Saluting 25 Years of Big-Game Success-the Barnes X-Bullet

This week it was my good fortune to visit Barnes Bullets’ production facility in Mona, Utah, where I met with long-time owners Randy and Coni Brooks about the breakthrough product that put their company on the map and changed the face of hunting ammunition-the all-copper X-Bullet, now celebrating its 25^th anniversary. Randy detailed how-after years of tinkering for a solution that would yield an utterly reliable bullet for use on all kinds of big game at every practical range-the answer came to him during an Alaska brown bear hunt. That began a development process that culminated a year later when Randy returned to Alaska with the first batch of prototypes of a unique core-less projectile and killed a big bear. Once we were rolling, and thanks to Randy’s natural candor and friendliness, I got the full story of the X-Bullet-the R&D, testing, problems threatening its acceptance, deviations and imitators in the marketplace and the product’s eventual astounding success that spawned a complete X-Bullet line now extending to tactical and personal protection applications in addition to hunting loads. We’ll share all that and more in an American Rifleman magazine feature this fall, as well as in upcoming web articles, photo galleries and video. Guaranteed, this is one of the best American success stories you’ll see in a long time! Check out this sneak-peek video clip of Randy Brooks with a mount of the brown bear that helped to launch the X-Bullet phenomenon.