Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Hornady roundnose performance

Then look no further my son and carry on.

The 35 round nose Hornady bullets are as good as any.
Interlocks are great bullets. Too bad Hornady management seems to be trying to phase them out. I especially wish they’d bring back 100 grain 25 caliber Interlocks!
I don’t know why the 220 grain round nose bullets shot so poorly in my rifles. The 220 grain round nose partitions are easy to get shooting accurately.
I hope the bean counters in Hornady would find jobs selling shoes. Let the engineers run the business.

has anyone used older hornady 175 gr in the 7x57? i just found 2 boxes. one rifle is a 22in barrel and the other is 24, gonna load some up might be good for elk

I shot an impala in RSA with one out of a Ruger #1 that the PH had. It tipped the impala right over.

Taken with a 160gr Hornady 6.5mm round nose out of a 6.5x54 Mannlicher Schoenauer at about 90 yards.

Note where the bullet hole is. What more can you ask for? Some others have said they had erratic performance and accuracy but I like them and have had good success with them.

^^^^^^^^^^^

The Horny RN 160 gr was the first one to come to mind

Lapua built some 160's to eh ?

Both most likely extinc

Haven't used them on game yet, but here's a jug test of the .308 Hornady 180gr RN.

2 bullets fired at a distance of 20 yards.

First one was at a muzzle velocity of 2725 and went into the 4th jug. Actually went out the side of the 4th jug and through the side of the 5th jug and bounced off the 6th jug. So would go 4-5 jugs if straight through. Weighed 108 gr's and measured .645.

Next one was fired at a reduced speed of around 2000 fps. Went into the 6th jug, weighed 143 gr's, and measured around .575.

Should be a good whitetail bullet. Quick expansion and more than adequate penetration.

Any experience with the Hornady 250 grain .338 RN Interlock?
They shoot well out of my 19" 338-06 at 2400 FPS (.318 WR clone!) and I'm thinking hard about using that load for my elk tag this fall.

Thanks in advance,
Rex

That looks like typical performance from what I've seen on whitetails

It would be a better test at whatever is typical distance where one hunts; I have shot many in the woods about 80 paces. Short jump shooting does happen but more commonly 50 to 80 paces for me.

160 6.5 in 260 rem, 2550 estimation a couple of whitetail. One a small doe and one a large buck. Same performance on both, dime hole in silver dollar hole out.
220 30-06 at 2500 on several whitetail same performance.

And for real world 92% of the bell curve hunting the trajectory is completely sufficient.

Also discussed above the 156 Privi bullet when loaded to 2400 is an in and out dime dollar bullet. When loaded to 2650+ it exits half the time for me. All the deer are well dead both ways but I like exits with full round holes.
Best regards,
F01

Maybe in your real world 01, but not in mine.

170gr RN out of the 8mm Mauser worked great in my early years of hunting. Shot accurate and killed well. Never caught one, always penetrated through.

160gr Rn out of the 6.5x55 has been good as well. Haven't had a issue on the couple bucks and bear we've taken. One shot was quartering on a 4 point mule buck, entered the ribs on the right side and exited the front left shoulder. Buck ran 20 yards and expired.

I also have a pile of 154,175 RN I plan on eventually loading up for my 7x57's and 220gr RN for the 30-06.

6.5mm 160gr RN Mule buck

92% of the Bell curve statement means of all hunters situations. You sir may well be outside in that 8%.
No problem with that. Happy shooting!
F01

Not disagreeing with your data point. Just curious, how did you arrive at the 92% number?

High school statistics tells us that number represents 1.5 standard deviation from the mean. A Quick Look at the bell curve tells us that covers quite a large area. Other than that, it’s just my opinion derived from 50 years of big game hunting, nothing more.
Best regards,
F01

I have had excellent results with round nose Hornady bullets, but have used them in a very specific circumstance.

I use 180gr rn out of a 16" .308W for a just in case rifle, intended for close shots. The short barrel lends to lower velocity, and that combined with the poor BC, for me categories this type load for close shots only.

The lower velocity doesn't cause much bloodshot meat unless I'm right on top of them. While the wide soft point still expands at the lower velocity.

Other than a .30-30, this is the only rifle I have set up for round nose.

To compare a 180 grain Hornady round nose to is a 180 grain Remington round nose Core-Lokt I am referring to that great chart that Gary Sciuchetti did for Handloader Magazine years back where he compared lots of different 180 grain .30 caliber bullets to one another through his medium at 100 fps intervals. Just as an example lets take 2500 fps and 2000 fps for a comparison.
2500 fps:
Hornady penetrated 13.2" and weighted 122 grains.
Remington penetrated 13.2" and weighed 143 grains.
2000 fps:
Hornady penetrated 13.7" and weighed 148 grains.
Remington penetrated 15.8" and weighed 155 grains.

Darn close to being the same from what I see though the Hornady might even be a bit softer.
From experience as an entire deer camp using 180 grain Remington Core-Lokts, it is a deer killing fast expanding bullet. We never lost a deer hit anywhere with that bullet.

The last two deer I shot in PA were with a .270 and 150 grain CL soft point (RN) and a .257 Roberts and a 117 grain CL soft point (RN). Both did a great job and recovered the 257 Roberts bullet - weighed 98 grains and “perfect” mushroom. Deer were both less than 100 yards and both hit behind the shoulder (both also hit ribs on both sides and the .270 was a pass through). Have had similar experiences since I started hunting in the mid 1970s with roundnose bullets - I like them and have stashes of several for various calibers - stay tuned as I’m likely going to start unloading some of these in the next few years?!

PennDog

Kind of why I loaded to two different velocities. Normal velocity was testing the bullet integrity up close. Very reduced load was to see how it expanded out there a ways, the 2000 fps would've been the equivalent of about 200 yds out. Still expanded nicely.

80 yds would be close to the difference between those 2 bullets at around 2400 fps.