Posted: 23 May 2010 at 14:25 | IP Logged

For many decades I've been a Hornady reloader.  they always were reliable and performed very well on game.  Also shot thousnads of Rem Cor-Loc.  Use to like Sierra for target, but always had poor in game performance with them.

Looking to doing some heavy reloading this summer, and I was surprised to see how many EXPENSIVE bullet designs that Hornady offers.

Looks like for hunting performance the interlock is going to be the only thing available for me.

Too bad that everyone is running to premium bullets any longer.

Posted: 25 May 2010 at 13:35 | IP Logged

My first centerfire rifle was a .30-06.  Back then that was THE elk gun for the NW Colorado natives, where I lived.  I started loading 150 gr Hornady bullets for deer and antelope, and 180 gr Sierra's for elk.  I shot a pile of all of them with those bullets without any problems.

It wasn't until I re-chambered my '06 to .30 Gibbs, and started pushing the 180 gr bullets to close to 3000 fps, that I found that I needed a stronger bullet.  Back then, the only "premium" bullet on the market was the Nosler Partition.  I started loading the 180 gr Partitions in my Gibbs and that became my favorite elk combination for 25 years, taking an elk almost every year with it, plus a couple of moose.

For deer size game, I built a .257 Ackley  shooting 117 gr Sierra GameKing bullets and 120 gr Hornady HP bullets.  Both bullets performed about equally on game animals, but I've probably shot more animals with the Sierras.  For the past 30 years, I've used this combination to take a deer and antelope almost every year, plus 5 sheep, a 6x6 bull elk, and a caribou.  Most were one shot kills, and I've been completely satisfied with bullet performance.

In 2004, I booked a cape buffalo hunt in Zimbabwe, and for that hunt, I built a .375 Ultra mag.  By this time, "premium" bullets were (and still are) the in thing to shoot, so with this new rifle, I worked up a load with 300 gr Barnes TSX bullets for it.  Those bullets worked great for my buffalo and 4 other Plains Game animals.

I also took a 7 mm Rem mag shooting 160 gr Nosler Accubond bullets on that hunt.  They also performed very well on a half dozen other Plains Game animals.

In 2007 I did another South African hunt, and for that trip I only took my .375 RUM with 270 gr TSX bullets.  I shot 13 animals on that trip, and again the TSX bullets performed superbly, making one shot kills out to 348 yds.

A couple of years ago, I built a .300 Weatherby Vanguard to replace my .30 Gibbs primarily for elk size animals.  With the velocities of the Weatherby, I want a strong bullet, and I'm getting good velocity and accuracy with both 168 gr and 180 gr Barnes TSX bullets.

Reloading the .300 Wby, I reload Hornady AMax bullets at about $0.30 each for practice, and the Barnes TSX bullets at about $0.75 each for hunting.  So far, I'm 3 animals for 3 shots with the Weatherby, so that's about the cost of one beer for outstanding bullet performance on 3 animals.  That's about the cheapest cost of the hunt.

Posted: 25 May 2010 at 13:52 | IP Logged

Where in Zim did you hunt for Buffalo?  I was there Zambesi river valley about that time.

I used 416 with 400 grain Hornady.  My brother used the 350 Magtip in his 416 Weatherby both killed them dead.  The Hornady that I had as my 3 cartridge was the FMF which was a heavy jacket over a SS inner shell with lead inside the SS.  Goes straight through most anything.

Nice to see you on BSB  buffy.  Can you give us a larger pic of your avatar?

Posted: 25 May 2010 at 20:46 | IP Logged

Bear,

For the non-premium hunting bullets - My favorites are the Speer HCs and the Sierra GameKings.  Think about 8 yrs ago Sierra reworked the jacket thickness on the GKs.