Barnes has debuted its Harvest Collection line of ammunition, targeted squarely at American whitetail hunters. Topped with the venerable Sierra Tipped GameKing (TGK) bullet, Barnes Harvest Collection is designed for maximal lethality on thin-skinned game, combining near match-grade accuracy with impressive terminal performance.
Sierra TGK bullets are a hollow-point descendent of the legendary, competition crushing Sierra Match King. Instead of being engineered simply for accuracy, however, TGKs utilize a polymer tip fitted into an open pocket (hollowpoint) design. This helps to create sudden expansion on impact, leading to devastatingly immediate wound channels on game like whitetail and pronghorn. Crafted of a special lead alloy surrounded by a tough copper jacket and a tuned ogive, the bullets are tough, dependable and boast excellent G1 ballistic coefficients to boot.
I was lucky enough to receive a few boxes of 165-grain .308 Winchester to test ahead of their launch (G1 BC .517), and Harvest Collection did not disappoint. Five-shot groups, as advertised, printed right around an inch, despite being fired from my short, 16-inch-barreled whitetail rig. Still more impressive was the ammunition's performance on the chronograph. Between my first 13 shots (if you're wondering about the odd number, the chrono was slightly out of position for the first two), the ammunition displayed a standard deviation (SD) of only 8.3 fps between shots. An 8.3 SD is good even by match-grade standards, much less for hunting ammo, and is probably down to Barnes incredibly temperature-stable propellant.
Deciding to see if that trend held true between boxes, I ripped open another and put a few more shots downrange. SD increased by less than a single fps. Average velocity sat at 2512 fps, and while that may seem low, remember, that's out of a carbine-length barrel. Given that .308s gain around 25 fps for every inch of barrel (depending on weight and propellant), a standard, 22-inch barrel would put it right around a respectable 2662 fps.
The verdict? If you're an avid whitetail or pronghorn hunter, grab a few boxes of Harvest Collection for this season. Optimized for the game you're chasing and dead accurate at any reasonable hunting distance, you won't be disappointed. For more information, visit barnesbullets.com. MSRP: $39.99-44.99
