From another thread I posted;
What's your thoughts on Barnes ?
Click to expand...
Have shot Barnes a long time as I'm in CA but my experiences are;
A) very hard copper, does not expand on soft tissue but somehow does damage to internals. Hard copper does crush bone and penetrate but it also has more engraving pressure resulting in lower velocity from higher pressure.
B) Very sensitive to seating length; this can be a make or break in your particular rifle.
C) The jump seating depth can spike pressure very sharply, I mean from no pressure to blowing a primer.
D) Their support/load data has been dead wrong in many cases.
With the 127 LRX 6.5 x .284 I had over 24 kills mostly pigs, then deer, and 3 elk. I never recovered a single bullet as all were pass thru, all the animals died from shot placement but none had a blood trail...none.
plenty of reloading and hunting experience with other calibers but all were finicky in load development.
The Hammers are exactly the opposite for load development meaning they are the easiest bullet I have ever done load work on.
Try some, they are guaranteed...how can you loose ?