The bullet I revile the most is the .277" 140 Hornady BTSP. I only shot two deer with them, and in both cases, the bullet shattered, blew up, whatever you want to call it, and didn't penetrate much, but blew huge chunks of meat everywhere. I eventually got both deer recovered, but it was not a pretty sight in either case. Those were the early ones with the cannelure WAY back on the bullet. Hornady changed the location of the cannelure later, but it didn't really help them much. I was shooting them out of a 22" .270 Winchester with H-4831 pushing them, nothing outrageous in any way. Those bullets were just dead soft and pretty much worthless. Both deer weren't very big, either, one little doe and a seven point buck of average size for a corn-fed Missouri deer. I switched over to Remington Bronze Point 130gr. bullets and had wonderful results on the next few deer I shot with that rifle. Then Remington discontinued the Bronze Points as component bullets, which torqued me off considerably. After that, I went over to Sierra 130gr. Pro-Hunter flatbased bullets, which I continue to use today.
This matches my experience with the 140 .277 Hornady as well. Total garbage performance. I’ve also had similar results with the Hornady 250gr .358 spire point in my .358s I finally called Hornady to ask what gives with your 250s. I was told that 2400fps is “too fast” for those bullets, that they’re not designed for that sort of velocity. ???! Hornadys have proven too inconsistent between weights and calibers for me to trust much. The 165 spire points, and now discontinued 220 round noses were always great, while the 180s sucked.
