Just want to give my thoughts on the Barnes bullets. A couple of years ago,I started reading articles in the gun journals about these solid coppers and also checked the Barnes website. Their promos made a lot of sense. Until the Barnes coppers, most bullets either worked by employing high speed and devastating shock OR slower speed and a pass-through that made a big wound and blood trail. Basically, that was the choice that hunters were faced with. If handloaders got one of these lighter faster bullets going too fast, or the manufacturer didn't get the core and jacket bonded just right, or maybe if the bullet hit heavy bone, the bullet would fragment before getting to the vitals. Also, it was generally believed that the best scenario was for all the bullet's energy to be transferred into the body of the animal in order to get a quick kill. So, the big heavy bullets that went right through were not the total answer either. Barnes has done tests on the amount of foot pounds that remain in bullets after passing through animal-sized blocks of gelatin at hunting distances, and it's astonishingly low - literally only a couple of pounds or so. Because their bullets just don't disintergrate, at any speed, they just tend to keep going right through anything they hit - including bone. This means speeds can be jacked up as high as safely possible thus increasing shock AND passing through at the same time. A wildcatter shot a 100 grain Barnes .257 caliber bullet with a MV of 4200 f/s through both shoulders of a 2500 pound bull bison, dropping it in it's track! That's impressive. So, I decided to try them for myself. So far, my experience has been good, however, I haven't seen the dramatic kills that I expected. In the last two years, I've killed two bucks with .30 Barnes handloads in a .300 WSM. Both shots were directly through the hearts. One, straight on at about 40 yards; the other broadside at about 200. Neither deer had any idea I was in the vicinity - so there was no adrenalin rush happening before the shots. Even so, both animals ran about 30 - 40 yards before cashing in. So, for me the jury is still out. I'm not disappointed, and have a friend who shot an elk "way out there" and got complete penetration with a Barnes 130 grainer out of a .308. The elk took about two steps and dropped. Just have to keep shooting more animals to check this out for myself - it's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it.
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