This story was done in partnership with Barnes Bullets.
We take our gear seriously at F&S, whether it be for hunting, fishing, or camping. Our selections are based on many factors, like quality, price, and purpose—just to name a few. But sometimes there’s more to a fishing jacket or hunting knife than what you see.
Through my years of covering the best outdoor gear, I’ve discovered some really cool brands with some really cool stories doing some really cool things. In our “Behind the Brand” interview series, we are telling those stories through the words of the founders themselves.
Imagine: You're hot on the trail of a massive brown bear in the backcountry, and you finally get the chance to take your shot. The shot. You take a breath, pull the trigger—and the bullet fails to penetrate. That's essentially what happened to one hunter back in the 1980s, and what led to the creation of the first all-copper bullet courtesy of Barnes Bullets. But the popular ammo brand's story starts decades earlier—and continues decades later.
We chatted with Dale Evans, Barnes' Marketing Manager, about everything from the brand's history to their most popular bullets and ammo today. He even spilled the details on the newest line, Barnes Reserve, and what makes it so unique (hint: it's all hand-loaded!).
Field & Stream: Go all the way back to the beginning. How did Barnes Bullets start out and how did it grow into what it is today?
Dale Evans: The company was founded by Fred Barnes in 1932. Fred was a wildcatter, a hand loader—he focused on providing quality hunting bullets to the consumer and to hand load and reload ammunition. At that time, it was only really about the bullets. The ammunition didn't come until much later, but Fred came up with the Barnes original lead core bullet line that's still around today.
In the early years, Barnes was just a really small operation, working out of a little workshop. Fast forward a few years to 1974, and that's when Randy and Connie Brooks purchased the company from Fred and really started to build it into what it is today. That's when the company really started to kind of take off. Business had started to fall off a little bit and the Brooks helped revitalize it and make it bigger. They moved operations from Colorado to Utah, and renamed it officially as Barnes Bullets.
Barnes has always been a very innovative company. We've been owned by a few different groups since then and most recently, got bought out by JDH Capital out of Texas last year. They also own Savage, Bowtech, and all the Pure Archery groups as well. And that's where we are today.
We know that Barnes created the first ever all-copper bullet. How did that come to be?
Randy Brooks was really the person who designed that. He was looking for something to give him the best terminal performance on large game, more specifically African animals or large brown bears. He had experience with the lead core hunting bullets that were the Barnes original, but he saw the shortcomings those had.
He wanted to create a bullet that gave consistent reliable expansion, and when it was upset, still held together and maintained the ability to penetrate deep and track straight through the animal. That's very crucial with the thick hide and heavy bone that comes into play when you're talking about dangerous game and other large animals.
In the 1980s, he was hunting brown bear in Alaska with .375 H&H with a lead core bullet. He took the shot and the bullet failed to penetrate. It just mushroomed. He came up with the idea of an all-copper bullet on the spot. He knew it would hold together better with higher weight retention and higher velocity impacts. All of those things would create larger wound channels and penetrate deep to reach the vitals. On the plane ride home, he drew out the sketch of this idea in which he entirely removed the lead core, thus eliminating the problem of the jacket. And the solid copper X Bullet was born.
What are the top three Barnes bullets today?
If we go by bullet families, our LRX is our top-of-the-line bullet, but our TTSX is our best-seller by far. A lot of that has to do with the fact that we just have such a wide array. The TTSX has been out for 20-plus years now, where the LRX just came out around 2018. We're slowly developing more availabilities for that, but overall, I would say our TSX, TTSX, and LRX are standing the test of time and are always going to be our top three sellers.
Would you say Barnes sells more bullets or more ammo?
It's funny—it kind of made a swap a few years back, but nowadays, we're actually selling more loaded ammo than we are bullets.
What is your most popular ammo right now?
Right off the bat, it would probably be a 308. I know that 7mm PRC has also quickly become one of our top three sellers, which is wild because we just released it last September and it's caught up that that fast. Then surprisingly, we're doing pretty damn well with straight-wall cartridges, as well.
What makes Barnes ammo different than other brands?
We started out as a bullet company, but many years ago, we knew loaded ammo was the next step. And who better to load our own premium bullets than ourselves?
Barnes has always been dedicated to bringing in expert engineers, ballisticians, and operators to design, manufacture, and test all of our bullets as well as our ammo products. With that, we hold ourselves to extremely high standards. We utilize precision loading equipment and the top quality components on the market. We also have the advantage of understanding the bullet from beginning to end, because we develop the bullets in-house and load everything in-house. Because of all that, we can truly optimize each round.
For example, take the new set of PRC we have out. We wanted that to have long-distance capability but still function at short ranges, as well. We understand that not everybody's going to be taking a 500-yard shot and you want to kill that animal at 100 yards, too. So that bullet needs to be able to expand fully at 100 yards or even all the way out to 800 yards, right? So we select the best components and load recipes to offer premium performance ammunition that's just the best out of the box that you're going to find on shelves.
I'm guessing you personally hunt with Barnes ammo. What got you hooked on the brand?
I've been a believer in Barnes for a long time. I got into reloading about 15 years ago when I was still in the military. At that time, I was in the Southeast hunting white-tailed deer, but I'd head out to Wyoming every other year, which got me into hunting other game like elk and antelope. When I started reloading, the first one I tried was Barnes because I had done all this research and found that Barnes TTSX was the one to go with.
So I've been hunting with Barnes for over 20 years because I was even shooting our ammo prior to starting to reload. I've also had the opportunity to hunt with a lot of competitor ammunitions and see the flaws there. At the end of the day, I always come back to Barnes.
What's next for Barnes this year?
We've got a lot of cool things coming down the pipe. Our big push this year has been the Harvest collection. It's the first time we actually loaded a different manufacturer's bullet into our ammo lines. We wanted to target the whitetail hunter and the thin-skinned game hunter. It's really reasonably priced right at $39.99, and it's available nationwide, so we're really excited about that.
We also just came out with a small-batch ammo line called Barnes Reserve, which features very niche calibers like a 257 Weatherby, a 6.8 Western, and 300 WSM. It's not your normal run-of-the-mill box ammunition—it's all premium hand-loaded ammo. Our head ballistician is actually the guy loading all of this stuff. Our goal is to hopefully revitalize those lesser used but really great calibers that are kind of dying.
