Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles 77 grain SMK vs Hornady 75 BTHP?

I’m done with this thread..

You get your back up to easily whenever someone says something not to your thinking....................when it come to reloading (most anything) there's almost always more than one good solution, & various people have various perspectives.

There's no doubt that H4895 can be accurate; what I mean when I say I really don't like it in an AR is because of the sharp recoil impulse; I use it & like it in a bolt gun.

Rock On.

MM

This has actually been an informative thread. Thanks to guys like you and mm and others for sure. It made me go out and buy 1000 hornady bthp match bullets and do a little testing of my own. Hopefully others found it to be informative as well..

Bringing this one back to the top. A lot of good conversation here. Rost, im going to try your 24gr load, but ill work up to it. 24.1gr is max in the hornady book.

Was at the range yesterday working out some guns & ammo, shot 77g SMK's in factory IMI Razorcore, 77 gr SMK's, Nosler 77 gr CC, & Hornady 75 HTBP, all with 22.8 gr AR Comp.

Did not chrono, but from the past, the SMK & Nolser both go around 2727'ish with that load from an 18" barrel.

All 4 loads shot to essentially same POI at 100 yards with a composite 4 shot group of of the dirrent loads of about an inch.

That is with a WOA, 1-8 barrel...................that's the kind of barrel I like as I absolutely hate finicky barrels that will only like a particular bullet, with a particular powder, with a particular primer on any given day. Those kind of guns & barrels go down the road real quick like for me.

FWIW

MM

You're making me jealous with that AR Comp statement. I was bragging about finding 4 lbs of it at 1 store. That was 2 months ago, now its gone!!! I cant find it anywhere around here. RL 15 is plentiful Here. Going to the range right now im planning on shooting 10 shot groups for load development. I find all of my ars shoot sub moa 4 shot groups. Even my most finicky ar10 308. I just dropped the rl15 loads, as im not into weighing every charge on a 223. We'll see how it goes. Mm, have you shot many 77TMK's?

Some, not a lot, think I got a box of 250 a while back............not much different than SMK's, just more $$$ & to fit a magazine, you are right at the edge of the ogive when they are seated.

Might be a tad better just for hunting, pigs or whatever, but for anything else, the gain isn't worth the $$$ to me for ranges <600 yds or so..................I shoot more Hornadys & Noslers than Sierra's, mainly just because the differences are not huge in performance & they are cheaper. Prolly whatever is available right now though, though I have a good stock on hand right now.

SMK's seem to have a small edge in consistent accuracy, same for Bergers but also more $$$.

MM

Can you see any difference on paper between weighed & dumped charges of RE-15?

I shot some 73 ELD's the other day over the chrono with a charge of 24.5 grs of TAC and got decent accuracy and 2700 fps in my 16" barrel. It got my attention as there were no pressure signs at all so I might pursue it further...

77's of all flavors are disappointing on 600 yard steel at 2625 fps in my 16" barrels. Can't hear the whack.

I love the 73gr eld match bullet. I found they were quite a bit cheaper than the old reliable 69gr smk. I'll keep buying those sierra's though, as all of my ar's love them. Even my finicky bastid Noveske... I stopped using the 73 ELD for a while, doe to poor penetration tests, but hell if a 73gr bullet doesn't do a good enough job, I don't know what will... They are extremely accurate in my rifles. My new Colt sporter target model loves them, even more so than the 69gr SMK, so I better not give up on that bullet. Recently I bought about 600 of the 73's and another 1000 69gr SMK and still have about 400 of the 1,000 75gr Hornady btsp match bullets left. Sometimes I wonder IF I'll find a stellar load with the 75gr hornady. I'm about ready to pull my damn hair out with that bullet. Good thing I got a smoking hot deal on them!!!!

Yeah, in my 9.3x62mm I did: