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Best Hunting Bullet? Ft. Hornady's Seth Swerczek
403 Plays9 days ago
Drew Miles Podcast sits down with Seth Swerczek from Hornady for a deep-dive on bullet design and real-world terminal performance. They break down varmint vs match vs hunting bullets, why some projectiles can be “lights out” and others can be inconsistent, and how velocity windows drive expansion and penetration. The conversation hits everything from V-MAX nostalgia and modern ELD-VT performance, to the truth behind ELD-M vs ELD-X construction, energy debates, and practical caliber choices for elk. They close with a focused recommendation for .22 Creedmoor loads (80gr ELD-X and 69gr ELD-VT) and a quick detour into 7PRC vs 280 Ackley, plus some desert dirt-bike talk.
Key takeaways / bullets (for show notes page)
- Lead-core varmint bullets (example: V-MAX) create dramatic terminal effect on coyotes compared to many monolithic copper options that can “pencil” through thin-skinned game.
- ELD-VT (Varmint Target) is positioned as a modern, fast-twist varmint bullet line: low-drag shape + explosive terminal behavior.
- Factory match ammo has closed the gap with handloads for many rifles; modern chambers/twist rates can be more forgiving and consistent.
- ELD-M vs ELD-X: externally similar in some weights, but internally different (jacket thickness/taper + core retention features) which changes consistency and “performance envelope” on game.
- Match bullets can absolutely work on animals, but “sometimes” is the problem—consistency matters more than best-case performance.
- Velocity is a driver for bullet function; too slow can fail to open, too fast can cause shallow blow-up depending on design.
- For elk-sized game, Seth’s personal preference trends toward 7mm (not necessarily “more energy,” but appropriate diameter + bullet design + confidence).
- 7PRC’s “why” (vs custom 7 mag / 280 AI): off-the-shelf ability to run long, high-BC bullets in factory rifles/ammo without custom mags/reamers/higher-pressure handload gymnastics.
- .22 Creedmoor: Seth’s field experience is strongly positive with 80gr ELD-X for deer/antelope and even larger plains game; 69gr ELD-VT is his coyote “medicine.”
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Transcript
Role of Lead in Bullet Manufacturing
00:00:00
Speaker
Some people love them, some people hate them. And I can give two pisses about recoil. Running a 6.5 just to say I did. Don't stop being a. Overall, it's more cost effective and it just helps in overall manufacturing. So there's things like that that that go into it as well. There's something about lead, you know, and you can say what you want about it or, you know, you know Europe and California, a few other places. Lead always has been and always will be just an ideal material.
Introduction to Seth Swarczyk and His Industry Experience
00:00:28
Speaker
All right. Hey, this will be a fun one because I love ballistics. I love bullets. I love killing things. So I have my buddy sweat, Seth Swarczyk. Try and get your name right. Did I said your first name wrong? Seth Swarczyk from Hornady Bullets on Seth. How you doing, dude?
00:00:42
Speaker
Doing good. It's, uh, you know, that time of year where, you know, the competition season starting to heat up for those that are into that sort of thing. They're just, you know, that starting to heat up and, uh, or just get off the ground rather. And the, uh,
00:00:54
Speaker
Predator season is on us. You know, if you're into calling coyotes right now is the place to be. It is, it is on. So things are going good here in Nebraska.
Exploration of Bullet Types and Personal Experiences
00:01:03
Speaker
Yeah, dude, we went out yesterday and called some dogs, uh, running V maxes, 55 grainers. So it's kind of funny. I had loaded up like, cause I hand load.
00:01:11
Speaker
I had loaded up like, i don't know, a thousand V maxes back in like 2015. And then California changed the laws. We can only use copper. Well, now that I'm an Arizona resident, I'm like back to VMAXs and life-changing, dude. And that's kind of where I wanted to go today. I want to talk about match bullets, hunting bullets, varmint bullets, the different types of bullets, you know all these redneck engineers at home who swear by these bullets, that bullet. You know what i mean? And um like some of my experiences... Right. Cause like I could tell you like on the copper side of things um and I'm, but I'm kind of agnostic when it comes to bullet brands, right. Kind of who shoots best. I do shoot a ton of Hornady to be honest. um I shoot a lot of Barnes cause Barnes is like what I started out with. And yeah, sorry the day it's a great bullet, right. They're kind of like the guys that started the copper thing. So I've shot a lot of Barnes.
00:02:02
Speaker
But dude, and I've told Barnes this and they're not going to be upset about it. Shooting 243 with a Barnes 85 grade TTSX is like torturing coyotes. It's not killing coyotes. It's literally just shooting right through them, penciling them.
00:02:18
Speaker
And it's really sad, dude. I mean, I've shot coyotes five times with that thing sometimes. like And they're just spinning, you know, and they're not dying because just penciling through them. But dude, we went out yesterday. called an... My kid broke his foot. I've, you saw the picture. don't He broke his foot. You'll see him at at Western hunt. Okay. he' fought Back in, back in October. He hasn't shot a gun since like probably October, September.
00:02:38
Speaker
I called him in six dogs yesterday. He only hit one. He missed three.
Success Stories and Performance of Various Bullets
00:02:42
Speaker
Dude. He had he had a rough morning, but dude, I'll tell you what, that one that the V max did hit out of my two, two, three dude, dead right there. And it's like, Oh my gosh, this is so much nicer. Same thing.
00:02:53
Speaker
Same thing with, ah um, like I use a six, five cream more with an ELDM in it for coyotes. Same thing, dude. It's like big explosive. I mean, just puts them in their place. Yeah, there's something about lead, you know, and you can say what you want about it or, you know, you know Europe and California, a few other places. Lead always has been and always will be just an ideal material for a bullet core for a bunch of reasons. Obviously, gold would be a wonderful bullet core material as well. Cost prohibitive where lead is unfortunately now, lead's getting more and more expensive, but it's relatively affordable. Super malleable, easy to machine, and, you know, it's very dense. And so it helps in a bunch of facets of of the ballistics side of things. And then on the terminal side of things, you get a lead core bullet going real fast. If you want a dead coyote or really a dead anything, you know, lead is a fantastic bullet core. There's certainly applications for monolithics or some non-lead alternatives even in the varmint
Introduction and Discussion of ELDVT Bullets
00:03:52
Speaker
world. But, man, yeah, a classic VMAX, it gets no better.
00:03:57
Speaker
Yeah, and you guys do have a new bullet too, right? cause i was looking at, like, there's a new one, like, newer than the VMAX out now too, right? A 55-grainer or 53-grainer? 53-grainer? What's that called? he's got 53. That's also in the VMAX line. The 53, when you compare it to the rest of the VMAX line, especially in 22-cal, all those 22-cals from 60-grain on down were really... designed to work with the 1 in 14 twists that you're going to find in a 22 250 and legacy products have to work with legacy cartridges and twist rates well the 53 with the 223 being sammy twist rate of 1 in 12 the 53 was purpose built to get all of the ballistics possible out of a 1 in 12 twist compatible projectile so the 53 grain v max ballistically has a you know much higher BC, lower drag than the 55 or even the 60 grain VMAX. And you may even get some good speed out of them. So the VMAX is like the the varmint hunting king as far as Hornady products go.
00:04:58
Speaker
We have a newer bullet line called the ELDVT. And the VT stands for varmint target. Those projectiles are- That's what I'm talking about. ELDVT, that's what I was talking about. Yeah. Yeah. They're great bullets. They're going to be a little bit heavier.
00:05:10
Speaker
ah But they are for significantly faster twist rates. So they're for the modern cartridges. So you think all of the arcs, the 6mm arc, the.22 arc. um You've got the Creedmoor family, 6.5, 25, 22, 6mm, the arc. They're so there for these modern cartridges with modern chambers and modern twist rates. So they just, you get the best of both worlds. You get the low drag shape of like an ELD match style bullet with a really long ogive and a long boat tail.
00:05:39
Speaker
But you get some lighter weight options like a traditional varmint bullet. And then you have hand grenade terminal performance if you're into varmint hunting. Yeah, there's nothing better than that like cloud of hair.
00:05:51
Speaker
right what yeah this thing is you know dog is My kid's like, holy smokes. I'm like, yeah, dude, when you can connect, they freaking drop, doesn't don't they? Yeah, you can hear it. You can feel it sometimes. It's oh's pretty awesome. it You can definitely hear when those things hit. Yeah, the ELDVT, because I had a GF Nimnich on, and he's shooting the ELDVTs now. and he's trying That's right. He's shooting sixty two s the 62s. The 62s, and I was like, oh man. Problem is for me, I've got so many of those freaking...
00:06:18
Speaker
the, the
Advancements in Factory Ammunition
00:06:20
Speaker
55, 55 is already loaded up the V maxes. I'm like, yeah, I'm not going to switch for a long time on that gun, but I am going to build another gun this year. Cause it's what I do, right? Like I build guns, I play with guns, I load bullets. I have fun with it.
00:06:32
Speaker
And, um, and that's kind of what I want to talk about today it was just bullets and have fun with like, what, what are we doing? Cause like I said, like those, those ELD VTs, phenomenal coyote bullet, phenomenal Bobcat bullet.
00:06:44
Speaker
Um, great target bullet. Right. um I do shoot a little NRL, not enough to even say I do it. I just enough to be able to say i know how to do it. Um, and I'm shooting the, like what? One 43 LDMs. Is that one 43? Is that correct? So we got a one 40 match, one 43 X, and then a one 47. Okay. the forty I'm shooting one 40 LDMs in that gun. Right. And, um, dude, like there's somebody who reloads. I've been not reloading a lot lately. It sounds terrible because you guys are doing so good at creating these bullets. Right. Like, so like I had went out and bought a ton of freaking brass. I mean like high end the Pua brass from a six, five cream more than I built.
00:07:24
Speaker
And, and then I had to go shoot this match. just went and bought a bunch of you. preloaded ELDMs and dude, like I built the gun myself, determinist action, just to um, prefer barrel blank barrel, put those ELDMs in it. And it was freaking shooting dimes.
00:07:37
Speaker
Yeah. And I haven't re I have not loaded. i have probably a thousand dollars in components sitting there that I have not loaded. because I just keep going and buying bullets at the store and shooting it. Yeah. It's, you know, we've come a long way, you know, even in the last five years, but certainly within the last 10 as a, as a industry, you know, used to be if you wanted match accuracy you had to load for it and that was no questions asked the only exception in that world was like the federal 168 gold medal match that factory ammo shot in every 308 ever made and we're kind of in a similar situation with the 6.5 if you got a 6.5 Creedmoor and you buy 140 grain ELD match ammo and it doesn't shoot there's something wrong with the rifle you know it's one of those magic combinations but really with these modern chamber designs
00:08:21
Speaker
which we can talk about more if you want to. With these modern chamber designs, you get so much accuracy. That's just what the taboo term is inherent accuracy. You get chamber designs that really ah benefit and and lend themselves to being accurate across the board with a variety of different bullets and bullet shapes and bullet materials. And so it's very forgiving in that way. And I as well grew up hand loading. I was hand loading as a little fathead with my dad downstairs in the basement. Hand load to this day, do a lot of reloading.
00:08:52
Speaker
But man, there's a lot of times where i'm like, I don't have the time or if I do have the time, what else could I be doing with that time? And you as a business owner, like I've got other stuff to do. i can buy this ammo and it's not going to negatively impact my performance. And in some cases I can't hand load any better than this. Just go with that.
00:09:10
Speaker
Or my shooting ability isn't good enough to even justify the extra 16th I might gain by doing, you know, 15 hours at the range going out and figuring it out. Like, it's not like... I'm in that camp. Like, we're shooting steel anyways, right? We're shooting deer. Like, it's like, it's not...
00:09:25
Speaker
I don't know. And it's, it's very hard for me to justify loading right now. And it's like, I feel bad saying that because dude, I've hand loaded for forever.
Comparing Bullet Performance in Hunting
00:09:32
Speaker
Right. I've got all the stuff down there. I've got dyes for every caliber and I'll still load this year. I got to get everything set up in the new house. But so with that said, so the ELDMs are shooting in that, in that, in our railgun.
00:09:43
Speaker
I had to, my kid had a deer test first year tag this year in the States. He went to Africa with me, killed some animals. He had deer tag here. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to bring my 14 pound and NRL rifle on that hunt. And it's having to shoot ELDMs because everyone does it. And I want to like, cause I have been the biggest proponent of like match bullets or for match shooting paper and, and hunting bullets for hunting. Like I, that's just me, right? Like I'm a big believer in like ah you know, an ELDX and Acubond, just freaking, um, you know, a TTSX, whatever it is. I'm just going to penetrate and get all the way through that thing. I'm a big believer in it. Like, cause I've killed amyloid burgers too. And I just had, I've just haven't had the best experiences. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to use the LDMs and see how they work.
00:10:26
Speaker
And dude, I'm not going to lie with that 26 inch barrel at the 200 yards. They were 280 yards. They were shooting.
00:10:33
Speaker
Pretty epic. Like my kid, my 12 year old shot his buck standing up off my tricer X tripod toward 80 yards. The first one he missed by like two feet. That bullet's still going. It's probably down by the South four right now. But he gave a warning. He's intending to delete give some warning shots to 12 year old this year. So anyways, he connects perfect shot.
00:10:51
Speaker
And honestly, it it looked like just shooting at Neil the X. It went, it fully expanded, went all the way through the buck. It's behind, it didn't hit, it did hit shoulders behind the shoulders. That might be why all the way through that buck ran,
00:11:03
Speaker
very similar, like a copper bullet. I ran a hundred yards, fell down and died. Very, very common shot. Right. Um, the next buck was like 260 yards. My kid shot.
00:11:13
Speaker
and it just was like, everything you hear about these bullets, it did it. It like freaking hit it And that buck just went lights out, dude. I mean, like it didn't take a step. It just went lights out. Every, it just dumped everything a thing that thing to drop to the ground.
00:11:24
Speaker
So i was like, that's pretty cool. Like that, that's, that, that was okay. i'm I'm having a hard time justifying my, you know, my me, you know, getting, getting called a FUD on rock slide. You know what I mean? sure do I'm the tip. I'm the dude who's like shoot a 30 caliber shoot. Uh, you know, shoot a 30 out. I shot 30 out six for two seasons last couple of years just to do it, just to prove, make people mad, you know, which is funny. Cause we're gonna talk about my 22 cream or I'm building right now for this season. So like, we're going that. Cause I'm trying to be, I'm trying to be knowledgeable and understand all this stuff. Right. So then,
00:11:55
Speaker
My kid, Seekins gave my kid like a 20-inch barrel. It's really bitching, dude. Like a 20-inch barrel, super light, got the folding chassis on it. Oh, yeah. it's they're They're rad guns, dude. They're super sick guns. and They gave my kid one of those guns, and I took it to the range, and honestly, had 100 Barnes TSXs, and it just – it wouldn't shoot the Barnes.
00:12:13
Speaker
Not the Barnes Bullets' fault. It just wouldn't shoot them. It was just shooting him too big of a group, and I'm like, okay, well – I got the gun like two weeks before this hunt. right it was He was going to Arizona for his mule deer hunt. and I was like, so of course throw those ELDMs in there and I'm like, holy crap, this thing's shooting like five eights. you know This is a 20 inch barrel little gun. It's shooting good. i'm like, well, we're shooting these.
00:12:34
Speaker
Now the velocities are down at like 2550 on that little 20 inch barrel. So they're real low. Um, we ended up getting on a buck. The buck was 350 yards. He gave him a warning shot again, this one, cause it's what he does. Apparently that he has on the buck, the buck stepped forward. He pulled the trigger and I'm like, you got to move the gun with the buck. You know, 12 kids are awesome. I don't know if you have kids. oh yeah see I'm on my third boy hunting right now. I'm like, it's always a rodeo. It's fun.
00:13:01
Speaker
So then he puts one perfectly behind, behind the shoulder, like a little bit far back, but it was coring away. The bullet goes through. it ends up, you can see in the pictures, actually the bullet in his shoulder. it didn't make it through.
00:13:13
Speaker
That buck ran probably 200 yards, lays down. he went, this is ELD. I'm not knocking horn. He's an ELD. I'm not an ELDX. Yeah. um Third deer. And that buck didn't die.
00:13:24
Speaker
We ended having to go over there about 30 minutes later. We shoot the buck in the neck and kill him. He's dead. um And it just didn't. It didn't do what ah an ELDX would have done, which what i would I, what I want a bullet to do, which is penetrate deep, go all the way through and just carry the energy all the way through the animal.
00:13:41
Speaker
Right. And it was kind of like, Oh man, this is kind of proves my point to where I, you know, if, if this would have been hornety CX bullet or a hornety ELDX, this buck probably would have been dead.
00:13:52
Speaker
um And it wasn't. So let's talk about it. Let's talk about, ELDXs versus ELDMs and like, why like are the ELDXs that inaccurate? Are the BCs that much inferior to the ELDM that we have to shoot ELDMs for everything? Cause that's the, that's the big thing, right? It's like, it's just, there's so much more accurate. There's so much more, the BCs.
00:14:14
Speaker
i mean, they're not much more, right? I mean like what's come on. Yeah, you know, there's there's nuance to it, and there is some where the BCs, you know, they look at our 180 ELD match in 7mm, compare that to the 175 ELDX in 7mm.
Inconsistencies in Bullet Performance for Hunting
00:14:29
Speaker
I mean, there's there's a significant difference there, and I get that. You know, typically Hornady as a company, much like you, has just had a blanket statement of match bullets are for match shooting and hunting bullets are for hunting. And it's easy to make blanket statements that way because it makes it very black and white. And for the average consumer, that's probably the message that needs to be conveyed. um When you're hunting with match bullets specifically that have a polymer tip, like the Hornady ELD match,
00:14:56
Speaker
Things are just a little different. They're a little nuanced. And the biggest thing is the consistency isn't the same. It's not always going to do the same thing in the same set of circumstances every single time, which is not desirable in a hunting bullet. There are instances, like you've witnessed, where you can kill anything with anything.
00:15:15
Speaker
And shot placement is always king. You kill animals with shot placement. But there are some instances where an ELD match or the old A-maxes Absolutely work. I mean, lights out. There are instances where that happens, but the performance envelope is just smaller and where those bullets really shine and where they completely fail.
00:15:34
Speaker
ah You'll just, you're you're going to see more of that when you compare it to something, you know, say like an ELDX, but not just the ELDX, anybody's polymer tip hunting bullet. where there are mechanisms to control how the bullet performs. And so that makes the bullets perform more consistently. And for Hornady, what that looks like is the ELD match is ah drawn jacket, just like our ELD X, where you start with a copper cup and you draw it out into the jacket and you fill that jacket with lead. Well, on the ELD X, that was the first bullet of the two. We designed the ELD X first.
00:16:10
Speaker
The bottom of the jacket, is really thick i mean really thick we're probably talking 40 50 60 thousandths of an inch thick depending on the bullet as you come up from the boat tail into the bearing surface of the bullet it will get thinner but it's still pretty thick you know let's say it starts that taper at you know 40 50 thousandths thick it might taper to 30 thousandths thick and then as it gets to the ogive it will go progressively thinner from say 30 or 35 thou down to maybe 20 or 15 thousandths thick and that
00:16:42
Speaker
structured taper helps control the expansion. It's thinner up front so that when you impact at really low impact velocities, but let's say at, you know, five or 600 yards away, that the bullet still expands uniformly.
00:16:55
Speaker
And at high velocity impact, say 50 yards, 100 yards, you've got a thick enough jacket through the bearing surface and down on the boat tail that it's going to slow the expansion down.
00:17:06
Speaker
And so you get controlled expansion at both ends of the spectrum, high velocity and low velocity impacts. We also put an internal ring inside the jacket that like barbs itself into the lead core to help ah hold on to it.
00:17:19
Speaker
that's the ELDX. The ELD match is all that jacket taper that I described to you where the jacket's thick at the bottom gets progressively thinner. That jacket is paper thin from top to bottom.
00:17:31
Speaker
So, uh, let's say it's a 25 thou thick jacket. It'll be 25 thou thick about pretty much the whole way. It might get a little thinner you up towards the tip. Uh, the reason for that is a thin jacket is much easier to manufacture because you're taking less material and you're moving it less. So it's less work hardening. ah of the the brass that's in the copper, you know that is a work hardenable material. ah So you're working that less as you draw it out. So it's easier to manufacture more concentric bullet jackets. So concentricity, as you know, you being perfectly circular,
00:18:07
Speaker
The more concentric your jacket is, the more accurate your bullets are going to be. So when you have features in a jacket, like really thick ah areas or internal locking rings, like our interlock ring, those features become more difficult to manufacture and harder to keep concentricity. So um if you look at the two externally, a lot of them look identical. You know, in the 6.5 world, if you look at our 147 ELD match and our 143 ELDX, externally, they're almost identical.
00:18:37
Speaker
Boattail, ogive, overall length, everything. The difference is on the inside. Because if you take up you know space by using copper, you have less room for lead. Lead is very dense. So you have the same bullet shape. Just one is a little bit lighter. But the difference is how that jacket is constructed and how it's holding on to the core. And that's why with the ELD match, you have a smaller performance envelope. So if you're in the business of only shooting stuff super far away, the ELD match might be your bullet. um But there's how many people are only shooting animals really far away. I think most, almost everyone in the woods is their purpose is to try to get as close as I can. I i become a progressively better shot. the closer I get and those bullets, you know, at really high velocity impacts, they can have, uh, they could pencil right through, i mean, clean through without me expanding at all, or they can blow up like a hand grenade on the surface and you end up with like a cantaloupe sized surface wound and no penetration. I've seen that with burgers on elk.
00:19:38
Speaker
Yep. And then when you get into Boatail hollow point design projectiles, that becomes even more volatile. So when we're talking tipped match bullets versus tipped hunting bullets, the polymer tips, they set back, they can compress a little bit and then they'll set back into the bullet jacket to drive that bullet open.
00:19:58
Speaker
um And that's desirable because you have a consistent means to initiate expansion. If you compare that to like a lead core bullet or lead tipped bullet, like an exposed lead spire point, same thing. That lead compresses, drives rearward into that bullet to push it open. If you look at like aluminum tipped bullets, like our A-tip, aluminum doesn't compress. So it'll rip open that jacket.
00:20:20
Speaker
So when you go to a hollow point design, anybody's boat tail hollow point, that hollow point, we've done a ton of testing on this, is not a consistent means to initiate expansion. Sometimes they work real good.
00:20:33
Speaker
Do you guys sometimes they work okay make a hollow point anymore? Oh, yeah. yeahp We have just ah a boat tail hollow point. It's kind of our iconic hollow point match bullet. And then we have what's called our arrow match, which are kind of some industry standard shapes.
00:20:46
Speaker
I mean, rare though now. I mean, like you guys are almost all polymer tips, right? I mean, I shoot the A-tip the ELDM, so I don't think I've ever seen or loaded Hornady hollow point bullet. Yeah, we still make them. We still sell quite a few. It's just kind of a tiered approach to sales, right? It's the good, better, best. The Boatoo hollow points are a good match bullet. ELD matches a much better one. And then the A-tip is obviously the best. But yeah, hollow point designs for big game hunting, very volatile, inconsistent. Sometimes they are awesome. We've seen it. Sometimes they're amazing. Sometimes they're just okay.
00:21:18
Speaker
And other times they are a complete and utter failure. And when you pull the trigger, you don't, you know, it's a gamble of which one of those three are going to happen. Yeah. The word you keep using is sometimes, right? And that's kind of what my experience has been. And we could talk about weight, like weight retention as well, right? Or um yeah the other word, weight retention. Weight retention. I can tell you like on those ELDMs, when I did get the jacket back, it was a i mean it maybe 10% of the weight was there. It's just the jacket, dude. It's just gone, right? Versus where if you were to pull out a You know, ELDX, out the offside shoulder, it's going to be probably, what, 80% there? It depends on the distance. I told you how structured that jacket Yeah, the length, the velocities.
00:21:59
Speaker
If you are inside of, depending on your muzzle velocity, inside of, you know, let's say 400 yards or so, maybe 500 yards, generally that thing's going to be 50%, 60%, maybe 70%.
00:22:10
Speaker
Outside of that, you're going to see, yeah, sometimes 80%, 90% weight retention just based on the impact velocity. Yeah. So it just dumped everything in the animal, didn't carry through. right And I got the jacket back.
00:22:21
Speaker
Um, and there is something to be said too, about, you know, we're going to these calibers, right? Like a six, five PRC. Right. And where, that bullet in that first 300 yards could be doing something totally different than it's Creedmoor, right? Because the velocity, sometimes velocity is affecting people to understand that either, right? So some of these big guns shooting a match bullet might be better for shots, three to 500 yards versus one to 200 yards of those match bullets. It's going so fast, right? It can explode, right? I i even had some bad experiences in Hawaii last year, shooting a six, five PRC. Cause we were shooting deer with copper bullets at like,
00:22:58
Speaker
50 to a hundred yards. And it was just like not performing the way I'm used to a cover bullet
Impact of Bullet Velocity and Caliber Selection
00:23:02
Speaker
performance. was going so fast. The bolts were so light going so fast. I almost wanted to, like, I was actually told, was like, Hey dude, you probably should switch over to ELDMs. If you're going to be shooting deer like this, because these are so close. Um, it's just going right through these deer.
00:23:16
Speaker
So people don't see that, right? If you run a six, five PRC and it's running at, you know, 3,100 feet per second versus a cream we're going, you know, 2,800 feet per Um, um The Bulls can perform different at 500 yards than it is in the Creedmoor at 500 yards.
00:23:29
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, velocity is king. You know, that's, I always, I have some go-to sayings, and one of them is you kill animals with shot placement. because that's That's true. The other one that I say all the time is ah bullets work because of velocity. You know, energy is a thing, and people get wrapped around the axle on how much energy does it have. Well, you calculate energy by having velocity, right? That's the, you know, it's it's chief in the equation. ah And bullets work, they expand, and and penetrate because of velocity. We want a bullet to expand, right? And you know you can have a bunch of energy and penetrate really well, but with a non-expanding bullet, that's probably not the best answer for hunting. You want a bullet that's going to open up and transfer its energy and increase its frontal diameter, and you make that happen via velocity and bullet construction. It has to be you know paired appropriately, and that's why you can run into situations where you outrun your bullet, you know, ah like a Barnes bullet or a Hornady CX.
00:24:32
Speaker
They need about 2,000 feet per second of impact speed to get them to open up, let's say on a 300 wind mag or a 65 PRC. Well, if you're shooting an animal at 750 yards, it might not have enough velocity.
00:24:43
Speaker
to open it up and that's a problem and uh you know conversely you can have the exact opposite problem at 50 yards running 3200 feet per second with a lead core bullet you know uh so it's a balance of understanding and education really of what your intended game is what your intended ranges are and then pairing a projectile that was built to operate within those parameters so you talked about energy because i've always been a big like i always say like if you have energy you probably have the velocity Right. And I've always been a big, like, Hey man, 1500 for elk. And I guarantee if I look at 1500, I probably had the velocity I need.
00:25:20
Speaker
I'm also a big full diameter guy. So we'll get into second too. Is, but if you talk about energy, you are called a FUD now on the internet because energy is antiquated. It shouldn't even be around anymore. it shouldn't even be on the boxes. I've heard it said like energy is stupid, right? We're we're at a point now where everyone's shooting animals with two. I mean there are people are killing moose with two, two threes. Right. I mean, like, it's like, that's the new thing right now. Right. We're going to get to my gun.
00:25:42
Speaker
But, um, does does energy matter anymore why is it on the boxes i mean energy is like it's bashed now on the internet sure well some of it will is is just a core a carryover from the old school days for example we still print bcs on boxes of bullets we don't even talk about bc in the four walls of hornady because we use drag coefficient based solutions we have a doppler radar that cost us you know well over a hundred thousand dollars that i'm sitting on top of right now it's downstairs we're going to use drag coefficient based solution. It is the best way to get a trajectory solution, but everybody still talks BC because it's a common language. And I feel like energy, there is a point to be made just in that, that everybody sees energy. They understand energy. There's the, you know, some of the old school thinking, yes, they want it on the box or they want to know what that number is.
00:26:32
Speaker
And I do think, like you said, energy, if you've got the energy, you probably got the velocity. Um, but, um, um so I've said it actually several times on this podcast already. Animals are killed with shot placement and energy alone is not the driving metric.
00:26:48
Speaker
um Just like velocity alone is not the driving metric in a grossly overstated example. If you shoot an elephant, you know, in the hoof or foot with a 50 grain V max doing 4,000 feet per second, it's probably not going to do anything to it. Likewise, if you shoot me through the pinky with a 500 nitro and a solid bullet lathe turned that has all the energy in the world.
00:27:17
Speaker
ah but it's not expanding and it's not transferring a whole lot of that energy and you didn't get the right shot placement. So in those, obviously that's a way overstated example, but that makes it very clear that shot placement, velocity, and energy work together to accomplish the goal. um And having one of those without the other two is, you know, generally not going to be the answer. you Two of those would be preferred or all three of them.
00:27:46
Speaker
So, and that's where we're going to go now into the energy and the, you know, the freight train versus the, you know, the Lamborghini. And so this year I'm shooting two guns. I'm going to PRC. Yeah, buddy. now And I'm shooting your bullets for both of them. Right. So i i don't know what that is. We have to talk about the boat. We're going to about boat for the cream or in the end, but right now I want to talk about why I believe in a 30 cow or seven millimeter bullet for elk and moose and big animals. Right. Yeah.
00:28:13
Speaker
And, Like I, why I, why I go out and I see, you know, you go shoot a target at 300 yards with a six, five cream more and it goes, bing, go shoot a target with 300 PRC or $30. And that thing goes freaking wham. Sometimes it knocks it over. Right. You're like, don't shoot my targets. Then 300 yards. Right.
00:28:28
Speaker
It just hits with a 40. And I, when you're shooting elk, I believe in him with authority. I don't believe in, like I killed him with a two 60 Remington, which is essentially a cream more for gentlemen. Right. I mean, it's a cream over four cream wars. Right. I mean, I guess you guys are the cream more guys. Right. But like same, same bullet. Right. I'm not going to be knocking more, but you're not knocking it. The two 60 has long been eclipsed. It's been eclipsed. You know what I mean? I had that, I built that gun before cream or really got popular and I've shot bunch of mammals with it. Right. Right.
00:28:56
Speaker
And yeah, it has been eclipsed. Oh my God. I wish I'm going rebarrel. When I rebarrel that gun, it'll be a Cremor. Or you could do some cool stuff on the 260 though. 260 Terminator, obviously it's a simple 260 Ackley. mean, there's some cool stuff you can do on the 260 case and get almost PRC performance out of it.
00:29:12
Speaker
Yeah. So, I mean, I do, but my point is I've shot them with creep or basically cream or I'll say cream or I shot them. I shot them with, you know, three Oh eights, right. Like I like, know, bigger bullets, right. My kids all shoot three Oh eights.
00:29:25
Speaker
I would much rather have that funnel diameter and that, that oomph, the heavier caliber bullet when I'm, when I'm shooting an elk. Right. So when I'm hunting elk this year, i think I'm getting a gun from, i'm getting a gun from regard and whether we either both be 300 PRC Those are going to, um I'm going to use what, the 212? 212 ELDX. ELDX. I'm trying to remember all these bullets. I'm pretty good. ive um I probably can work for you guys. like I know a lot of bullet stuff. 212 ELDX in those guns. and I just know that if I put that bolt where it needs to go,
00:29:54
Speaker
it's going to do the trick, yeah you know, to two range, to distance, right? I'm not going to be questioning, like, is he, is he angled the right way? Is cordoned the right way? If I'm off a little bit and I can give two pisses about recoil, all you guys use, oh, recoil, recoil, stop being a pussy.
00:30:07
Speaker
Like, it's not like with a freaking muzzle brake or a silencer or suppressor on there. Like the recoil is not that bad. I mean, I shot a, a deer at 645 yards this year with a 300 weather bee. And I watched that bullet hit it. I mean, I don't know how much more recoil sensitive you need to be.
00:30:23
Speaker
And, ah you know, so what's your take, dude? Like you shoot an elk with, should we shoot an elk with 22 cream wars or should we shoot an elk with 300 PRCs and 30, you know, 300 windmacks? What's your take on that?
00:30:35
Speaker
Well, it's, it's again, just like everything super nuanced personally. ah you know, I might have an elk hunt this fall in 26. Uh, I was just talking to Preston here behind the camera about yeah running a six, five, just to say I did. I've never shot an elk with the six, five and that, you know thousands of elk die every year to the hands of a six, five, whatever, you know, PRC, Creedmoor, 260, et cetera. Um,
00:31:01
Speaker
But I am a huge 7mm guy. yeah and So for me, I'll probably end up defaulting to the 7PRC just because of my involvement with that. um But I think there's a lot that goes into it. Having a a real understanding of your bullet selection and how it will perform based on its design is critical when you're when you're going to be flirting with certain things, you know, whether that be energy or velocity or range or whatever. um You want to make sure your bullet's going to perform as it was designed. And so if you're going really small, you know, you can you can turn the tables
Selecting the Right Bullet for Big Game Hunting
00:31:40
Speaker
a little bit more in your favor. For example, you know, you go with the 6.5 like I've been talking about. We have 130 bullet.
00:31:47
Speaker
That is incredibly long, long ogive, long boat tail. For a monolithic bullet, it's really low drag. And yeah, you can get that baby out of the muzzle from a 6.5 Creedmoor PRC, plenty of velocity. And as long as your distance is commensurate with your your bullet design, then you're probably going to be okay. um And those are big, tough animals with a ah tenacity to live that's really unrivaled. uh, in North America.
00:32:13
Speaker
So you're going to hear a lot of people say, I've hit a lot of elk with a lot of big 300s, you know, 300 wind mag, let's say, and they take two or three shots to die, just like they did with the Creedmoor. And that's true on a completely personal note. Uh, I always tend on elk sized game to lean towards the bigger stuff. I'm, like i said, I'm a seven millimeter guy, not so much the 30. Um,
00:32:36
Speaker
But on things smaller than elk, I do, have no qualms shooting stuff with six millimeters and hot rod 22s. It's been very effective for me. But elk, knowing that they have that tenacity to live and they'll do things like take one right to the pump house and then run uphill, um I tend to lean towards going a little bit bigger in diameter with bullet and not necessarily velocity or energy. You know, like you talked about shooting 308 Winchester, you could do a 7mm 08 or something like that and still have that little bit bigger bullet. And those bullets were going to work perfect in your velocity and you're not outrunning your bullet with distance. So for me, i personally, on elk specifically, tend to go
00:33:22
Speaker
I can certainly consider 30. There's nothing wrong with that. You know, three and one mag were great on the last elk I killed. Uh, but I do recommend going bigger or not bigger, but appropriate, you know, seven millimeter, three 30 Cal, even three 38. If you're, if you're into it, um, just because you, you get the bigger bullet, you know, they're going to penetrate really well. Um,
00:33:43
Speaker
and And for me, that is comforting. i I have done this before and I don't like it where I lay down and roll the bolt and I'm about to settle in for a shot. And in the back of my mind, I'm like, man, when I was really shuffling the cards and figuring out what I was going to take on this hunt.
00:33:57
Speaker
I wish I wouldn't have landed on this one. Like I wish I would have, you know, um wanted something a little bit bigger. can't overkill them. And that's just an internal confidence thing, but not to take away from people that have done it with smaller stuff. Again, animals are killed with shot placement. I just think for me personally, and since that's what you asked, I'm going seven every time.
00:34:16
Speaker
Seven. Okay. See, I like that. And. You even talked about using the CX. And I would say that if I were to say that online, people would be like, oh, you're a FUD. Don't use a copper bullet. You want to use an ELDM, right? You don't want to use, you want to use a CX. My buddy shot, mean, there's a video going around and this guy shooting a moose with a 6.5 crimmar drops in minstracts. It could happen. Or you just get enough spinal impact. I could tell you that I was on a hunt this year where a bull got shot with a 220 burger.
00:34:41
Speaker
It dropped for 10 minutes and then got up ran away. And it got hit good, dude. It got hit good but there's barely any blood. Didn't penetrate all the way through. it Just tough animal, shoulder, got spinal spinal. And I'm like, man, I can't help but think that if we would have used a 212 ELDX instead of a 220 Berger that shot really good, right?
00:35:01
Speaker
I bet you the ELDX was shot darn near as good enough to kill. you know, you're shooting a school bus. not like you're shooting a freaking, you know, a groundhog at 600 yards. You know what I mean? it would probably be dead and probably be on the wall right now and in the freezer. You know what I mean? um And I do, like you talked about, you know three at Winchester. I love, because I understand velocities. I understand bullet design. Like I love a three at Winchester out to 400 yards all day long on elk. Cause I know the bullets can do its trick where that bullet, and I know limitations at 400 yards probably agreed to start dying off where with, ah you know, maybe if I'm using the same bowl in a wind mag or a, you know, that bullet might be working out to seven, 800 yards, right? it's all velocities. It's same people, as people understand, it's all the same size bullet. It's just a matter of how it's getting there and when it gets there and what it's going to do at that range.
00:35:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, there's and there's, you know, you could you could draw the same conclusion of, like you just said, through at Winchester, look at the impact velocity at 400 and then take the 300 wind mag and just roll in your trajectory chart out until you hit that impact velocity. And you can you can see it's, you know, kind of the same, same.
00:36:01
Speaker
You know, you you're like, well, of course I can shoot an elk at 350 yards with a muzzle velocity of 2550. That's the same impact velocity and energy as if I shot it at 600 yards with a 300 wind mag. yeah And there's people that do that all the time. So yeah, understanding and education is a big one.
00:36:17
Speaker
Monolithic bullets as a whole, some people love them. Some people hate them. You know, we're at Hornady. There's a difference in terminal performance. And if you're looking for, you know, I'm go to say traditional range, because they usually don't do so well at extended ranges, but traditional range stuff, you take raking shots, quartering to a man, you know, monolithic bullets getting through in a hurry.
Comparing Monolithic and Lead Bullets
00:36:39
Speaker
I mean, I've probably shot, don't even know, 50 animals, big game animals with monolithic bullets, you know, killed a lot of them and I've done, done them all, you know, your bullets, Barnes bullets. I've done the, um, some, some boutique bullets as well.
00:36:51
Speaker
Um, they the monolithic bullets work great. It's just, you they don't give you, you'd rarely get that like shock and awe that shock and awe. That's a problem, right? Your animal's going to run. you know what mean? Like I shot ah I shot a,
00:37:05
Speaker
a 152 grain hammer bullet into an antelope at 200 yards. And it went end to end through that thing and expand them like a basketball. And it still ran a hundred yards. It was like, what the heck, man? Like if I cut them open and it was all there and like, but if you'd use the lead bullet, probably dropped right there. you know what I mean? Um, so, but I, now I'm on this thing. Now that I'm in Arizona, going to be shooting a lot of horny bullets. Like I'm really, I'm excited to start using lead more. Cause the problem for me is like,
00:37:29
Speaker
I was always, you know, California guns and, you know, I want to use them all. And now that, I mean, honestly, I have the coolest shop in the world. I get a lot of free guns. I get to shoot a less stuff, try stuff. I like to be knowledgeable. So I'm going to shoot a lot of different, yeah a lot of your stuff and really try it. But I don't think I'm going to be leaning towards match bullets and those guns um because i I want to use a hunting bullet, which I i assume when you're doing, when you're going to go hunting this year with your seven,
00:37:53
Speaker
are you going be loading in the in the ldm or 180 ldm or are you gonna run 175x i might consider a 160 cx because that's a that's a juggernaut of a bullet but man when i was working on the 7prc kind of initial design my the whole goal was 800 yard elk like that that's that's the furthest And that's the biggest and that's the toughest. So it's got to be able to do that.
00:38:19
Speaker
And then I could do everything else inside of that. yeah And so I was using that 175 VLDX as the, you know, the, the cart, excuse me, the horse pulling the cart, if you will. and yeah I did a lot of the initial design, a lot of the initial testing with that bullet. And then I've personally taken that combination.
00:38:35
Speaker
you know, around the world at this point. And I just have so much confidence in it. And i I built a rifle around that combination and I've got ammo loaded and it just shoots well. It's the easy button. It's always ready to go. And so for me, that 175 ELDX has never left me going, I wish I would have, wish I would have taken a CX or I wish I would have went 30 cal. Everything I've ever pointed at with that 175 ELDX is, is like you said, on the wall and in the freezer.
00:39:03
Speaker
All right. So we're going to, we're going to side note into cartridges real quick out of bullets because you're talking about the seven PRC and I don't own one, but I do own a two 80 Ackley improved and I love it. And I'm always like, it's the same frigging cartridge. It's separate. It's a standard action. Right.
00:39:17
Speaker
Yeah. So like, sell me on why I should get a, like a seven PRC over two 80 Ackley. is it So that, yeah, that, that is, I can explain it and it might not apply to you because I'm a huge 280 Ackley fan.
00:39:32
Speaker
So you're going to hear me slight the 280 Ackley, but this is actually going to apply. This answer applies to the 7 PRC versus 280 Ackley or 7 mag, the 300 PRC versus 300 wind mag. The 6.5 PRC versus a 260 Terminator or a 6.5 Swede more or a 6.5 284 is really the design intention. So of all those things I just said, the 6.5 PRC was designed with the crosshairs on a 6.5 284.
00:40:01
Speaker
The 7PRC on a 7 mag, 300PRC on a 300 Win mag. So with the 7PRC specifically, why a person, maybe not you, would opt for a 7PRC is when I go back to when I first started working on the 7PRC, I had my first custom-built rifle, and it was a 7 mag to shoot the 175 VLDX.
00:40:22
Speaker
I had a custom reamer, throated appropriately to shoot 175 VLDXs. Yep. We ordered that, that was all custom. I had to get a barrel that did not have the SAMI twist rate in there. SAMI twist rate in the seven mags, seven nine and a half. So I had a one and eight twist barrel. So I got this custom reamer, chambered a custom barrel, And I built this custom rifle, and then I had to personally hand load those 175s at a length that exceeded Sammy length.
00:40:52
Speaker
The mag box. At a pressure. Custom Wyatt mag box. Yeah. And and at a pressure that also exceeded. You're speaking my language right now. give Yeah, Sammy pressure, right? So it was a custom from tip to tip, and I had a custom hand load for it, and it was great. That performance was out freaking standing.
00:41:08
Speaker
Yep. So how does it, how do how does everybody enjoy that? Because you can't go to the store and buy any of that. So the 7PRC gives you no real greater performance than, you know, ah a custom built 7MAG or a custom built 280 Ackley other than.
00:41:23
Speaker
There is a standard. If I want factory ammo, I buy factory ammo. And if I want a factory rifle, buy a factory rifle and I get that performance. I don't need to have the custom everything to get that performance. I can just buy it off the shelf. Same thing with 6.5 PRC versus 6.5 284 and 300 PRC versus 300 Win Mag.
00:41:40
Speaker
There's nothing wrong with those legacy cartridges. And when done appropriately, they're out freaking standing. But you can't go to the store and buy that performance. You have to build that performance. And so the 7 PRC versus 280 Ackley or a 7 Mag, would be if you want to shoot these really long high BC bullets ah and not have to do custom reamer, custom rifle, et cetera, et cetera, that's the easy button. That's the switch. And so that was the story behind the 7PRC specifically on why over 280 Ackley or over 7 mag, you might choose 7PRC. Again, huge 7mm fan as a whole, but specifically 280 Ackley. I've always had a soft spot for that cartridge. But
00:42:21
Speaker
It's it's ah nothing wrong with it. And there's, you know, if you're into hand loading, you want to wring all the performance out of it, then go with that 280 Ackley. No problem there.
Advantages of PRC Cartridges and Custom Rifle Plans
00:42:30
Speaker
Yeah, and I think...
00:42:32
Speaker
A lot of has to do with like shoulder design, right? And bullet and the cartridge design. So you're getting a longer bullet into, into that same casing. You're not having to like, I'm going act on going to run that bullet a lot deeper into the casing to get, you know, I'm going to a lot performance there. Right. You could for sure. And yeah, there's a lot of things that go into that, that people don't quite understand. Like that shoulder angle on an Ackley is a, for lack of a better term, it's really a son of a bitch to manufacture you end up increasing the scrap rate because of that 40-degree shoulder. So with Hornady cartridges, we do a 30-degree shoulder. It still gives us all the benefit of those nice, sharp shoulders, but the scrap rate is considerably lower, so you're wasting less brass. And overall, it's more cost-effective, and it just helps in overall manufacturing. So there's things like that that go into it as well.
00:43:18
Speaker
All right, I digress. Maybe I'll do this because I think going to get a gun from Weatherby and from Picardist. Maybe I'll get the Weatherby gun and 7PRC. They're fun. mean, you shot a 280 Ackley, you know, and you talked about recoil. And yes, you can absolutely just shoot the bigger recoil. That's not that big of a deal. I've shot 300 PRC in matches and shot it all day. But the difference between 300 PRC and 7 PRC is about 30%. I mean, it's pretty tangible. So from shooting off of a tripod on those longer shots, that's one of the more noticeable things.
00:43:50
Speaker
Yeah, maybe I'll do it. Maybe I'll try it this year. dode it's like It's like, do you need another freaking cartridge? Like a hole in the head. You know what I mean? It's just a pain in the butt. yeah so many i' like, so like, and I wish I could to shoot two cartridges rest of my life, but I just keep adding them on. It doesn't sound like you're wired that way. I'm not, dude. And I'm not. And I like, especially, you know, just maybe I'll that. Maybe I'll get the Weatherby in 7PRC. I can do it in the Bergara in 300PRCs. Maybe I'll do the 7PRC in that one. just to see the difference. You know I mean? I'll shoot up with both of them this year.
00:44:16
Speaker
Yeah. God willing. Um, and I'll see how it does, you know, and I'll do it. Seven PRC with it, with the sound or 75s, right. Cause they're going to be your bullets in those, both those guns. Um, And the other one. So, all right, let's go. Now let's go to my 22 cream more.
00:44:29
Speaker
Cause right. So I'm doing it. I'm having my buds, arrowhead, uh, build me a rifle. It's going to be sick. 20 inch barrel, six cream more folding chassis. We're going to do it like, like nineties style, like black, like neon pinks and cayenne blues. Like it's going to be sick, dude. Um, I think of like Jeremy McGrath, classic two stroke. Like, yeah. Are you moto? Are you moto guy?
00:44:51
Speaker
Uh, growing up, I, I never raced personally. I always dreamed of it and jacked around on dirt bikes still to this day, but I always watched growing up. Big McGrath fan. Dude, I live 20 minutes from Glamis. So I have a, I have a 94 CR 500 still. i Oh my gosh. I've got, you know, death multiple dirt bikes. You want to fly out here? We'll go.
00:45:10
Speaker
My kid's in a boot right He broke his foot. You want fly and go ride Glamis with me? Let's do it, dude. Like, Oh my gosh. I might have to hit you up on that. My riding skills are not going to be up to par because I'm in central Nebraska. There's not a whole lot of motor going on Dude, 40 years old, dude. I'm not trying to get hurt all the time anymore. like to go until I'm like, okay, it's enough scared, but I'd love to do it. Okay, back to my bullet. But dude, if you're into moto, like I watch races every single week. Me and Cody Rich are just like super into moto, my kids. Yeah. It's like our thing. So if you're in the moto, like I would love to you out here to go ride with me sometime. Dude, that'd be awesome. And yeah, you talk about that color scheme. I just, yeah, the classic nineties, uh, you crazy hair. Yeah. The, the vibrant, the fluorescent.
00:45:48
Speaker
Yeah, dude. That's how my CR500 is, right? It's like that red, but it's like that flow pink red plastics, you know what mean? That's cool. It's going be a pretty sick rifle from the sounds of it. It's going to be a sick gun. So it's going to have like Cayenne blues, whatever. Bottom line.
00:46:02
Speaker
Cool gun, but I want to shoot, like I'm bringing it to Hawaii for access here. So I potentially shoot 20 deer with that thing over on that hunt. And then I'm probably going to bring it to, if I can grow the big enough balls, probably bring it to Alaska
Future Hunting Plans and Bullet Selection
00:46:13
Speaker
on my... um sick of black to hunt as well. I'm just a little bit like, I kind of like having some horsepower just in case I need to use it for something else besides deer, yeah but, uh, I'll have a pistol as well. Maybe other guys. mean, there's like six of us up there, so they can defend me if I have to, but, um, because I want, i want to have,
00:46:30
Speaker
I want to use it. Cause I know I've like, I'm always knocking it, like not knocking the cartridges. Like I'm just knocking the, like shooting everyone's shooting out with them. Right. Yeah. Um, now the big bullet for that thing is going this. Everyone's talking about the 77 TMK. I'm not going to use 77 TMK. I'm just not going to do it. It literally says match King in the thing. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to shoot. that If you don't understand, that's a Sierra 77 TMK. So everyone's shooting deer with now on this bullet and elk and moose and everything. It's everyone loves that bullet.
00:46:56
Speaker
Um, What bullet am I going to run? Am I going to run ELDX in that thing? What am I going to run? are you thinking for my deer? should I run your match bullet? What do you think from Hornet? and run a horn to show nothing I have both the dichotomy here. I have a bunch of experience and very niche and little experience with 22 creedmoor i have a bunch of experience in that i have shot a bunch of animals with the 22 creedmoor my niche experience though is that it has been exclusively with the 80 grain eldx we have in our lineup we have a 65 grain monolithic cx doing 3650 at the muzzle doing all the speed um i have not personally used that on any hunts yet so
00:47:37
Speaker
I can only speak to what my experience is and the 80 grain ELDX. Personally, i have killed a pile of deer, obviously anything smaller that, but deer, antelope and then took it to africa and used that 80 grain x on the biggest animal i killed was a black wildebeest and you know those are 300 pounds and change and 306 or seven yards you can't remember uh i hit him i rolled the bolt moved the gun when i settled down the crosshairs to break the shot you know to break his follow-up shot he tipped over so it was i mean it
00:48:12
Speaker
I was blown away ah using it on you know the African plains. There was a lot of animals that died to that 80 grain X. The only animal we found that that I wouldn't advise are the warthogs.
00:48:25
Speaker
um which I've shot warthogs. I've riddled those things up with all kinds of stuff. They're freaking tough. um I was just over there this year. we We did lose one. We we we killed them, but man, they're they'll suck them up and run for ways. But as far as the Plains game go, talked about you know the Black Wildebeest, a Kudu, all kinds of different antelope species. shot a Kudu with one, huh? I killed my Kudu with a sick with ah whatever the 143 ELDX.
00:48:50
Speaker
one forty three edx Yep. So it can be done. And like I said, I was really impressed with the both the performance. We killed animals anywhere from 37 to 500 and I think 64 yards on that trip. And it was hyper effective. Really, really impressed with that. Like I said here, domestically, you know, we've got, you know, some typical corn fed Midwestern whitetails and you get a 250, 275 pound deer on the hoof. And I have smacked these things and tipped them over.
00:49:19
Speaker
right now. And that 80 grain X has been what I've used exclusively. Yeah, because even when I was in Africa, I used the first time I really used to create more for big animals like that. like And I used the EODX, and I was actually impressed with it. with it So you're saying the 80 grain. So what's it look like ballistically? So let's say, I don't i mean, I don't even know. i haven't even done enough research to know the velocities on this thing. 20 inch barrel is pretty common now on this gun, right? Yep. I might even go in short. No, you know what?
00:49:45
Speaker
Mine's an 18. I think I'm going 18 or 16 on that gun. it Mine's 18, and that factory ammo, if I remember right, is doing like 3140. Yeah, I think I'm going short. I think it's going to be 18 or 16. It might be 16 inch we're doing. i think I'm doing a 16 inch barrel.
00:49:58
Speaker
Okay. It is 16. So I'm doing a 16 inch barrel. So it's going real compact, really bitching gun, right? For backpacking, doing deer stuff. Really cool. For coos deer, it'd be lightning in a bottle. Lightning in a bottle. And love coos deer. It's my thing. I think you know that. Yeah. We just killed four couple weeks ago. It was awesome. All right. So what am I looking like ballistically? Let's say I'm doing that one 16 inch barrel. Let's just call it 3000 feet per second.
00:50:20
Speaker
Yeah. What is the thing looking like? Is that like a 600-yard gun well on deer? on ah On a deer-sized animal, probably, and a lot of it depends on your elevation. As far as expansion goes, those bullets expand down to 1,600 feet per second, so there's... you i i can't like i like 2000 i like 2000 2000 always works right yep sure 2000 always works and even if you split it we know that 16 is the basement for caliber and a half diameter so even if you call it 1800 feet per second you're still giving yourself 200 feet per second of buffer between the the actual tested limit um but in any event um depending on your muzzle velocity those bullets are really efficient they hang on to velocity pretty well and not looking at a ballistic calculator, but yeah, somewhere between five and 600 seems really realistic.
00:51:07
Speaker
Really? Like five, 600 yards with a little 80 grain bullet. I love, I mean, I have a big two 43 guy guy, right? So now I'm going to this i'm like, let's see how this does. And it's just a lot more efficient. Yeah, it is. And are there's some about the speed too. You know, I'm not a doctor or anything or even a degreed engineer as far as ballistics go, but there is something about that and I'm not sure what it is, but, uh,
00:51:31
Speaker
many many of the animals that i've killed the elk or excuse not the elk the antelope the deer a lot of the plains game lot of bang flops dude and and and i don't know if that's with those bullets coming apart so violently the hydraulic and hydrostatic shock is just disrupting the electrical activity in the central nervous system so you get that instant incapacitation and then they die when they're on the ground and Presumably that's what's happening, but there is something about a little bullet going real fast that just works.
00:52:03
Speaker
And I'm sure I can just use that same ELDX for coyotes or would you use it? What would I use for coyotes? So we've got, it we've got a 69 VT for coyotes and I used that all last season and I'm a believer.
00:52:16
Speaker
uh out of my 18 inch gun they were doing 34 50 at the muzzle and yeah it was uh yeah 34 50 at the muzzle and when you hit something it they they were dead right there no spinners no running off uh so that 69 vt we got factory ammo we've got bullets of course but uh man for me i hand loaded them with some 43 50 and that was coyote medicine you could use the 80 it's no problem but I've got to tell. I know the problem is for me is it's like, dude, do you want to like switch back and forth? know what I mean? means So I got to kind of pick my medicine because i I'm building the guy really wants to my Prager gun. i love shooting bolt actions. you know I'll do an AR tube. I kind of like bolt actions for, for most everything kind of fuddy in that way. But I'm like, well, if I could probably run the 80 grade ELDX, probably the same results. Probably explosive though.
00:53:02
Speaker
Yeah. And if you do get some runners or some spinners, switch over to 69 and they'll be dead right where they stand. Yeah, I'll probably have to load both them and try them out. you don't have to load them, right? You can get them. Yeah, factory ammo. We've got four factory ammo offerings.
00:53:17
Speaker
On both both bullets? ah No, on the.22 Creedmoor as a whole. The.65CX,.69VT, the.80X, and then an 80-grain match. Okay, all of them are factory loaded, ready to go, and pretty readily available.
00:53:29
Speaker
yeah Oh, yeah. They're on MidwayUSA right now. And you know a guy. I know a guy. I do. I'm going to be hitting that guy up soon I figure out this gun selection here. So I'm going to shoot a lot of Hornets this year. And we'll get back here in like December. I'll tell about all the animals I killed with them because I'm going to kill a pile of animals, the Hornady's this year.
00:53:45
Speaker
That's great. I yeah appreciate the feedback and the intel, good, bad or ugly, because that's one thing that you know we try to do internally is we, all of us here, we're ah we're all hunters. If you if you talk to any, you run into somebody at the grocery store and they work at Hornady and you've never met them, you can assume that they're a hunter and a shooter. And that so we try to hunt as much as we can. The employees are encouraged to hunt and shoot competitively and get involved that way. um but we love that we love the feedback because we're users ourselves you know we're not just making this product to make small metal parts that make us money like we make these products because we use them and we go into our product development that forward we you know we're our mind is i need this for me and we can also sell it but we like we love the feedback
00:54:31
Speaker
That's the best way to do it. all the I'll try to be built, man. I selfishly build things for myself that everyone else wants to buy. Seth, you guys are awesome. Horty is awesome. I'm excited to work with you guys a little bit this year, shoot some stuff. And hopefully at some point we can go out and kill something together and have a good time. so Yeah, get on a hunt, ride some dirt bikes or both. Dude, dirt bikes be awesome. We should do like, ah you know, they have like surf and turf things where you go fishing and hunting. We should do a thing where we go kill coyotes and ride dirt bikes. We'll do like a surf and turf.
00:54:56
Speaker
You know, dog and dirt. We'll call dog and dirt, dude. There you go. Yeah, right. Get on some big chunks of of BLM, whatever. Ride. Do a stand. Oh, dude. It's right here. We could do all that right here. But I would love to, honestly, I'd rather put a PAL tire on for you and take you out to Gordon's. If you watch any of the Crusted Demons and Dirt and stuff, that's 20 minutes from my house now. Really? I mean, it's right here. What small world. Dude, it's right there. So any of the stuff you watch, you know. It's probably good you move here as an adult and not as like a, you know, 20-year-old punk kid going 100 miles an hour.
00:55:22
Speaker
Oh yeah. Well, I mean, I, I've grown up going to those spots, riding from San Diego. so I've always, I've read those, wrote those dunes my whole life, but now it's like literally I can ride over there and, you know, be there in 20 minutes and go riding. So, but, uh, dude, let's do it again. And I'm excited to see you at Western hunt, right? a couple weeks. Yeah. Oh yeah. We've got, you know, uh, Dallas Safari club, Western hunt and SCI back to back to back. So other than listeners, if you're out there at these shows, yeah.
00:55:46
Speaker
Stop on by. Go see Hornady. Go check out all the new cartridges. Go see Tricer. All right. dude. See it again. That sounds good.