Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Honady discontinuing Amax?

Why would I shoot either one when I can shoot a Sierra?

Gentlemen,
I greatly appreciate the input...

I think Jordan hit this one spot on. Nosler is still able sell the rather old fashioned Partition without a name change every time they've made a modest improvement through the years.

Hornady HAD one hell of a worldwide following with the Amax. Why risk that? Fix what's broken don't futch up what is working splendidly. Will be curious to read what Nathan Foster at Ballistic Studies has to say about the new bullets.

Regards, Matt.

Wonder if the tips will melt while Nathan's "annealing" the bullets.

I do like certain Hornady bullets, but I find this whole melting tip thing laughable.

Start shooting stuff a long way away, and "premium" bullets make a lot more sense.

Plus one; sure seems like a pure marketing ploy.

All will be forgiven if a) they drop right into existing Amax loads and perform the same and b) they are obtainable more easily than the 162 AM was. At least at the one store locally that really stocks this kind of stuff, looking good.... they had all manner of ELD's and some ELD-X's in stock as well.

Shot a few 162 ELD-X's the other day... they held MOA but that's crappy for that rifle.

By all accounts that I trust, the ELD Match are shooting as well or better than the AMAX across the board.

Because if the Sierra bullet used is a Tipped Match King (TMK) the tip might melt.

Awesome. I have 700-800 Amax 162's left but I'm running through them fast.

I typed that last post in a hurry. Don't want to give the impression I'm getting bad results from the ELD-X. First try, which was very casual because I was mostly messing with a new scope, I simply dropped the ELD's into my fairly mild Amax load, made sure I wasn't in the lands, and shot them. They did "ok". I'll do a more formal load workup next week.

What I like in THEORY with the ELD-X's is that the Interlock design is well-liked and trusted. I've only used Interlocks on game in .35 caliber so what do I know, but I sure hear them getting some love from guys like Dogzapper and many others..... so if they'll hold together like that, shoot really good, and have that .630 BC then they become very interesting to a guy (me) who hasn't yet settled on a LR elk bullet.

When Berger started claiming how their match bullets worked on game, everyone thought they were full of crap.

When Barnes started selling pure copper bullets, nobody ever thought they'd work good if they even worked at all.

Hornady may or may not be onto something. I think it's pretty funny how many will bad mouth Hornady for something that they can't prove, yet Nosler prints false BC's time and time again (that are easily debunked) and uses them in their advertisements!

The real pisser about the Hornady "just the tip" campaign is the cost increase. Hornady bean counters will consider it a win because of guys like JeffO who shoot more than anybody else and skew the popularity numbers...

The owners just might be happy, too.

Agreed. A minor improvement would be welcomed, but when there's a cost increase for something that so far hasn't been a problem, I'm a little annoyed.

I have 3 rifles that luv them some 162 Amax, yes indeed I will make the bean counters at Hornady happy if the ELD's do the same or better.

Personally, ammo cost has only ever caused me to stop shooting in one instance, when NATO surplus 7.62 dried up. I had two M1a's that got heavy use when battle packs of milsurp were $45/200 rounds... when that went away I sold them. Couldn't afford to feed them.

You don't think they are counting beans?

32 cent bullets out of three rifles is ok? But god forbid a couple .308's are expensive to feed....

This is why I find the whole thing laughable. Here we have numerous shooters/hunters at 24HCF that have proven the AMAX as a good flyer and killer at distance. On the other hand, we have Hornady who says they had to invent a new bullet because the current AMAX was a faulty product.

Which group is full of crap? I gotta say Hornady.

It was only faulty in that it wasn't giving them the profit margins they would have liked.

They never said the Amax was faulty, simply that it could be better.

So a melting bullet tip isn't faulty?

The only way to make the Amax better would have been to make it cheaper. Dumb bastids.