Barnes 6.5 120 grain ttsx differences

[monarman]

Having just bought some sako 120 grain 6.5 creedmoor factory ammo which are loaded with the barnes ttsx bullet i decided to do a side by side visual comparison with the barnes vor-tx 120 factory equivalent...... just out of curiosity...
The findings have baffled me somewhat!....
The barnes offering is seated further out of the case with the first ring of the bullet at the case mouth (see pic)....
The sako version is seated lower than the barnes, yet with the first ring of the bullet at the case mouth!!???.....
So this tells me that its possible that barnes have either perhaps Changed their bullet design and offloaded the the older ones to sako to load.... or sako have asked barnes to do a bullet specifically for them....
Who knows! But it does show that there may be an inconsistency in bullet performance as the bullet in the barnes load has a longer area from the first ring to the tip.

The sako ammo was bought last week and new stock.... the barnes was bought a couple of months ago.

Barnes on the left... sako on the left

 

[Muir]

Are you sure that one isn't a 140? If you were a handloader I would suggest pulling the bullets and weighing them.~Muir

 

[monarman]

It came in the 120 grain box.....
Pull them?.... are you insane!.. more than £2 there!!... and I'm a Yorkshireman!!!

Actually for informative purposes I will... whatch this space....

 

[monarman]

Interesting..... I only use beam scales for loading (electronics can go wrong)... but the barnes on the left weighed 119.6 grains... the sako version barnes on the right weighed 120 grains...
But the difference in manufacture are clearly different!!.... ill try and section them both to see if there's a difference in the cavity...

 

[Uncle f]

I have both the 120gr TTsx and the 127gr lrx. I also have the factory loaded 120gr Samp variant and get 2870fps from it on the magnetospeed chrono. The box says 2920fps so happy with that and they group well

interesting findings. I’m picking up some Barnes factory 120gr creedmoor this week and I’ll see if I can spot any differences and also what speeds they are rolling out at

 

[takbok]

That is interesting. It appears that Barnes sells its standard 120gr TTSX to Sako.

The bullet it uses in its own cartridges is probably identical except that they move the rolled relief rings further down the bullet for visual appeal in the Creedmoor cartridge because the Creedmoor is designed for bullets to be seated out further than with a 260 Rem etc.

 

[Uncle f]

Also I believe that Barnes are no longer supplying Sako with the bullets so sako have developed there blade variant which looks for all intense and purposes identical to the ttsx only with a green polymer tip and not blue

 

[monarman]

Barnes on the left... sako on the right...
Slightly longer cavity on the sako....

 

[monarman]

8.22mm from first ring to bottom of cavity on Barnes....
4.44mm from first ring to bottom of cavity on sako version...

 

[monarman]

Cavity bottom to bullet base.... barnes


Cavity bottom to bullet base ..sako

 

[takbok]

On a separate note it seems like the new RWS HIT ammo uses Barnes TTSX bullets unless anyone can prove different.

 

[Steff]

The Sako version also seems a bit sleeker in the front section. All the more surprising that it has a shorter COAL.

 

[takbok]

Did both bullets have an X stamp on the base?

 

[takbok]

The Sako version also seems a bit sleeker in the front section. All the more surprising that it has a shorter COAL.

They both have the same claimed BC so my thoughts are that the shape is exactly the same.

 

[monarman]

Findings show that the factory barnes bullet is different to the sako variant....

I've seen the hype for the sako blade..... looks good.... looks expensive!! Especially as sako will want to recoup the cost of their R&D and marketing..... and they haven't released it yet in Creedmoor....

Question is ..... why is the barnes factory offering different from the bullet they supply sako?..... the base to ogive is the same.....

 

[Uncle f]

This is really interesting and I will be watching with interest. Great info on the sectional pics of both variants thanks for that

 

[monarman]

Nothing stamped on the base of either bullet.......

 

[takbok]

As I said before, Barnes wants to get the most out of the cartridge and seat the bullet long to suit the 6.5 Creedmoor design. They use their standard bullet but just make a minor tweak to production to move the bands back out of sight.

 

[monarman]

Cavity depth barrnes..



Cavity depth sako

 

[takbok]

The hollow points on Barnes aren't the most uniform due to the way they are made so I wouldn't go by that. Only the part where the plastic tip sits is uniform.