Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting Hornie 7mm 180 ELD might be worth playing with...

Joining in late hear fellas, but good to see some great info.

Curious to see if any one has shot the 180 ELD-M and 195 EOL side by side?

I spent a better part of hour talking with a bullet guru at Hornady and he was rather adamant the 180 is strictly a target bullet and not a big game bullet.

But I will let the dead animals do the talkin!

Yeah, I've shot the 180's and 195's together a fair bit. I'm loving the 180's. Sold most of my 195's after shooting them side by side a bunch.

We'll see shortly what critters think of the 180!

Interesting Jordan, may I ask why more love for the 180 vs the 195?

BC?

The 180 seems easier to get to shoot, has a higher BC, less mass/higher velocity, and is cheaper. Win/win/win/win.

I liked the 195 performance on game last year. This year the 180 is getting its chance. Will decide which way to roll after some first hand experiences. Have a couple of the 180s so hoping I like them.

They gonna talk the party line, for sure. It's not too unlike a drug rep pimping a new product. They get in deep doodoo if they get off the reservation, probably fired.

Scenars are target bullets. Check our Pat (Scenarshooter)'s portfolio of dead critters. The Bergers were target bullets until people started seeing how well they whacked animals.

I've seen it posted that the 6.5mm 147 ELD-M has better terminal performance then the 143 EDL-X. Not sure if that thinking can be extrapolated over into the 7mm class, but wouldn't want to bet against it.

Time will tell.

DF

I just sent Hornady an email asking for a more specific explanation about the m's on game. The design may be a little a different between the two, but I suspect a good bit of marketing is involved... thinking match shooters and hunters won't want bullets that aren't 'optimized' for their specific purposes. Guessing this fall we'll see some real world results.

True DF, I agree, I slagged a few animals with AMAX and they were all bang-flops.

Committed this year's hunt to Hornie factory loads cuz of time.

Next year when I get the new barrel, that'll be a whole different plan!

Look forward to hearing field reports!

From Hornady customer service. A little more equivocal than whoever WDEA spoke with.

"Thank you for writing in to us. The main difference between the ELD-Match and ELD-X is that the ELD-Match has a thin jacket and no interlocking ring to hold the jacket to the lead core. The ELD-X has the thicker jacket and the interlocking ring on the inside. We don’t really test the ELD-Match bullets terminally, but the fear is over-expansion. There are some that use these bullets for hunting and are happy with their results as there has been many that used the A-Max (the ELD-Match predecessor).



Thank you and have a great day.

pjl"

My factory 700 in 7mm Rem Mag seems to stabilize the 180 ELD just fine at 2850+ and 5000' asl.

Going to go out and shoot them out to 600 or so this weekend, then we'll see about crashing one into a bull later this month.... and a 4th season Muley buck come Mid-November.

180 ELD-M’s will be in the Mag if my GA Precison 7 WSM on opening day a little over a week from today. Never had an issue with the Amax so I am betting these will be fine.

Lord knows they shoot great at 3025fps from my GAP

5@ 200 yds in a decent wind:

That's just ridiculous. Nice shooting!

Based on a bunch of experience with the 162AM on game, I'm betting that this heavier-for-caliber "A-Max" will do at least as well...

The sweet spot for RL26 is 67, correct?

I am running 66gr if R26 with the 180 M’s in my 7 wsm. 67 had no issues but always seemed to drop one out of the group just a bit. 3060fps with single digit sd’s from my 26” barrel.

67 gr group at 200:


Can’t cuss either load but didn’t see a need to beat the gun harder for 40fps and a little less group.

Looks great Mallard, I'd also drop the grain for better accuracy... Just bought some ELDx to try in my new 7mm wsm and 7mm rem mag..

I'm at 65.5 grains RL26 in the 26" 7 Rem Mag for 2850.... and it's breathing easy. I'm sure I could milk another 100fps out of it.... and I still might.... but it's shooting well and the recoils is very manageable.... so I may just leave it.

Shot five shot groups and it opened up on either side of 66.5 (.62 MOA at 195), 67.1 was lively but I am not surprised, it was 55 last February and 75 this morning. I am loading more and headed back out in the morning to get velocity and it's off to Houston in a week to play at 600.

Posting from deer camp and will try to put up pics later. Shot a 225 pound mule deer at 380 yards with a 180. Slight quartering shot. Bullet entered 3" behind shoulder and did not reach opposite shoulder. Entrance wound about 3" diameter after hitting a rib. Did not inspire any confidence but did kill it immediately. Will try one more on another buck later this year but so far I'd be very nervous using on elk or a deer shoulder.

Thanks for the info. Kind of what I thought. I'll stick with the ELDX, personally....

Great intel. You’re right, if it won’t transit a deer, it might be a little shaky on elk.




From the couple I’ve seen filed in half I’m not sure what the difference is between the M and X. Neither of them are deep penetrators in the water jugs. Their “ring” doesn’t hold onto much..