Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Hornady 7mm 162 grain eldx

I believe that Nathan Foster's opinion was that the 162 SST will hold together a little bit better than the 162 ELDX but that neither one should be used on big bones at high velocities (magnum rifles at close ranges). Makes sense to me.

I think there have been some here prove that the 162 ELDX works just fine, even on big bodied elk. Sorry, but I don't know Nathan Foster. Does he post here? Tell him to post some pics. The ones Pharm posted looked pretty damn good to me. I also have buddies that use the ELDX in factory Hornady precision hunter ammo and they don't have an issue with any deer or elk not succumbing to that bullet when placed in the vitals.

Folks tend to forget that their way ain't the only way.

Shoulder shooters might hate a soft bullet that is devastating if driven
into the ribs.

The opposite is true of a harder bullet driven into lungs.

Guys who are great shooters/shoot from blinds/over bait/dam picky about
the shots they take...can use anything if they are neck shooting.

I have taken one cow elk with the ELD-X bullet but it was the 180 grain version.

It worked perfectly. The cow jumped at impact and then started that sideways stagger
that means they are going down. The shot went through a rib bone and destroyed the
lungs.

Plastic tipped highly expansive bullets work great - until they don’t. Even the 7mm 150 grain NBT that I had blow up on the ribs of a bull & leave a palm sized entry wound killed the elk. He just traveled over 500 yards until the shrapnel in his lungs bled him out.

I killed several elk & truck loads of deer with that combination & still think those are the best deer bullets going but have gone the Barnes TTSX for elk & wouldn’t go back.

Over my 60 years of hunting I have tried a various variety of bullets. Mostly when they are new and advertised as the greatest thing since sliced bread. The mono's, the Hornady's, Sierra Game King, and numerous others. (In fact the 162 grain 7mm Hornady SPBT is the most accurate bullet), I have shot in several 7mm rifles. There are always newer and better. But to this day the majority of my deer and elk have fallen to the Nosler Partition, and a new comer the Nosler AB. My favorite saying is that "if its not broken, leave it alone".

That doesn't really tell us what the 7mm 162 ELDX bullet does on elk. I can say I've used heavy for caliber Sierra gamekings on elk with great success, but they always shed their core. Even the 250gr from the 338wm. The core will generally make a full pass through and the jacket can be found on the offside of the hide. I've had some 180gr Nosler partitions do the same thing when fired from 300 magnums and 30-06. Elk will catch those like a catchers mitt. One reason I made the switch to the 200gr partition. Don't really give 2 schidts for the 180 anymore. I'd just as soon use a damn winchester powerpoint. What a damn good bullet that 200gr partition is though, even when moderate velocities are used. I've puched elk through and through with the 286gr Nosler partition with a 9.3x62 and that was the poorest fu cking behaving bullet I've ever used. Elk ran a good ways when shot with that combo. When that has not been the norm when shot with a bullet that expands or maybe fragments better. 1 elk shot last year with the 140gr TTSX, was a thru and thru like a laser beam (even though bone) and the elk went down quick. That was from a little 7mm08. A 225gr Hornady interlock launched from my 338wm put a big bull elk down on his nose a second after I pulled the trigger. Yet, none of those say anything about the performance of the 162 eldx.. Like I said before, pharm gave some good useable examples. Thanks buddy!! I'd use the 162 ELDX, because I know the regular ol interlock performs just fine on them. The ELDX should be even better..

While I agree the 180 PT can get caught in elk more than the 200, elkmen1 has a pretty large jar of recovered 180 from dead elk. And they shoot like a SOB in his 300 so he is pretty aware of how they work since he’s been killing elk since 20 years before I was born.

He also took a small bull with the plain Jane 162 BTSP Interlock that just grenaded at 400+ yards on the front leg bone. That was out of a 7 Rem Mag. Only one experience with it but we know we haven’t had a 160 Accubond ever give anything but excellent performance.

As for the 162 ELD, no experience with it. I used the 212 from the 30-06 a few years back and it worked fine.

Myself, I’d probably pass on them from a 7 magnum just on the premise of being up close and having to poke one through a shoulder. Out of a 7-08 I’d probably be okay with them.

Maybe Pharm has some thoughts about driving the 162 through bone that could change my mind. I’m pretty open minded I thinj and I like the ELDs but I think under high speed hits they might leave you wanting.

While not specifically on elk, I've used 7mm 160 AB's in Africa on more than 60 head of plains game. Some impacts under 100 yds, some about 200 yds, lots in between those ranges. Nary a problem, exemplary performance. Other than a 160 partition, it would be hard for me to use anything else.

Found some butchery photos. I was impressed enough by the bullet performance to snap a couple.




Sort of a big bone.




She was a big cow. The bullet had plenty of excuse to fragment or separate but it didn’t.




P

That looks promising. Far side or near side leg Pharm? Did you recover the bullet?

Yeah, I posted a pic a bunch of posts ago. Don’t know the weight.

Rgr, sorry, I’ll backtrack it.

I found it. Looks pretty good to me. Roughly similar to the 212 I found in the last bull I took.

Has anyone done a comparison between the 162 amax and the ELD-X?

I’ve used the 6.5 Hornady 143 ELDx out of my 6.5 STW for about 3 elk now. No problems, one went about 100 yards, but that was my bad not the bullet.

Seems they may have toughened the SST from earlier ones. I had written off the 6.5 version years back due to being too expansive, not too unlike the early NBT’s.

Current production SST’s and NBT’s seem to hold together better than vintage versions.

DF

Thumb,

I have shot elk with the 162 ELDX out of a 7mm WSM muzzle velocity 3060. Not sure how many but I have been using the ELDX from the time they came out. Shots from 40 Yards to 750 Yards. It is my go to load for elk. I have shot several deer also. But for deer I use my 6.5/06 or my 264 most of the time.

8mmwapiti

That's good intel as well 8mm!

I have some of those. The 140’s shoot great in my 280 with 54 grains of Hunter. They are quite long though and eat up a lot of powder space so I haven’t tried them in the 7-08. Wish I had bought more when they were available. Going to take that 280 load out this year.

65 grains of RL23 with the 162 eld-x shoots great in my 7mm rem mag. About 3,000fps