I have been working on a hunting load for my sweet 14 contender using the Barnes TAC-TX bullet and Reloader #7 powder. Karl who is on this site gave me a safe starting point and I worked up from there looking for any signs of pressure. I started at 28.5 grains and moved up 0.5 grains at a time going all the way to 30.5 grains without seeing any sighs of pressure issues.

At 28.5 grains the three shot groups at fifty yards were not to my liking. I could not tell much difference at 29 grains but at 29.5 things got much better. That group was 0.508 inches with no signs of pressure issues. I shot groups at 30 and 30.5 grains with the groups opening up to 0.899 inches.

I was able to repeat the group sizes at the 29.5 gr level and decided that if I was getting velocities of 2300 fps or better I would make that my hunting load for this deer season.

When I check the velocities for a three shot group with this load I got 2300, 2305 and 2323 for a average of 2307 fps. I was feeling pretty happy about this but had one more concern. I was planning to use this load for stands where I can shoot out to 200 yards but was concerned about what it would do at close range.

The next trip to the range I lined up four one gallon jugs of water in front of a pine log. The first three jugs were held tight in a cardboard box used to deliver the jugs of water and the fourth jug was placed behind them but in front of the pine log.

I shot into this at thirty yards and was very impressed when the first two jugs exploded tearing the box apart in three pieces. The first jug was in four pieces and the second jug was in two pieces. It then made a 0.5 inch hole in the third jug and went out the back side of the box and just caught the side of the fourth jug and I found it lodged in the log.

When I dug it out of the log I was very pleased with what the bullet looked like. The original weight of the bullet was 110 grains and the weight after shooting it was 106.7 grains and it had opened up to over 0.60 inches making a perfect mushroom.