Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles SST vs ELD-x

As a play off the SST vs interlock thread, thoughts on these two? Does the eld-x hold together up close? Cabelas has them on sale for quite a discount on both versions and am thinking of picking up a few hundred. No complaints with the sst on whitetails in the 165gr version but the 178 eld-x does shoot a little better in my gun. But for deer thinking they may be overkill. Thoughts?

Craig

Based on my limited experience, I’d hands down, no questions asked take the ELD-X any day of the week. This is based on never having shot a single head of game with the ELD and one antelope and one mule deer with the SST. Draw your own conclusions on that. 😎

I would probably pick a V-Max over the SST.

Give the ELD a try. No such thing as "overkill", and I doubt they will be as destructive as the SST's on deer. I like the destructiveness of SST's though. They are one of my favorite bullets.

I loaded some 165gr sst's for my sons 20" 308 to try this year. It's not barn burner with the 20" tube, so we shall see how they work at around 2600 fps MV. At max load of varget it's printing .75" in his tikka, stopped there and called it good.

Last year my party killed 4 bucks and three elk with ELDX, three bucks and a bull with 150 out of 7mm-08s, one buck and two elk with 162 out of 7mm Rem Mags.

Closest shot was 125, farthest was 404. All animals died right now, only the bull at 404 took more than one, but he was dead after the first.

Bloodshot wasn’t excessive, all but one bullet exited, weight retention was around 60% iirc.





P