Hornady 243, 103gr ELD-X, first samples report
Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:07 pm
At the SHOT Show I talked to a rep from Hornady about 6mm bullets for Rams. At first he didn't understand the problem but after some conversation explaining the situation I think he did. "Oh, you have to knock the steel plate off the stand, not just hit it?"
Initially I was asking about Hornady bonded bullets like the Interbond. He explained that it is not possible to control the movement of the the lead core during the bonding process so the Interbond bullet will not shoot well enough to be usable for HP Rifle Silhouette.
He did recommend the ELD-X. It has a somewhat thicker jacket and employs a construction method intending to to accomplish something like bonding but without the inherent non-concentricities and went on to say that the process used would result in bullets that shoot well enough for HPRS and would stay together better than a traditional lead core/copper jacketed bullet. This is Hornady's answer to needing bonded bullet like weight retention with the accuracy required for long range shooting. I ordered a box to try them out.
When they arrived I opened the box to check them out. On the first one I noticed that the leading edge of the jacket was not uniform and that in some places, one on about 30 bullets, two on about another 30 bullets, there was actually a 'scallop' looking gap.
I pulled out a box of Sierra 224 77gr TMKs for comparison. I looked at about 20 and the uniformity of the leading edge of the jacket was excellent. In fact out of 100 Hornady ELD-X bullets, only one was 'as good as' the 20 or so TMKs that I looked at. That meant 99 out of 100 were not at good as the first 20 TMKs I pulled out of a box at random.
I contacted Hornady and explained the situation. They replied and asked me to send pix. I tried taking pix with my phone but they did not adequately show the deficiencies. I contacted Hornady again, offering to send some to them to examine and they sent me an RMA.
It will be interesting to see what they have to say.
Initially I was asking about Hornady bonded bullets like the Interbond. He explained that it is not possible to control the movement of the the lead core during the bonding process so the Interbond bullet will not shoot well enough to be usable for HP Rifle Silhouette.
He did recommend the ELD-X. It has a somewhat thicker jacket and employs a construction method intending to to accomplish something like bonding but without the inherent non-concentricities and went on to say that the process used would result in bullets that shoot well enough for HPRS and would stay together better than a traditional lead core/copper jacketed bullet. This is Hornady's answer to needing bonded bullet like weight retention with the accuracy required for long range shooting. I ordered a box to try them out.
When they arrived I opened the box to check them out. On the first one I noticed that the leading edge of the jacket was not uniform and that in some places, one on about 30 bullets, two on about another 30 bullets, there was actually a 'scallop' looking gap.
I pulled out a box of Sierra 224 77gr TMKs for comparison. I looked at about 20 and the uniformity of the leading edge of the jacket was excellent. In fact out of 100 Hornady ELD-X bullets, only one was 'as good as' the 20 or so TMKs that I looked at. That meant 99 out of 100 were not at good as the first 20 TMKs I pulled out of a box at random.
I contacted Hornady and explained the situation. They replied and asked me to send pix. I tried taking pix with my phone but they did not adequately show the deficiencies. I contacted Hornady again, offering to send some to them to examine and they sent me an RMA.
It will be interesting to see what they have to say.