 6.5 saum elk rifle.
It's the wife's timber rifle and she shot a bull elk this season using a 142 ABLR, hit him center shoulder at 80 yards and pretty much destroyed both shoulders.
No good

I killed a big whitetail buck with a 212 LRX at 560 yards this season, the damage was impressive and he died instantly even though I hit him too far back.
 
Shot my deer this year with a 175lrx. It died immediately. Tipped over and slid down the canyon. Shot it through the ribs on entrance, and it exited out of the low shoulder. Ruined some of my meat, But was glad to see my buck died instantly.
 
Great info, seems like those LRXs are doing exactly what would be expected. I shot the TTSX in Africa a few years ago and they provided great results. Deep straight line penetration.

Oh BTW - great hat.
 
Thanks for write up. I have been thinking about trying the LRX in 270 win. The info is about what I guessed, thanks for confirming
 
Nice write ups, you mentioned using the nosler E tip in the past, you do know that is a monolithic bullet (non-lead) like the LRX and TTSX, right?
 
Very useful write up thanks for taking the time to share your experience.
How the heck do you convince that horse to let you sling an entire stag over its back?? Impressive!

I'm switching to the 127 LRX next season with my shorty 6.5 saum elk rifle.
It's the wife's timber rifle and she shot a bull elk this season using a 142 ABLR, hit him center shoulder at 80 yards and pretty much destroyed both shoulders.
No good

I killed a big whitetail buck with a 212 LRX at 560 yards this season, the damage was impressive and he died instantly even though I hit him too far back.
ABLR are known to do that - esp at shorter range...

I am using Federal Fusion 140gr in my CZ 6.5x55 with great results - even on kudu.......
 
Whenever I need to shoot deers I use Barnes TTX bullets. Attached is a photo of a 100 grain .257 bullet taken from a dead deer shot at 351 yards with a .25 Souper (.25-.308) at a MV of about 3,000 fps, using the hollow point version. The bullet hit the deer at an angle and went thru more than 3 feet of deer before coming to rest. The bullet hit the deer on the starboard side shoulder and destroyed it so bad the front leg almost fell off when I skinned the deer. After hitting the shoulder the bullet stopped at the deer's opposite side pelvis. Upon bullet strike the deer just stood still then collapsed. This was a real big deer & the hide tanners told me the hide ranked #8 in area, like inches squared, among some 700 hides brought in for tanning. I still have the hide with the bullet hole. The dead deer was transported out on-board a horse but the horse did not like the gutting process and I had to pat his head & talk nice to him

The little .25 bullet is to the left of the big one provided for scale.
IMG_1350.JPG
 
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My first year shooting 175 LRXs....3180 out of my 28" barreled 300 WM.

Shot a small 5x5 bull straight-on through the chest at 400 yards. He wobbled and turned broadside, and I shot him through the neck, dropping him. Hole through the neck and spine was impressive. Gave up on digging through the guts for the first bullet, but it shredded his lungs and made it pretty pretty danged far through his body length-wise. When we walked up on him, he was leaking stomach juice through his nose.

Shot a big-bodied muley buck this weekend at about 300, steeply quartering away. He trotted about 15 yards and tipped over. Impact was a few ribs behind the near shoulder and exit was straight through the offside shoulder. Surprisingly little meat loss, even with a golf ball-plus sized hole through the far scapula. I was most impressed by the size of the wound entering the body cavity--hole through the hide was bullet sized, hole through the ribs was like a half dollar. Even with that quick expansion it was a strong pass-through.

I'm pleased with the results. Very little shredded or bloodshot tissue and quick kills on both animals. I've been shooting Berger 215s for a number of years and have a hard time imagining going back, especially when the LRXs are staying above 2000fps out to 850 or so.
 
I have been using LRX bullets in my 7mm RUM for two years now. Have killed whitetail, mule deer, aoudad, axis and pigs with no problems. The farthest any animal has run is maybe 20 yards. Very accurate flat shooting round. Kills out to 400 yards no problem.
 

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