New loads to develop

[User00033]

The new pills arrived today and there's three here that I've not used before.

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Hornady ELD-X 178gr .308
Plan here is to use AR2208, aiming for about 2450fps with as close to a 100% fill ratio as possible, which should be 40.3gr according to Quickload. This projectile is (I hope) going to take over from the Nosler BT 150gr for large Reds between 200-400m. Some extra energy downrange and improved ballistics with the specific objective of achieving full penetration and decent exits, which I haven't been getting with the Noslers. (The Noslers have been effective killers but after the one stag ran on me in April and I struggled to find him due to no exit wound and poor blood trail, I decided to change)

Nosler Bonded Performance 64gr .223
This is the really interesting new projectile. Controlled expansion design for punching through windows and walls and killing terrorists. Reviews from the rellies in the States have been 100% positive. (On game, though don't put it past them.) The T3 Supervarmint is a 1:12" twist and I'm limited by bullet length to ~60gr, in practice I've not used more than 55gr. Nosler claim that the 'protected point' design of these bullets mean they will stabilise in traditional twist barrels (1:12" in .223, 1:14" in .22-250) and my cuzzies say this works for them, so we'll see.

The .223 varmint bullets I've been using on goats aren't 100% reliable for clean kills. Every 5th or 6th goat doesn't go down first time, and that irks me. The recent switch to the Howa .243 / 75gr V-Max / 3400fps for goat culls has been successful to a point, in that I can fire off all 5 shots in a flash and kill 5 goats, my barrel and suppressor are bloody hot and I have to reload while the other 5 run away. If I can find a bullet that delivers better terminal performance in .223 I get 10 shots and a warm, not hot, barrel / suppressor. Plus, if I see an eating deer (yearling) at a reasonable range but I'm carrying the .223, I'm good to go in theory (it's legal here).

Aim is to stick with AR2206H at around 26gr for about 2850fps. Nosler's load data is with the 1:12" twist and a 26" barrel so I'll be well happy if I can get close-ish to their published performance.

Hornady Zombie Max 50gr .223
A limited production run that's over now apparently. The Zombie Max.... I've tried looking for some zombies but no luck so far if you don't count Warren Gatland or Winston Peters. They are V-Max with a green tip. And 500 zombies come for the same price as 250 V-Max. So a no-brainer. I'll be sending these at vermins as fast as I can for maximum explosiveness, which will be slightly more than ~26gr AR2206H.


Thanks to some of the good advice on this forum in the recent 'load development' thread I'll be sure to put all the best practice stuff to good effect hopefully. Using 2x fired brass for all the above, as well as the Hornady V-Max 75gr which is my normal choice for general varminting with that calibre.

 

[Southern]

My Howa .223 Rem with 1:12 twist shoots the 64-gr Winchester ammunition just fine. My 1:9 Bushmaster XM-15 really shoots it well, but it shoots everything well.

The 64-gr Winchester ammo is used here by the game wardens to cull in suburbs, where they are causing car wrecks, to head shoot wild boar at night, and for coyotes. It is issued to law enforcement for their patrol car AR-15 carbines, and for SWAT, but the wildlife officers swear by it for a well-placed shot on four-legged targets ( and most of their shots are under 50 yards ).

The Trophy Bonded .223 bullet was outstanding, but no longer available for handloading, so I am glad Nosler has decided to fill the void.

 

[LeftHandGuy]

Be interesting to hear how you get on with the ELD-X do you think they will really be the any/all-range-wunderbullet that Hornady sell them as?

 

[User00033]

Be interesting to hear how you get on with the ELD-X do you think they will really be the any/all-range-wunderbullet that Hornady sell them as?

I guess I'm gonna find out... I won't be going proper long range with the .308, with the 3-12x50 Zeiss scope and their Reticle 6 its not set up for hunting >500yds.

There are mixed reports on ELDs. PATHnz on this forum has said that he prefers to hunt with the ELD-M match version over the ELD-X hunting version. I am keen to find out why.

A mate down south is using 162gr ELD-X in his 7mmRM at proper long range and said he'll never need another bullet. He's settled on it and investing all his time learning the ballistics.

I think its all about getting the velocity right for correct expansion and not pencil thin pass throughs.

 

[NigelM]

I had a lot of trouble getting the ELD-X to be accurate in a 9 twist 280AI. 3/4" groups but nothing consistently better. I have switched to the Sierra 160 grain tipped MK which is performing much better.

 

[User00033]

3/4" groups but nothing consistently better.

For hunting purposes I will be just fine with 3/4" groups. Sub-MOA from a bog standard T3 Stainless Laminated in .308 will be classified a success. Killing power and MOA accuracy are the two criteria I am interested in, in equal measure.

This links in with the "acceptable accuracy" thread. Roughly 50% of the deer I shoot with this rifle are off hand, 50% off a bipod usually in rough as guts terrain at all sorts of angles with rocks under my nuts and grass poking up my nostrils. At 400yds a couple of inches either way won't be the deciding factor if the bullet's terminal performance doesn't meet expectations, thats the way I'm looking at it.

I looked at the Sierra TMK and decided to stay away because they specifically say not to use them for hunting. Whereas the ELD-X is a hunting bullet by design, so they say at least...

 

[LeftHandGuy]

I guess I'm gonna find out... I won't be going proper long range with the .308, with the 3-12x50 Zeiss scope and their Reticle 6 its not set up for hunting >500yds.

500yds! In this part of the world I don't think people see many deer further than about 75!

My understanding is that BTs (essentially hollow points) have a nasty habit of simply blowing up at too short of a range, either that or being very violent/destructive of meat inside the carcass. I've seen the advertising for the ELD, and I get that the new superdooper non-melting plastic means potentially greater accuracy, but I'm a little unsure as to why it won't behave just like any other BT when it actually connects with the animal?

 

[User00033]

With the 150gr Nosler BTs at close range (sub 200yds) a shot into the rib cage makes a gloop of the vitals. Killing is emphatic. Anywhere under ~200yds, I struggle to find pieces of the bullet and if I do, it's fully fragmented. At 200-400yds, again no exit wound but larger fragments of bullet and slightly delayed killing. The animal can take off for a few seconds before expiring, rarely more than 50, 60 yds. So the weight retention from my experience of the Nosler BT is very low indeed. And the only blood trail is what comes out of the animal’s nose which usually isn’t a lot.

Some of the terrain we hunt is very steep. I try not to shoot an animal on really steep faces as they fall who knows how far and you don't know whether you'll be able to get to wherever it ends up. So if animal is on a low gradient position, but might run and only then expire, it becomes a lottery as to whether it falls down the face or not. I want to see if I can develop a cartridge that gives me greater drop-on-the-spot percentages for deer and pigs from a conventional short action .30 calibre within the typical 200-400yd ranges we encounter these animals.

(The country we shoot is dominated by very steep gullies & valleys, and that a decent field of view is often only achievable shooting across the valley to the opposing face. This typically means an absolute minimum range of 150yds and more likely 250-350yds, sometimes up to 500yds)

Shooting off hand happens a fair bit when we come across an animal at short range. Never at a running animal because they almost always stop and turn to look back at you.

Shooting this rifle sub-200yds off a bipod I've dropped most of the deer on the spot with a lower neck shot. Very effective when you trust your accuracy in low / no wind conditions, negates the risk of a bolt entirely. When shooting off hand, I won't risk that and shoot for the vitals. So I want something that has more energy for longer duration, hence the increase in weight at the expense of a little bit of velocity.

So the objective with the ELD-X thicker shank and high interlock ring is more controlled expansion, higher weight retention and therefore assumed greater penetration and a nice big exit wound. If Hornady is to be believed, we will see. If it doesn’t perform like I expect then I will go elsewhere!

 

[User00033]

Loaded up six .308 ELD-X witth AR2208, three at 39.2gr and three at 41.3gr.

Shouldn't have bothered going out due to ridiculous weather, bloody wet, blustery cross winds. Normal range is underwater so ended up shooting downhill from a silly uncomfortable position. Anyway, the 39.2gr batch gave me 1.13" and the 41.3gr batch gave me 0.88", at 100m or 109 yds. Get myself into a better position in better weather and those numbers will come down to 1/2 - 3/4 MOA repeatedly I'd think.

No excess pressure signs or indications of poor stability. I'm using 3x fired, neck resized ADI military brass which is 5-6gr heavier than the Lapua and 10gr heavier than the Winchester. One more increment up the load weights to go (42.4gr) which is max published by Hornady. ADI publishes significantly hotter loads, for shorter bullets, and I have the COAL to go beyond what the mag will take (2.830") so possibly will be able to squeeze some more velocity out of them if I load through the port. Little steps forward from now on.

Alternatively I could just get a David Waters mag with the longer COAL...

EDIT: I went to clean the rifle after all the rain and discovered that my action screws were loose. I would have forgotten to torque them up after the last time I cleaned it. Sometimes I really really **** myself off.

I also lightened the trigger to the minimum 2lbs from the 3.5lbs it was set to for rough country bush hunting. Better now for trying to achieve some decent groups.

 

[kenbro]

Hi dk,
You could consider the 25-45 Sharps for the goats. More FPE than any bullet in .223 Rem, and, the barrel is slow to get warm.
Ken.

 

[User00033]

This is what came of the .308 178gr ELD-X load development.

Went about it a bit arse about face in that I started with powder weight before COAL. Basically cos I wanted to be sure I could get the max punch out of the heavier bullet for improved terminal performance at longer ranges, without any pressure problems. Started in the middle of the Hornady load data and worked up to the maximum load, all at SAAMI COAL. Didn’t seeing any significant improvement in accuracy, but no pressure problems. Was getting 0.9” – 1.3” groups at 100yds, ok-ish though truth be told I was shooting poorly pretty much the whole way through for reasons stated above.

Weather has improved but still too boggy to get onto the normal flat sheltered range, so stuck with shooting downhill into a fairly stiff blustery breeze. Switched from prone position to shooting off a table. Max the magazine will allow is 2.820, measured max COAL is 2.927” so I thought bugger it I can always get a Waters 6-shot mag which allows me to soft touch the lands. So I started on the lands and made up 3 groups of 5 shots in 40 thou increments as in the Berger method. This immediately showed improvement at the longer end of the COAL range but the same ~1” group at the max the magazine will allow.

This arvo I halved the difference in COAL between my two best groups and have settled on 2.917”, or 10 thou back from the lands, on 42.4gr of AR2208 (Varget). This has given me three 5 shot groups within 0.75” at 100yds, shooting into a pretty stiff blustery breeze blowing from 22h30 which is good enough for me and well within the Tikka accuracy guarantee.

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One thing I did to try and create a level playing field. I thoroughly cleaned the bore last night, then this arvo shot one fouling shot. Then I waited a timed 5 minutes before the first test shot, tempearture ~11 deg C in the wind. And every shot thereafter was a timed five minutes, bolt removed in the interim, facing straight into the wind.

So upshot of all this is – from a bog standard Tikka T3 – is that in my normal killing range of meat deer (Red hinds) I’ve increased killing power by 10% at 200m and 23% at 500m, with a controlled expansion projectile (ELD-X) replacing the current frangible projectile (Nosler BT). That’s all theoretical until I see for myself how it actually performs on deer. That said, after punching through 12mm ply the ELD-X plows a long and deep furrow in the paddock, so there’s plenty of weight retention and that’s not something I’ve experienced with the BT.

Now, onto the .223 Nosler Bonded Performance 64gr pills…

Hi dk,
You could consider the 25-45 Sharps for the goats. More FPE than any bullet in .223 Rem, and, the barrel is slow to get warm.
Ken.

It's a very interesting suggestion and the little I've read about it so far sounds quite attractive. A potential future project? But a bit too close to the .243 to justify? We'll see.

 

[User00033]

Just before leaving for the last hunting trip, I loaded up the first batch of .223 Nosler Bonded Solid Base bullets. I was keen to see how these performed on small deer – either last year’s fallow spikers or yearling reds. They look a bit odd with the protected point, being designed for AR platforms and primarily aimed at law enforcement. They’ve become very popular indeed with my rellies in the US and Canada in bolt actions.

View attachment 85822

I wanted to use my cuz’s suggested load which he is using in exactly the same rifle, the T3 Super Varmint in .223. That being 24.7gr of Varget, seated to 2.175” as per Nosler’s load data. He’s had good solid accuracy and velocity with this load, slightly lower than the Nosler maximum (25gr), and has been knocking over young Whitetails with ease.

So I made up 3 rounds at 24gr, went out back, set up on the bonnet of the truck with the bipod at an uncomfortable angle on a wet and windy day, and shot a 1” group right in the middle of the bullseye, no changes to the scope from my normal 55gr varmint load. Not too shabby for starters. Then I upped the load to 24.4gr, same result. Lastly I made up 5 rounds at 24.7gr, set up the chrono and shot a 0.978” group at an average of 3,052fps. The spread on this group is likely down to my crappy shooting in a crappy position... the normal range is a bog at this time of the year.

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There’s been a lot of talk in the US about these bullets being very fussy about primers when using grubby Varget. I’m using CCI BR4. I got about 150fps higher velocity than the Nosler load data max load, which is interesting especially as they are using a 26" barrel vs. my 23.75" barrel. There’s a fair amount of soot on the case for sure and more noticable fouling than AR2206H. However, the accuracy is fantastic in real world shooting conditions and now I can fiddle around with COAL and shoot off some bags to see if I can close to 0.5”, not that I really need to.

What’s obviously a real plus is that there’s no problem with stability. Being a short but heavier bonded solid base pill it was tested by Nosler in the 1:12” barrel and it certainly behaved as expected in my 1:12”. No problems stabilising at all. Cuz has started to use these in his 1:14” .22-250, bit fussier on powder, using CFE 223, but now it's sweet and very accurate. That would be one hell of a round in a .22-250.

Have to wait a week or two to get the photos back from my mate, who was on camera duty when I shot a young fallow spiker with this round last week. We were very very pleased with the result, at 167m shooting quite steeply downhill on a still day, lower neck shot, the animal collapsed on the spot, didn’t make a yard. Large exit wound, a clean pass through. No evidence of frangibility, just solid expansion and weight retention all the way through. The hole through the spine and surrounding tissue was at least 1” diameter. So the word from N America on these pills seems to be spot on – a very very effective .223 round that may be of interest to some of the Scottish shooters on this forum, or others elsewhere where legal.

Regarding the .308 ELD-X, I didn't get the chance to use these on the last trip as haven't completed a drop chart out to 500m yet, and want to do this prior to testing on live targets.

 

[NigelM]

Nice write up. Now I'm no expert, but I have done quite a bit of playing with loads and COAL with different bullets.

Looking at your ELD-X target it is very similar to where I got to with the TMK's. Horizontal stringing with very little vertical forming a 1/2" group. My conclusion after having gone through various combinations of loads and COAL's which all exhibited a much greater vertical component was that my load and length were spot on and the horizontal spread was showing up either my poor technique or was down to wind. I later proved this to be my own poor technique.

On the 223 you have a large vertical component in the string. I would think this is due either to the load or COAL not being optimum or due to a very high ES.

As I said, I'm no expert, but if they were my targets they would be the conclusions I would be drawing.

 

[User00033]

I'm pretty sure the its more a matter of the non-statistical term CS (Crap Shooting) and the in-a-rush-can't-wait decision to shoot off the bonnet on a bipod... I will in time put some more effort into this load, just to see if I can get it to the same level of accuracy (0.25 MOA) that the Super Varmint can deliver with the 55gr Nosler Varmageddons, Sierra BlitzKings and Berger Varmints.

I do need to read up on things like extreme spread because it to be honest I am not clued in this department at all.

However cuz has said that some of the guys using these in the US in bolt guns have increased COAL to a small jump, with commensurate improvement. Apparently theres a whole thread on it on one of the US forums but I haven't read it yet.

At the end of the day, it is a hunting load, and its already proven itself in that department in terms of quick killing. All groups shot so far have been MOA or just below and with a strict self-imposed 200m range limit on this load for use on small deer, it already meets the requirement for reliable lower neck or hilar shooting.

 

[User00033]

New loads - .223 64gr Nosler update

Ten days of hill time resulted in a great many dead goats (lost count), a dozen reds (spikers mostly), three fallow spikers and about 40 pigs.

The pigs have been causing great damage to the pasture bordering the forest blocks, and become brazen (and stupid) in the way they were going about their business. So after picking some good shooting positions and baiting with dead goats, we were able to pick them off at will with .243s.

We did some more testing of the .223 64gr Nosler Bonded Performance, pushing the range out to 250m with ease, using the T3 Super Varmint and a Sako 85 Hunter. Head and neck shooting the goats, dropping them instantly, and lower neck / hilar shooting the deer, with equally impressive results. This hind was picked out as being a bit mangy and good for dog tucker, and was shot from 225m. Went for the shoulder, POI was 1-2” back from where it should have been which was shooter error (wind and not being patient enough) but the performance was still devastating. Took a bit of bone off the edge of the shoulder on the way in, a sliver of rib, punched right through the rear hilar zone, red misting the lungs, and blowing a dirty big hole on the way out, some of which would have bone. She jumped about 4ft in the air, turned and hurtled straight downhill, which they tend to do, very conveniently expiring mid leap a fair ways closer to the track where we could load her onto the bike. The blood loss was massive and she left a thick frothy trail for the 30 odd metres she made from the POI. At that range the bullet is striking at about 2300fps and 700 ft lbs.

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We love these Noslers, they are an outstanding little killer, with no recoil from the .223s to speak of you can maintain line of sight and see all the detail of the shot.