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

That's exactly the performance that turned me off to the Amax. I saw a 162 not go through a deer, at about 2800fps impact, on a slight quartering away shot.

I've got a second season bull tag... was planning on the 180... but I've still got some 160 Accubonds loaded up. Maybe I'll save the 180s for the buck tag in November.

The 160 ABs don’t have quite the BC but man are they pile drivers on elk. I’ve used and continue to try other stuff but I haven’t found anything that works better at the 0-600 yard hunting ranges I typically shoot. They might be my favorite 7mm bullet besides the 175 BBCs.

That's the entrance wound. Not a single bullet fragment made it to the opposite shoulder. I'd use on a deer but not happily after this. Looks like one of my other rigs will get the call for elk this fall.



Impact range was 380 yards. Started out around 3040 fps. I'll trade 2 full boxes of Hornady 180 ELD-M seconds for a box or even a partial box of 175 ELD-X. Let me know if anyone is interested.

Great picture and description of it Kurt. Doesn’t seem like it should’ve been stressed out too Bad at that distance either.

That is nasty especially since it has slowed down a fair bit at the range it hit your deer.

As far as processing goes, that's my worst nightmare.

They sure shoot good in my 7mm mag but I think I'll pass using them as a hunting bullet!

30338’s results have my scratching my head. So far I have only seen 2 animals killed with the 180 ELD-M’s at 3025fps launch. Both were bears 1 at 578 and 1 at 462. Both hit ribs and exited with classic 1 1/2” exit wounds. I have been happy as hell with my results but 30-338’s certainly is cause for concern.

I really wanted that bullet to work too. Never seen one go to pieces that fast on a rib and have shot a few ribs over the years. Others have had similar happen with bergers, but I never have. Maybe it was just a fluke. I know there are 1000 for sale in the classifieds for a great price though.....

I'm wondering if that may be why they're "seconds".....

Little off on the metallurgy.... sold them all as "match seconds"...

Hope not.... as that's what I'm shooting, I bought a bunch of those too.

Maybe the tips melted in flight and started the expansion a bit early (grin)

Could still be a killer bullet with a little lower muzzle velocity. I'm thinking 7mm-08 or 7mm Creedmoor,

Good question. It’ll be interesting to see how the “firsts” perform over a large sample of critters.

I butched a Dall sheep that a gunwriter shot with a 300 Win mag and the new Hornady ammo with the ELD-X this past August. I think they were 180s. The shoulder was 100% ruined. Bullet disintegrated in the shoulder. I wasn't impressed with it myself. It did kill the ram. Maybe they are better at LONG range where they have slowed way down.

I have 3000 of these things 😐. Going off what I've seen out of A-Max's, I never really thought they'd be replacing the 195 bergers for hunting.. would have been better if they could have tho.

So far my rifle has accounted for 2 long range bucks and both bullets recovered. Mine at 784 broadside was poking out of the skin on the far side. Caught a rib going in and probably retained 70% of its weight. Other buck was 652 impacted the spine going straight away and was found in the brisket probably retained 55-60%. On both deer the lungs were soup and bullet performance was great. Both were big healthy mule deer pushing 300 #’s and obviously shot at fair range. Hopefully we will get to try one under 300yds in the next day or so.

I'll shoot one more deer with them this fall, but headed back to the 195 EOL for next fall. Your's the midway seconds or Hornady firsts?

Shot an antelope with them at 408 yards. 2930 mv. It was quartering away slightly. I hit it back a little. Missed bone completely and never found any of the bullet lodged into the offside anywhere inside the cavity. It was like the bullet completely disintegrated.

Another got shot with that gun at 218 yards. It hit front shoulder going in and had a 2" or so exit out the offside shoulder.

A buddy buddy used the 147 ELD m on a couple and he had one that exited and one that dissapeared like I did with the 180's.

Regards, Branden

30338 mine are all factory firsts

For those interested, yesterday I tested 6 of these in dry news print. Impact was roughly 2450 fps (7-08), all bullets penetrated 7.5-8.5 inches and retained 100-120 grains with the cores still lightly attached to the jackets. For a comparison I shot a Hndy 6.5 160gr RN into the same medium at 2300ish. It penetrated 9.5 inches and shed its core fully. The 180’s created a much larger channel. These were the blems.

Reading this thread made me wonder about the blems a little so I figured I would give them a test before using them on game. I was mainly looking for consistency and a relative amount of integrity. None blew up so that gives me the warm fuzzies. YMMV