For the nth time I got into a debate about the differences between the aforementioned Hornady bullets recently, with shooters at the local NZDA.
There’s still a lot of scepticism out there about what replaced what, some justified, some not so much. Most of what follows many of you already know, but if this helps someone make the right call on buying the right bullet for their intended quarry, then great. The picture is a to-scale representation of the four bullets in .30cal.
In terms of straight replacement, the .30 cal ELD-M is the new A-Max. There is, however, an important distinction, and that is the material the tip is made of, which we are told doesn’t deform in flight due to the extreme temperatures generated through friction. This accounts for the slight increase in BC. In 6.5mm and 7mm, the heaviest ELD-Ms are a lot heavier and longer than the heaviest A-Max in each calibre, this is where the largest increases in BC are seen in the ELD-M range over what went before.
Terminal performance of the ELD-M is the same as the A-Max. It is a soft, highly frangible bullet best suited in my opinion to proper medium to long range shooting, 300m to however far your rifle will shoot above 1600fps, as it will readily expand and fragment at lower velocities. Lots of guys use(d) A-Max across all hunting ranges, I have used them very effectively in .308 in the past. I know a couple of Youtube personalities here in NZ that use ELD-M over ELD-X in their rifles (e.g. 6.5x47, .260 Rem) for medium range deer, very successfully on the basins of the Southern Alps. Some though will prefer a slightly tougher bullet to ensure adequate penetration, particularly when striking the scapula or humerus bones. I have lower neck shot red hinds at 100-150m with A-Max and not had an exit wound, the bullet vaporises on the spine like the ProHunter in .243 does. Sure does kills them instantly. There are reports of bullet blow up and poor penetration with the A-Max when shoulder shooting heavy stags at close range, in fast calibres such as .270 Win, and certainly the magnums. I've never seen this happen though.
That the price of ELD-Ms seems to have shot up compared to the equivalent A-Max, well that’s somewhat annoying, especially when comparing the same weights. But it is what it is.
Onto the ELD-X, and Sierra ProHunters.
There have been some claims that the ELD-X is simply a higher BC replacement for the SST. Nathan Foster said that in his book, and I think he’s wrong and have pointed that out to him, which was a fun debate! Nathan is well respected and rightly so, but a few details in his books on the website knowledgebase aren’t correct IMO, or are heavily skewed towards proper long range hunting, but what’s great is that he’ll freely debate it with you.
(I had a good debate with him a couple of weeks ago, tackling his claim that the Sierra ProHunter and GameKing spitzers are manufactured to different designs, to be controlled expansion vs frangible. This hasn’t been my experience of these bullets at all, so I wrote to Sierra and asked. The ballistics tech wrote back with an excellent, detailed response, and I was correct, the spitzers are the exact same bullet, manufactured from the same materials to the same design, but for the boat tail on the GameKing. One thing about Nathan, he sure is deep into the physics of terminal performance.)
The main point of me posting this then is to suggest that IMO the ELD-X is not simply a longer SST. It is a quite different bullet, and having used it now for a year in .30 cal and 6.5mm and shot a lot of goats (couple of hundred), two dozen or so deer and several medium to large pigs, I can say that it performs a lot more reliably and less “messily” than the SST.
The cannelure in the SST never did much to hold the bullet together in my experience, especially at shorter ranges. The low position of the Interlock left a lot more bullet to fragment, the thin jacket down to the lock readily broke up. What I experienced many times with the SST in .308, was a large and very messy exit, caused by larger fragments bursting through in a wide wound radius.
The picture clearly shows how much thicker the ELD-X jacket is from the ogive through to the shank, how much higher up the mechanical lock is, and how much longer the stronger part of the bullet is for the weight. With this bullet, which I should say now I haven’t been using much at short range, I get a much more palatable exit wound but no less internal wounding, because (I assume) the high position of the lock means that the upper half of the bullet expands and partially fragments into very small pieces which produce extremely fast kills, whilst the lower half of the bullet remains largely intact and punches through.
With the SST, most of the bullet was fragmenting and overall weight loss was often very high. What was very noticeable when I switched from SST to the 150gr GameKing, was whilst the GameKing was highly frangible, it didn’t seem to generate as many larger fragments and therefore if there was an exit (about half the time?), it was quite small in comparison and the meat damage on the opposite side was much reduced.
So in my experience the commonly held view that the ELD-X “grenades” like the SST isn’t necessarily true. Some of the opinion to the contrary comes from parroting Nathan Foster’s book, where he talks about getting the ELD-X to blow up at short ranges, however he is very clear that this is in magnum cartridges at impact velocities above 2900fps. In slower, less powerful cartridges that are typically generating an MV of 2600-2800fps, I haven’t seen this outcome, nor have my mates that use this bullet.
I think that in most non-magnum cartridges the Hornady claim that the ELD-X is an “all-range” hunting bullet is a fair call. Exceptions where problems may occur at short range are the likes of .270, 6.5x284, i.e. cartridges than generate MVs of ~3000fps+. I have seen pictures from a friend who shot red hinds at 60-70m with the .270 Win and hot loaded 145gr ELD-X, and it wasn’t pretty at all.
In my .308, at a relatively sedate 2400fps, I haven’t had any problems, quite the opposite, the 178gr ELD-X poleaxes large hinds at shortish range, generating a sensible 1 – 1.5” exit wound and relatively little meat damage.
I think this comment though brings into play the issue of whether to choose ELD-X. Because for most blokes stalking in the woods or small fields, where ranges rarely exceed 250-300m, there are no material benefits to using the ELD-X over a traditional cup and core soft point like Sierra Gameking. I use ELD-X in my 6.5mm for longer range, high BC performance, but I am likely to drop them in my .308 in favour of the ProHunter spitzer or maybe round nose, because I’ll very rarely exceed 200m with that rifle now.
With the ProHunters, the reason I will likely pick them over the ELD-X for my woods gun is I can push them at a modest velocity and know I’ll get reliable fragmentation and a very high percentage of the energy dumped internally across a wide radius, usually all of the energy. I deliberately load the ProHunter to not readily exit the chest cavity. This has in my experience delivered a higher percentage of bang flops and short runners when the point of impact is slightly off. With the soft frangible bullet in the woods, where long runners are a potential big problem, you want it to do all its work internally and not in the countryside on the other side of the animal. Not surprisingly the animal dies a lot faster. Where the ProHunter comes up a bit short is when it's breezy, I've learnt to only ever take long shots with them when it is absolutely still.
For me then, the ELD-X is pretty much the perfect bullet for say 200-600m deer and goat shooting, or whatever range your rifle delivers a terminal velocity of say 2600-1800fps. The accuracy is the main differentiating factor, it is as claimed “match accurate” and sure does cheat the wind very effectively. In 6.5mm its the most reliably accurate hunting bullet that performs like a hunting bullet should that I've ever used (a dig at Berger VLD-H there). The construction and hard hitting terminals have - for me and my primary hunting partner - delivered effective, fast killing wounding at impact points pretty much anywhere from the front of the chest to just in front of the liver.
It does pay I think to understand how it works, it is not just an SST in new flash clothing.
Last edited:
