Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Hornady, Speer, Sierra whats your choice of 'plain janes'

Hornady and any left over Nosler Solid bases I find at gunshows,buy them ever time I see them. Gets right down to it anytime I see bullets that are bargains, blems, part boxes and the price is right. I'm a regular bullet whore cause I like to shoot and experience all the bullets I can find.Not sure I think it mught be a disease. Magnum Man

Of the 3, Speer Hot-Core.

Depends on the cartridge for me. I love Hornady 7mm 139 SP and 257 100 SP. In the Sierra the .277 130's are great. Speer make my favorite .308 165 Cup and Core bullet.


ddj

I prefer Hornady, but my guess is that they are all good. I know a lot of folks like Sierras.

It can also depend on how fast you plan to push them.

I tend to use mostly Nosler, but since I am damn near out of SolidBases I have been shooting Btips out of 7-08, .25-06, and .300 WSM. I also shoot a lot of Sierra SP's out of my .243 at steel, paper, and ground squirrels. So I guess its Sierra and Btips for me.

Hornady's and Nosler solid bases are the ones I like.

I have had good performance from Speer, Hornady, and Sierra bullets as long as I use them within their optimum design parameters. Of the three, Sierra Gamekings and ProHunters seem to be the softest, so they are used in the slower loads. Hornady Interlocks and Speer Hot Cors both seem a bit tougher to me. Some combinations I particularly like are the 300gr Speer Uni-Cor in the 45-70, 140gr Sierra Gameking in 6.5x55, and 175gr Hornady SP Interlock in 7x57.

I don't like lightweight, or even mid-weight, for caliber jacketed bullets of any brand. The "GEE-WHIZ" high velocity of light bullets makes them blowup at close range, and poop-out at long range, and they don't shoot so much flatter as many folks think they do. Heavier bullets work well at all ranges. I noticed that the OP doesn't seem to like lightweight bullets either.

Not hardly. What's a cannnelure for except to control expansion. That makes Hornady ILs to be controlled expansion bullets.

Hornady 150 and 165gr in 30-06 and 308 have worked just fine for me on WTs. Same for 139gr Hornady SPs in 280 Rem. Still load 100gr Remington CLs in 243 because A) never had a problem with them, and B) I have several hundred left.

Man this 'plane jane' topic get'n hits! Hornady seems to still be leading...

Cannelures serve a few purposes, bullet location in case, crimpping, then help in controlling of expansion.

Hornadys Interlock feature is the litte raised ring below the cannelure. There jackets are tapered like every body elts, which has more to do with controlling expansion.

The nosler 60 gr. .224 varmint ballistic tip has a cannelure along with other .22 cal varmint bullets. I'm thinking controlled expansion polly' not on performance list for those bullets.

"Interlock" is hornadys gimmick just like the speer "hot-core" or core-lokt from remington and sierra gameking.

Sorry, the hornady interlock is not a controlled expansion bullet, but a darn good plain jane...

I like 'em all. My 35 Remington really shines with 180 grain flatnose by Speer.

TR

Day in and day out EVERY rifle I own shoot Nosler BT, Sierra GK & PH and plain old Hornady Interlock just great. Standard cup and core vs what Mule Deer calls boutique bullets always shoot better.They all kill game really well. I also use Nosler ab , swift scirocco 2 , Hornady IB, but they do not shoot as good from the bench as the simpler designs.

They pretty much all work if put where they belong. No barbs on any of the brands below but having found success had little motivation to try much of anything else. Standard cup and core designs, no polymer tips, in order of general use:

Hornady, Sierra, Speer

More recently I've found Nosler Partition QC has improved sufficiently that I find them consistently accurate and reliable. They are go to bullets for me if inclined to use jacketed bullets from .416 down.

With that said I've started casting bullets and have been paper patching for over 10 years. I like the way it works and probably have 2 lifetimes worth of jacketed bullets on hand.

I've used Sierras a lot and Hornadys some. Not sure a fellow could ever tell them apart based on performance on game. Both have killed deer and hogs very well
for me. They're so good, in fact, that I doubt I'll find the need to look further in a C&C bullet.

For big game? Hornady

That is quite cool, Disturbed Dan. How fast do you push your paper patched bullets and still get good acuracy?

I cast too, but usually pistol bullets. I really do not like casting. It is boring and can be a PITA when things don't work right. Then there's the luber/sizer work. But I can cast a lot of bullets with my 6-cavity moulds, and they shoot good too. My 45 Bishawk with 4-5/8" barrel puts my homecast 250gr slugs into one hole at 25 yards when the shooter is doing his job. Hunting rabbits and squirrels and deer with a revolver is a hoot!

Sorry for the diversion.

Yep same here.

+1 Hot-Cores all the way!

Ditto here. Have some others left over from purchases years past but A-MAX, V-MAX and FTX are all I recall buying in "plain Jane" bullets over the last couple years.

For hunting it is TTSX, FTX, AccuBond, Scirocco and North Fork.