130 grain hornady .308

[venison stew]

Does anyone here have experience of hornady 130 grain SP (3020) in .308 on deer. They are accurate and fast out of my rifle, but the blurb from hornady seems to suggest that they are very rapidly expanding rounds which concerns me. I have used nosler 125 BTs before and they made holes in Roe like the liquid metal man in terminator 2 after a hit from Arnies grenade launcher and I don't want that much damage again.

Stew

 

[dodgyrog]

Excellent bullet for roe and hinds. They can do some damage on a roe, though. Very accurate and reasonable price too.

 

[Brithunter]

I have used them in a .308 and a 30-30 with excellent results on Roe, Muntjac and even Fallow. I have not noticed much "Damage" to Roe as this shows:-

The 30-30 in the photo is a bolt action and the Hornady's are loaded to just over 2800fps in it. Oh the shot was taken at about 65 yards.

 

[Selous]

Hi
I have never tried the 130 hornady but have used the 150 and 165g hornady bullets extensively on roe. Most of the time there would be a fair degree of meat damage, particularly if bone was hit but sometimes I had some really erratic performance. I have attributed this to bullet core separation which is certainly evident on bullets recovered from a backstop. I have not seen evidence of the interlock function working and retaining the core. I personally would not use a 130g sp as the sectional density is relatively poor so penetration is likely to be more shallow than the 150 and 165's. This may not be a problem for side on chest shots or neck shots but if you have to take a more difficult angled shot then bullet performance becomes critical. I have had better results with Speer hot cores and nosler partitions. If you want to minimise meat damage then you could consider using bonded core (hornady interbond, nosler accobonds, swift scirrocco) or monometal (Barnes tsx, nosler e tip, hornady GMX) at normal velocities or stickwith conventional cup and core bullets at reduced velocity (either download 150g bullets or choose heavier bullet weights - 180g round nose work great on woodland roe!!).
Cheers

S

 

[Brithunter]

Hi
I have never tried the 130 hornady but have used the 150 and 165g hornady bullets extensively on roe. Most of the time there would be a fair degree of meat damage, particularly if bone was hit but sometimes I had some really erratic performance. I have attributed this to bullet core separation which is certainly evident on bullets recovered from a backstop. I have not seen evidence of the interlock function working and retaining the core. I personally would not use a 130g sp as the sectional density is relatively poor so penetration is likely to be more shallow than the 150 and 165's. This may not be a problem for side on chest shots or neck shots but if you have to take a more difficult angled shot then bullet performance becomes critical. I have had better results with Speer hot cores and nosler partitions. If you want to minimise meat damage then you could consider using bonded core (hornady interbond, nosler accobonds, swift scirrocco) or monometal (Barnes tsx, nosler e tip, hornady GMX) at normal velocities or stickwith conventional cup and core bullets at reduced velocity (either download 150g bullets or choose heavier bullet weights - 180g round nose work great on woodland roe!!).
Cheers

S

Hmmm actually the worst damage to a Roe shot with a .308 was done using a Sierra 180 grain Pro Hunter over a medium charge of reloader 15. This is one reason I went off Sierra bullets and since then by preference have used Speer and Hornady with a few Noslers until recently when Sierra was all I could get.

Now the 165 grain Speer flat based bullet drops them well without exessive meat damage however I have not noticed any more damage when using the 130 grain Hornady and as yet I have never recovered one as all have passed right through. So far I have only ever recovered two bullets from deer the first was a 139 Grn BTSP in 7mm from a Whitetail Buck the bullet entered at an angle just behind the last rib and was recovered under the skin on the opposite shoulder.

The second was a 150 grn Spire Point in 303 recovered from a Fallow the bullet entered to the right of the sternum and was recovered just in front of the haunch on the opposite side.

 

[venison stew]

Brithunter and dodgyrog, thanks for the benefit of your practical experience, it is much appreciated. I have about 70 of these built and will use them on roe and red. Svret - wow - you certainly know a lot about bullets. I hadn't thought about slowing them down a bit. However, this fits in with my .243 experience where a 100 grn interlock slowed down to 2600 fps is very predictable on roe. 180 grain - I don't know if I would go there! but thanks anyway.

Regards

Stew

 

[Muir]

I have used them in a .308 and a 30-30 with excellent results on Roe, Muntjac and even Fallow. I have not noticed much "Damage" to Roe as this shows:-

The 30-30 in the photo is a bolt action and the Hornady's are loaded to just over 2800fps in it. Oh the shot was taken at about 65 yards.

Gad! That is such a sweet rifle. My jealousy has found its bounds.~Muir

 

[Selous]

Hi Brithunter,
I must admit that I havent used Sierra 180g, just Speers.

 

[Brithunter]

Hi Brithunter,
I must admit that I havent used Sierra 180g, just Speers.

I have some Speer 180's I picked up cheap some years ago but have not used them on deer as the 165's and 130's work so well. The load I used with the Sierra was quite slow as well. Seems my ZKK 601 has a slow barrel as the loads I did chrongraph produced a good bit less than any of the books indicate it should so high impact speed was not the problem. Now as bullet which was designed, supposedly, for larger heavier game such as Wapiti (Elk) it shocked me how easily it came apart.

Now I should have taken it up with Sierras techs at the time but I didn't but have discussed it via e-mail with them a couple of years ago now and I am using 140 grain Sierra bullets in the 270 as I picked up a job lot when Howitzer closed their doors. Too cheap to pass up and the techs made some suggestions as to loads. I have both BTHP and BTSP in 140 grain 0.0227".

Plus since then I have acquired a 30-06 so the 180's will probably be better in that than the .308.

 

[Sus scrofa]

I've used the Hornady 130 grain soft points in my .308 for some time now and have killed Muntjac, Roe, Fallow and wild boar with them, none wounded or missing in action. I rate the Hornady bullets highly and penetration on the wild boar was excellent, recovered bullet from the far shoulder under the skin, it had mushroomed properly and retained about 80% of its weight. They chrono at about 2950fps and the boar was shot at about 90 metres in the shoulder and weighed in at 175 pounds gralloched.
Hope this is of some help

Gerry

 

[venison stew]

Gerry,

Thanks for the info, it is reassuring to know before I pull the triggger for real.

For any one interested, I loaded them with 48 grain of N140, which should give me 2900fps from the Viht manual and they group very well (cloverleaf at 100m).

ATB
Stew