Hornady bullets

[Chuck Boyer]

I have a Tikka T3 in 243 that shoots like a house afire. I decided to try some 85 gr Interbond bullets. For the life of me I can not get them to shoot. I mean in the 3" range. Nosler partitions 85 and 95 as well as 95 Bts shoot under an inch. Heck even the 95 Fusion load shoots under an inch.

While I am on it, I have 2 .270's. An old Rem 700 and a Ruger carbine. The 140 SST will not shoot in either gun. Noslers and Sierra's shoot fine without much tinkering.

I have tried different powders(at least 4), seating depths, etc. What's up with these bullets? Has anybody had a similar experience? I would think the 85 Interbond would be the cat's meow. Boy was I wrong.

[ACKLEY NUT]

Chuck ; I am having the same problem with my 6.5/06 Ackley' It just will NOT shoot the 129SST or the 140SST tried everything but still 4" to 5" (5) shot groups at 150 yds. The 140 A MAX shot just fine (5) shots@150yds inside .600MOA. (120NOS. B.tip (5)@.500MOA.) I'm also interested in what could be wrong.

[montana_native]

SST's in a .270 here. Pretty pathetic groups as well.

[WildcatB]

I shoot 150gr. SST's in two tikka 270 wsm's and they shoot really well - 1/2 MOA from one and 1/4 from the other (at 100 yards 3 shot groups). What's nicer is both go to sleep downrange and get tighter. 3 days ago I shot the 1/2" gun at 600 and got a 2-1/4" group. I couldn't be happier. I use magpro, remington cases, and cci mag primers.

[davewilson]

can't say i've got much experience with Hornady's, have used the 6mm/105 with excellent results. but i just happened to purchase a box today. measured the baring surface of the 30cal/178 A-max, 100 count. 93 were the exact same length and the other 7 were only 1 thousand less. i was impressed with that. the A-max has a very good reputation for accuracy and long range hunting.

[lerch]

this is funny cause i was just talking to a customer in the store about pretty much this same thing today.

Correct me if im wrong here.

Hornady uses a a vld (secant??) nose profile on there amax bullets, i am not for sure on the sst and interbond bullets. they tend to be a little pissy about seating depth, much like the bergers. play with seating them into the lands and out of about .005" at a time. with the 105 amax in my 6br they would group around 2.5" seated .010" into and out of the lands at 400yds. around 4" at .015" in and out. right at the lands about .003" off and they grouped 4 shots just under 1" at 400yds.

just a little bit makes a big difference.

you might try that and see if it makes a diff

have a good un
steve

[phorwath]

I've never had any luck with Hornady bullets providing stellar groups in my rifles but some guy do very well with them so maybe Lerch has touched on a possible difference in results.

I tried their 139 gr Interbond in two 7mm Rem Mags and the group sizes were consistently 2-3 times larger than I achieved with Nosler 140 gr Accubonds and BTs. The first box of Hornady Interbonds had a bunch of crooked plastic tips on them. I didn't notice them until I'd shot about 1/2 of the box of 100. So I sent them back to Hornady and they mailed me a new box of 100. Well 26 of those 100 pack of bullets had crooked tips too. And several of the plastic tips were loose. In fact one tip fell off when I picked the bullet up out of the box. Didn't give me a lot of confidence in Hornady's manufacturing process or quality control. And it wasn't just a fluke with my 7mm Hornadys. I told two guys at work about my experience and then brought my bullets in and showed them to them. So they go home and bring in some of the .308 & .338 Hornady Interbonds that they had on their reloading benches and their plastic tips were also crooked!

If you're trying to load Hornady Interbonds, I'd pull the plastic tips off them first. Either that or load them butt end first! I guess that would make for a butt-ugly cartridge that shot butt-ugly bad! Seriously though, they were a joke.

But like I said, a number of folks report good results, which I can't explain based on my experiences. FWIW, I gave up on Hornady bullets after I returned the box with the crooked tips and then they turned around and sent me a new replacement box which ran a 26% crooked tip rate. A lot of good that did me. You'ld have thought they'd have at least looked at the bullets before they sent them off to me.

No crooked plastic tips on my Nosler's so far.