Was thinking of trying them in my SAUM's - 162 in the 7 and 180 in the 30. Running them at 2950 in both doesn't really require a premium but I really like Partitions. Interlocks may be a good alternative - especially if Partitions won't shoot well. I like the fact that they have a harder core than other cup/core bullets. I've shot more than a few deer with 7mm 154's and they work great at 280 Rem speeds.

Any field experience on the 162 or 180 grain Interlock bullets on Elk size animals?

My family has killed a flock of elk with the 154 Hornady in a 7 Mag, 162 is in the same class of bullet.

I've loaded 180gr interlocks for three friends(all in .300wm) and between them they've shot two elk-both one shot, seven mule deer, and a bunch of antelope and whitetails. They are great bullets, and have shot well in anything I've loaded. They seem to be a bit tougher than Gamekings or BT's, but not as tough as a Partition. I don't find them to be more accurate than a Partition, but an all around good performer at a favorable price.

I have used the interlocks in 30-30, 308, 30-06, 338WM and seen them in action with 7mmRM and 270 on many deer and elk. Accurate enough to at least 400 on the range, only one recovered from a head of game and never a lost animal. Yeah, they work just fine.

Read up on them and you see that they are a step above basic cup and core using the "interlock ring" to old together the base of the bullet, Hornady's attempt to match Nosler's partition to hold the base shank together. Affordable for a lot of practice on the range, accurate if you work up your load and reliable for hunting.

I know they work for deer size creatures - I have never stopped one inside of a deer size creature yet. I did shoot one smallish black bear with a 154 from my 280 ~ 25 years ago but a sample of one doesn't inform much.

I've always had very good accuracy with the Hornady's. My 7RM shoots the 175's into quarter size groups.

Thanks for the info.

Took my first elk with a 162g 7mm Interlock running 3000fps or so at the muzzle, range 110 yards. Was not at all happy with the performance of the bullet (47% weight retention on a broadside) and haven't used them since.

My vote would go to the Partitions, or at least an InterBond or AccuBond. My own choice these days is North Fork, TTSX and MRX. My hunting buddy used Trophy Bonded - we were both impressed with their performance but they are no longer available as components.

Lucky, any less retention and that elk would have spit it right back at ya and come and kicked your butt back off the mountain.

LOL!

I've shot a one cow with .270 130g Interlock.

It was about a 90 yd shot, broke the far scapula and lodged under the hide.

I wasn't sure that was enough penetration on a 400# cow, so the next time I used an Interlock I moved up to a 400gr roundnose out of a 416 Rigby (about 120 yds). That one went all the way through

I'd hazard a guess that more elk are killed every year with "whatever is on sale at Wal-Mart" than all the premiums put together. Not that that is preferred, just that some seem to get the job done with less than premium bullets. I'd say the Interlock would be at the upper end of those "less than premium" types.
Like most here I have much more experience with deer than elk, that said, I've never been let down by an Interlock.

Not likely � it was a broadside shot. The bull dropped on the shot and never got back up, although it required a finisher.

My disappointment with the 162g Interlock bullet performance had to do with concern about what would happen if the challenge to its integrity was greater (it had hit a single rib and came to rest under the off-side hide). The following year I went with 160g Grand Slams and used them without issue for the next 20 years. When I did recover one it had also come to rest under the hide on the off side of an elk - but it had destroyed both shoulder joints of the 5x5 bull before doing so and still retained over 70% of its original weight.

Use whatever bullets you like. I prefer bullets that provide reliable but limited expansion with relatively high weight retention and deep penetration. More importantly, I want the animals put on the ground fast. The Grand Slams did that for me, as have the North Fork, TTSX and MRX I�ve been using in my bolt guns the last few years. Moreover, these bullets have been effective on antelope to elk without the excessive meat destruction fragmenting bullets can cause - something I appreciate as I�m more interested in the meat than the horns or antlers.

i've shot quite a few elk with a 338 win mag with 225 grain interlocks. All died right where they were shot.
I load for my hunting partners and they all shoot 180 interlocks out of 300 win mags. Havent lost an animal from any of the and never had to track one.
I shot A 5X5 bull out of a 300 rum that required 2 shots.
I have never recovered any bullets to check weight retention

Ole_270 makes a great point. It's more about the rifleman than the bullet. I've never seen an elk not go down if it was hit properly with an adequate bullet and the Hornady Interlock is more than adequate.

I know it is not a direct comparison but by Grandpa swore by his 165gr Interlocks out of his 30-06 for deer and elk.

Why not just work up a good accurate load with the interlock that matches a load with the partition and use the interlocks for plinking and the partition load for elk? That's what I do and I save alot of money and get plenty of practice that way. The partitions that I bought today were $37.00/ 50 and the hornady interlocks are $23.99/ 100. Makes perfect sense to me.

CH, the Hornady Interlock has provided me excellent mushrooms and pass thrus. OTH I have used "premiums" including the fail safe, Barnes X, the partition and in the calibers I use none really did a better job though the fail safe did blow a BIG hole on the far side of a mulie. I will confess though, the last three head, 2 antelope and a bull, went down to an accubond each, the bull with a long angle shot.

After taking a look at the cutaway of the accubond, it is really nothing but a plastic tipped interlock. Since I use calibers that stay under 2850 fps at the muzzle, guess old school works for old school velocity.

Now, if I would decide to jump into a 30-378.... that would be a new game.

Pssst- BSA, have you been looking over my shoulder?

i am no seasoned ELk hunter or chaser. But, I saw a video of a large Elk bull absorb a broadside 180 gr from a 300 Wby at roughly 200 yards and appeared no more bothered than if a fly was in his face. The second shot sent him to the death angel.

Was totally amazing to me.

Yeah the punishment they can take is amazing, and the best I have seen, 250 gr partition at 50 yds. Broke ribs, pulverized lungs, nicked the heart, cracked ribs on-the other side, deflected and cracked the scapula and ended up in his neck. For 20 secs or so, stood looking at me like he just had a mosquito bite and then fell over.

There are videos out there of big bulls fighting, but ever get the chance to see a couple of the big boys at it live, you will know awesome.

Seeing this sort of thing leads, I think, to the "I need a bigger rifle for elk" syndrome,which is a pretty normal reaction.....I have had it happen to me,and have seen it with various 300 and 338 magnums.Then you run into a few that collapse like rag dolls to a 270,30/06,or 7 mag.They can act very tough,but are dead on their feet with good hits and good bullets.You just have to let the system bleed out.

After awhile,though,I came to realize you have to go pretty far up in caliber to guarantee reaction from them all the time.And the solution to killing them effecively seems to be wreck the chest cavity and take some important bone along the way,and they flop over from anything reasonable....miss those things, hit around the edges and they get real tough in a hurry.

Have not used the Hornady's myself but have helped dress and skin a few killed with a 308Norma and 180 Interlocks, tracing wound channels,and they seem to have done a good job with shots transversing the chest into the off side shoulder bones and muscles....never did find one....

after that experience, the 338 has only been to the range and in a gun sleeve as a second gun. I have gone back to the basic 06 that does just as well if not better with less punishment for me.

Interestingly the partition on that bull is the only bullet I have ever recovered from a game animal.

colo wolf: Interesting that you retired the 338.Just too heavy to lug around? Great cartridge.......

Colo Wolf -

I have no doubt your experience with the InterLocks has been good � that would mirror the results many people have had with them and other cup-and-core bullets. One difference between your experience and mine is the muzzle and hence the range of potential impact velocities � while you limit yourself to loads running around 2850fps, my bolt gun loads run 2900fps to 3300fps. (My .308 Win is an exception � in it I use the same 165g North Fork and 168g TTSX bullets I use in my .30-06 rifles, but at a mild 2700fps.)

Note that I don�t claim so-called �premium� bullets will provide better or different results than cup-and-core bullets. On the contrary, I have often mentioned my experience with 160g Barnes XLC bullets and an unfortunate buck antelope, an incident where any cup-and-core bullet would have probably done much better � including HP or polymer-tipped target bullets or even varmint bullets. That experience left a very bad taste in my mouth for �X� type bullets, including bullets of similar (monolithic) front-end design like the E-Tip and FailSafe. When the TSX bullets came out I tested them in several rifles but could never bring myself to use them in the field, especially when I started seeing claims and photographic evidence of their failure to expand.

What I DO claim regarding �premium� bullets is that ***some*** have provided me with exactly what I am looking for in a bullet � reliable but controlled and limited expansion with relatively high weight retention at all ranges (read �impact velocities�) I might reasonably expect to encounter in the field. The Speer Grand Slam, North Fork SS and FP, Barnes TTSX and MRX and Speer Trophy Bonded bullets have proven themselves to me every time I�ve used them or seen them used by a member of my hunting party. The repeated success with these bullets, from coyotes to elk, is the reason I continue to use them myself and recommend them to others.

That said, I continue to experiment with other bullets. At the current time I am loading the following:

120g A-Frame (.257 Roberts) (I�ve been shooting this for several years, just haven�t taken game with it.)
110g AccuBond (.257 Roberts) (Ditto the above.)
130g Scirocco II (6.5-06AI)
150g Ballistic Tip (.30-06)
150g AccuBond (.30-06)

The 150g Ballistic Tips are something I started working with last week, and they are very accurate in all three of my .30-06 rifles at 2950-3000fps . JB claims they won�t blow up and my nephews and I may test that claim on antelope. Being doubtful, based on past BT experience as a spectator, it is much more likely we will use them for practice and use the 150g AccuBonds for the hunting instead. (Or we may just stick with the 168g TTSX that have worked in the past, dropping the antelope reliably with minimal meat loss in every case where we�ve tried them.)

Well the retirement is a bit of a story. About 5 years back developed some health issues that firing a horse pill from a miniature mortar shell was not helping. About that time I had an 03 from the 20's and traded into straight across a New Haven 70 classic in 06, that I am still working on getting the full potential out of, ok its more me than the rifle.

For the past year I have been on a bit of a forced retirement and started to get back into shooting after not doing much at all for years.

Now for the 338 - its a mid 70's Win Push feed, classic stock that has been in at least one horse wreck and the butt looks like someone stirred a campfire with it at one time. Yeah, it definitely has character. It weighs about 8 lbs all up and kicks like a mule with 250's, which it seems to love and when I was in practice with it could do MOA at any time using RL19.

So back in April I took it out and it wouldn't even stay in minute of berm, and thinking it was me, shot up quite a few rounds. Got home with it and thinking of selling but actually the thing isn't worth the time to post it up, so went to work on it.

The barrel was a geologists dream, it was a dark coal mine in there and after getting the carbon out found a rich vein of copper embedded. Montana extreme treatment over four days finially played that out and then JD bore paste to manually lap the barrel which seems to have helped.

Bedded the action and two inches of barrel, refinished the stock to a nice muted oil finish, found the scope to have a bad spot in the variable so switched to a new Nikon (my current favorite of scopes)made sure everything was snug, tight, glued or whatever would work short of welding it together and went back to the range.

So now I am at a 1.5 grouping rifle, a reflection of me not the gun, and with some quality time should again be back at MOA. It may just become my main go to again.

This little "retirement" has been an education with all the guns I have fixed for myself since January and there isn't an empty piece of brass in the house.

As you can tell from the length of this post, now I need a job to again support this affliction, and the damn barry obamarama show isn't helping.

I'm a Nos.Partition fan and have been for more years than I care to remember. But I have used Hornadys a bunch too, enough to know that if you do your part you'll be eating elk. As a side note, I seen to be recovering more bullets from game than most of you guys. I have more than a dozen expanded Nosler Partitions that I,ve taken from animals I've killed. These are .270, 7mm, and 30cal. bullets, some from deer, but most from elk. I also have Sierras, Hornadys and Remingtons, most of these are from deer sized animals.

CH, like you said earlier and we agreed on another post, we all do what we think works for us the best. Not faulting you at all for your efforts. My earlier post was to bring a smile, and it seems to have done that with at least two people.

To the subject at hand, definitely hear ya about concerns on quartering shots and what would work. Definitely a believer in matching to velocity, and found for me that the middle level cup and core upset and do the boiler room destruction quite well. My targets seem to fall over in close proximity.

Again if I were to move up to mag velocities I would definitely be exploring the current Barnes along with other offerings to step it up.

colo: Sounds like the old 338 has been through the mill...gives character

Glad she is perkin' again.They do romp a bit with 250's and RL19,which seems custom made for the cartridge IME...

superT,I have a few recovered bullets over here;mostly Partitions and BBC's.Lots of times they are in there but just tough to find in all that meat....

How is the front-end design of the E-tip(polymer tip) any way similar to the front-end design of the Failsafe/X/TSX(HP)?

The similarity is in the lead-free monometal front end designs, shared by Barnes MRX and TTSX, the most visible difference being the presence of a polymer tip or not.

Perhaps I should have said �lead free� front-end designs for clarity. It wasn�t until after I did some waterjug testing with the MRX that I finally decided to try the polymer tipped �lead free� bullets on game in 2008. Since then I�ve dropped one antelope with a 100g .257� TTSX, one antelope with the 168g .308� TTSX and two deer with a 180g .308� MRX. (Seems like I�m forgetting one, but close enough.) My son-in-law dropped an antelope, also with one of my 168g .308� TTSX handloads. Unlike the �X� bullets, the MRX and TTSX seem to expand rapidly and reliably. They also, in my limited testing, drop the animals quickly with minimal meat damage. Although I have not tried them, I expect these traits would extend to the polymer tipped E-Tip and newer GMX from Hornady.

Well I have retired my .338/300Ultra mag! It just got to heavy to tote, especially up in the thin air climates of Colorado and Wyoming. I like the .338 caliber a bunch for elk, none better in my book. My featherweight model 70 will suffice for this years hunting trip and the .338 Win mag in model 70 (which weighs close to 3 lbs more, will be back up I suppose.
Those elk sure react when hit with a 225 or 250 grain bullet from a .338 cal rifle and that is a fact.

Colo Wolf �

There have been a few short term �retirements� in my past � hope yours works out well. My offer to take you to my range is still good and I hope to get out there this weekend, probably Sunday. Let me know.

Glad you got your .338 running again. I�ll spend the next couple months deciding what to barrel my Ruger long action receiver with (got the stock today), but a .375 Ruger or .338-375 are the leading contenders. Using a 225g AB@2900fps and 260g AB@ 2850fps respectively, they are fairly comparable out to 500 yards and surprisingly so even at 1000 yards. There is a pretty significant difference in recoil, however, and the .338-375 still looks like the eventual winner.

Colo Wolf, I just got a newhaven classic sporter in 06' 2 months ago and it didn't shoot very good. I had to freefloat the barrel and after that it shoots my pet load with 165 hornady interlock spire point great. It likes 56 grains of IMR-4350 and all groups I shot last weekend were under 1 moa. The smallest was .636". As for the 338, I've tried RE-19 and didn't like it because it seemed to kick more???? My 338 win mag likes 68 grains of IMR-4350 (pretty mild load) and the sierra 250 gameking. I'm one of those guys that like the partition, but am not affraid of using this bullet and caliber on elk. I think a 250 grain hornady interlock would plow an elk over too.

CH - wish I could take you up on the range offer but need to do a rain check, things right now are really that tight.
What range do you use? The one in Bennett? I was looking into that one but went with one up north of Greeley, got a few friends up in some small towns up that way, fees were a little less and competition days seemed to be fewer. Down side is longest butts are at 200 meters, but then use a small target you can aim small and hit small. My ex-BIL was into High Power and was out that way a lot in comps, last I heard he was into Palma and for all I know may still be going out there.

BSA- was looking at going in the future with IMR4350 in the 338, been doing some exploring for loads this past winter, and that seemed like a good avenue. I have a lot of different loads up for both the 06 and 338 built over the years and remainders to play with before I get back into some serious development, but will take your well founded advice, especially that you find that powder good in both cartridges. Recoil management isnt really an issue, I used to push a 100 rounds thru it in a day, and that was way easier on a shoulder than benching 2 oz turkey loads over an hour.

I was thinking of bedding the 06, but in reality it was bought as a hunting rifle first and all the loads I have used have been tight enough, though not competition ready. Quality of firearm is WAY above the old push feeds and it is a real pleasure to shoot the thing, especially after learning how to sweeten the trigger.

Colo Wolf -

Locally I use the Ben Lomond Gun Club (www.blgc.org), 17 miles east and 5 miles south of Highway 86. It�s about a 35 minute drive from the house. Annual dues are reasonable (pretty cheap, actually of you attend 4 meetings and put in 8 hours work annually) and most days the ranges are not crowded at all. Far from it, in fact - many days I get out there and have the range I'm using to myself.

In addition to the shotgun, .22, black powder and pistol ranges, there are two 100 yard ranges where you can shoot high-power rifles (I use them for load development, scope checks and plinking with the leverguns and pistols), plus the longer rifle range that runs out to 600 yards. The 600 yard and one of the 100 yard rifle ranges have covered shooting positions to keep the sun and wind and rain off. When you get a chance let me know.

I would have thought the Interlocks were too soft.

CH - That sounds like a great place, going to look up the website.And yes definitely let ya know when my life gets a little more.... ordered shall we say?

Spots - Interlocks do have a soft lead core, but for lower velocity that is a good thing. If you are pushing faster, then yeah, a more "premium" should be sought. I haven't looked at the Hornady site for a while, you might want to take a look and see if they still show cutaways. For that matter, think I will take a tour of all bullet sites, would be a good thing to do.
Get myself much better edumacated on these here new things.