Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Hornady InterLock Experience on Game

The 100 gr Hornady interlock soft point flat base using IMR4350 has been my most accurate hunting load in 243 Win. All of my Tennessee (90 to 170 pounds) deer have been 1 shot kills. Some have dropped when they were and none have traveled more than 50 yards. I find that I shoot the 243 Win better than larger calibers. Practice more with them also!

They work great just like Nosler, Speer and Sierra cup and core bullets.

Only used one once with a 243 in a 26" barreled Ruger No.1. Loaded over IMR4350 and impacted at about 90 yds. Bullet hit hit a rib and broke apart. No exit. Deer died before it hit the ground. Plan to keep using them as they are accurate in my 700 CDL

More people should use Hornady ammo. They gouge customers less than other manufacturers and their cartridges come in correct size boxes making them very easy to store.

The only InterLock experience I have is with the 220 .375 FP and the 265 .430 FP.

No complaints, never retrieved one. Nice holes in and out, dead deer. Accurate to boot. I just wish they'd start producing the darn things again. I can't sit on my stash forever.

I use them almost exclusively in .243, various .25s and 6.5s, .270, 7mm, and .30cal. No complaints with accuracy or game performance.

Interlock is my go-to bullet in most cases. I generally prefer a slightly heavy-for-caliber bullet (154 Grain in 7x57mm and 165 grain in .308/.30-06) but the 150 grain bulletrs are excellent in the .300 Savage. You'd have to go to the Nosler Partition to get any gain......and even then the difference would be prettyt small.

I've shot Sitka blacktails and caribou using them in several different calibers and cartridges. They are almost always superbly accurate, can't think of a rifle I have that doesn't like them. I have had some strange things happen when using them although it's never come close to costing me an animal.

Shot a big bodied buck on Kodiak one fall, 215 yards using the 350 grain round nose at 2550 fps from my 458. At the shot the buck jumped and crashed down on his nose, through the lungs hitting one rib on the way out with a 1" exit hole. All seemed fine and the deer was very dead after all, but when I skinned him that evening I found the whole jacket under the hide, on the ENTRY side! The jacket hadn't penetrated more than a half inch before the core slipped out and kept going.

I gave them up for a long time but decided to try them again a couple years ago, hard to pass up mostly full boxes of any brand bullets for $5 at a gunshow. A 130 grain .277 driven to 3000 out of my wife's 270 brought an ancient fork horn blacktail crashing to the earth like he'd been struck by a bolt from above last winter. Shot was about 35 yards through the scapulas and the bullet looked like an advertisement photo when we found it under the hide, meat damage was minimal shockingly, no jelly and no burger from fragments.

Next buck was a pretty nice average 3x3 I shot at about 75 yards with the 150 grain .308 spire point cruising along at around 2650 from my 300 savage. That buck was one of the ones with a strong will to live, I punched him three times through the shoulder blades as he ran left to right in front of me at the fourth shot he folded up. As I approached him he stood and ran toward me from about 30 yards. I used my last round in the gun to shoot him in the front of the chest dropping him again. The first shots through the chest and shoulders behaved fine, no bloodshot to speak of and I found one bullet that retained about 75% after punching shoulders. The final frontal shot however put a hole roughly 5" in diameter in the front of the chest angled down and exited behind the diaphragm and shattered the knee on a rear leg. Miraculously I didn't loose a whole bunch of meat even salvaged most of the shoulders.

One of my uncles used my wife's M70 featherweight 30/06 this fall to shoot a big bull caribou in the Brooks range. He put a 165 btsp interlock through the shoulders from 202 yards, dropping the bull like he'd been dynamited. When we cut him up I found exactly half of the expanded jacket next to the 2" exit hole. Meat loss was minimal.

So I guess I like them, hard to argue with dead animals and superb accuracy. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little leery of running one into a moose shoulder on a big bull or taking an angling shot on a big brown bear.

I've always considered myself a little bit of a bullet snob, as that is one of if not the cheapest part of a hunt and I want to stack the deck in my favor as best I can... TTSX,and Accubonds are really I hunt with.

When I picked up my all original, 95%+ Pre 64 .270 I wanted to go old school like JOC and decided to load the Hornady 140 BTSP Interlock over H4831 just like he might have back in the day. I'm really glad to read all these positive reports on this bullet.

I think they are the best bullets out there for the price and the best bullet other than the premium bullets. With the calibers you listed, I have not had experience with the 60 grain 223 bullet. But I believe unless you're into high velocity magnums you'll never need a better bullet than the Hornady Spire Points.

Picked up a new Ruger LH Hawkeye this year in 7mm-08. I was impressed with the velocities they were getting out of the sst and gmx load. Bought some Whitetail Interlock to break the barrel in as they are quite a bit cheaper. Rifle grouped a little over a half inch with them so I decided to stay with them. Took a nice Blacktail with them and had great bullet performance. Now wish Hornaday made them in a 154 grainer for Elk. 2750-2800 fps would be the cats meow with them.

Hi all, first post here.

I've used the 150gr SP Interlock from a short barreled 30-06 on a number of whitetail, always with good results. They were a very accurate bullet too. Performance wasn't anything spectacular, but they did the job well (and were noticeably better on whitetail than the FailSafe bullets I tried one year).

Unfortunately the 308 I have now doesn't shoot any 150gr bullets well, so I have a pile of them waiting for my next rifle.

The only Interlock bullet I've used that I had complaints with is the .358 200gr RN for the 35 Remington. That bullet seems to have a small window between no expansion and too much expansion; the Remington Core-Lokt 200gr RN is a much better choice in that application.

Response from Hornady when asked if the bullet loaded in the factory ammo is the same as the 60 gr component bullet:

"The bullet used in our American Whitetail offering is of heavier construction than the 60 SP bullet that we offer as a component. While the American Whitetail bullet is not currently available as a component, I can let management know that you would like to see it offered. Thanks"

That's interesting. So they beefed up the 60 grainer. I definitely wish they'd offer it as a component.

Update on this. My 13 year old got her first deer today with the 100gr .243 load. 65 yards quartering towards us (maybe 20 degrees away from head on). One shot into the neck/lungs. Bang/flop, no exit and I didn't bother trying to dig around and catch the bullet. Works for me, and I could not be prouder of her.

It was a public land/national forest deer and we put in the miles together to earn him. She spend hours on the range working on positions, and it payed off as she had to take a sitting shot. We got to watch the deer approach behind a screen of brush, and we had plenty of time to get the jitters. She did great!

EXCELLENT!

Haven't read the entire thread but this jumped out for me. My first elk was a heavy 5x5 with a 225 Interlock out of a 338 Win. First shot was tight behind the shoulder and I knew he was dead on his feet. He was on the edge of a steep nasty draw and when he didn't go straight down, the next one was on the point of the shoulder trying to break him down right there - it did. On autopsy, the first shot went straight through taking out both lungs. The second shot broke the on shoulder and deflected up through the neck - found it under the hide near the off side ear. That seemed odd at the time, but it certainly worked - bullet was nicely mushroomed and retained 65%.

A few years later, I shot a 4x4 bull with a 180 Interlock out of a 300 H&H. Steep uphill shot and hit higher than intended. Bullet went through the scapula and took out the spine. Dead right there but was surprised to find the bullet just the other side of the spine - I suppose it was fully expanded when it hit the spine...

If I'm loading for a new rifle, Interlocks are usually what I start with...

Thanks! I am very proud of her. She is an incredible young lady and I am truly fortunate to have her as my daughter. She certainly put in her homework, hunted hard, and never gave up hope. She wants an autoloading shotgun for Christmas, since her youth pump is too small. I imagine she will get her wish.

The 225 gr. .338s and 500 gr. .458s worked well on the deer i shot with them!!!!!!