I was sniffing around on the net and saw Barnes had outfitted a couple of cartridges with updated load data.

As a 454 Casull shooter, I appreciated seeing more in depth data for the XPB, and they also listed the Buster bullet now.

Barnes 454 Casull Load data

Hope a few folks find this enlightening

Thanks for the info!

BB: THANKS FOR THE PASS ALONG

Thanks.

A COMMENT ON THE BARNES 250XPB IN THE 454, MANY YEARS AGO, AT THE YO HANDGUNNER HUNT, A FELLA USED THE 250XPB ON AN ELAND AND WAS NOT GETTING ANY PREPARATION. HE ASKED ME WHAT I THOUGHT AND I TOLD HIM THAT EXPANSION IS LIKE A PARACHUTE AND IT INHIBITS PENETRATION. DO NOT KNOW WHAT GUYS ARE USING THE 250XPB ON BUT I VIEW IT AS BASICALLY A WHITETAIL BULLET.

In my experiemce, I shot it into the offside hide thru my cape buffalo shoulder. Full penetration on many many oryx. My cousin used it on his lionness over 400lbs. I?ve also used it on mamy elk as well. Does more damage than any other bullet ive used. I will comment that u gotta run em hard and they will work. I run mine over 1750 at a minumum. 1850 to 1900 preferred. Run em slow and they will perform as described above.

WHAT MAKES THIS WEBSITE SO GOOD IS THAT WE GET TO SHARE REAL WORLD EXPERIENCE, WHICH TELLS US MORE THAN THEORY.

you are right on with that one!



Tradmark must have more experience with the Barnes XPB than anyone else out there, and much of it seems to point to the fact that X bullets work in Revolvers too!

Crazy that an expandable could get that much penetration on a Cape Buff!

I believe wvhitman has used em alot in the 475 to good effect. I wonder how fast the hunter ran em on that eland rey? I know ya gotta run em hard on the big stuff. When i helped some friends guiding/recovering oryx in their ranch for a few years they were my go to stoppers for the oryx cuz they did so much damage. Theyd never pass all the way thru on anything other than totally broadside shots and typically would get caught in the hide and i suspect that had to do with the larger expanded diameter not escaping the hide. Never cared cuz the damage they do.

DO NOT KNOW THE MV THAT HUNTER AT THE YO HAD, BUT BECAUSE OF THAT 2nd HAND EXPERIENCE, FOR THE LAST 20 OR SO YEARS I WAS DOWN ON THE 250XPB FOR LARGER GAME.

TRADMARK: WHAT DID THE RECOVERED XPB'S LOOK LIKE? WERE THE PETALS GONE AND THE SHANK ACTS LIKE THE REAR END OF A PARTITION, OR WHAT?

Nope, never lost a petal yet and all had perfect expansion about the diameter of a quarter. I even shot a watusi in hondo a year ago right thru the skull. Perfect looking bullet on that as well. I have the skull mount and they had to use about 2? of filler down thru the skull. Bullet blew out a trench of bone. And the first cervical vertebrae and was against the hide perfectly expanded. Bw my son and cousin we havent yet had a petal shear. So far on living animals, not counting penetration tests we have used em on deer, elk, black bear, cougar, lion, wildebeest, kudu, oryx, and waterbuffalo.

Not to be pestering ya on this but do u know if he used a factory load or a self loaded round? I only ask because i had followed the loads in the barnes manual and found my velocities to vary strongly from the book with a givem load.

TRADMARK: THIS WAS A LONG TIME AGO AND I SUSPECT THEY WERE RELOADS, BUT I AM JUST GUESSING. WHEN YOU SAY "VARY STRONGLY" WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU LOAD A LOT HOTTER OR THAT THEIR LOADS ARE A LOT SLOWER THAN THEY SAY?

No, some loads were over pressure at max at the time and some werent close to max but it was old hogdon info back then. Dont think i used barnes info, up till now they pretty much just listed powders i never use.

Yeah, until I found the brand new data I just posted, The previous Barnes data only showed one powder.

I was very pleased to see a good selection of powders in this data, and seems like some good stout loads.

I have killed one mule deer buck with the XPB and my own handloads around 1700-1750ish FPS. I recovered both bullets in offside hide, one breaking the shoulder. massive wound channels and bullets looked like you read about. one pedal on one of the bullets partly sheared off, otherwise perfect.



I definitley want to try them again, and hope to see if I can achieve 1850+ fps and get good accuracy in my 7 1/2" FA M83.

I think getting the higher velocity would give me more confidence to use that load for bigger critters like elk

What ive found on my hunts is that i just find em on the offside hide. Mt lion thru both shoulders spine and in offside hide. I wouldve been more cautious had is seen that first but i used em on big stuff and they worked down from there. Just keep finding them in offside hide. Same with my cousins lion kudu etc. nothing beats the wound channel and ive never had to track one at all. I do see how it would make someone used to solids feel a little nervous with it being in the offside hide. This is just common sense. A great example of this is the 210 gr aframe. Got a complete pass thru on a bison and then shot an axis buck thru the shoulders and then found it on the offside hide. Great wound channels on both though. Dead critters quickly. I felt bad about the barnes on offside hide of the mt lion but then on another forum saw a post a perfectly intact 435gr 500 linebaugh hardcast with similiar placement in the offside hide. Who knows, but i think we should shoot more stuff and post our results 😀

Chest cavity of my mountain lion rearranged by 250 grain XPB......

What is the minimum velocity in fps you can effectively take a mule deer buck. I can get some pretty far shooting where I hunt at.
Thanks Norm

Ive had good luck with the standard barnes loads in the federal and barnes vortex. Even a marginal hit will at least putnem
Down in 100 yards or so but i took a fallow deer at 160 yds very definitively with the standard barnes federal load out of my 10? fa83, it was down a few yards from where it was hit. its important to note i get over 150 fps more with my 10? fa and 100 fps more from my 7.5? than i do with my 7.5? srh which means at 100yds the 10? fa is near what the srh is at the muzzle so my answer would depend on what gun youre shooting it out of. That said my cousin used his srh with barnes vortex rounds to take that giant cow i posted a pic of at over 50 yards.

Mark, I'm gonna ask for your input when I go to test the XPB in SIMTEST. What I really need is data for the .450BM to see if I can get them going faster than I can in the 7?" FA .454.

I can get right around 1900 out of my 7.5? fa.