250gr. match 338 hornady.

[7mmrowland]

Anybody have any experiance with these at all, good or bad.

 

[300WSMMAD]

Hi 7mm,
Not with the 250 grs, Ive seen the performance of the 22 cal "match" bullets and it was **** poor, Same load in AMax same rifle just different bullet and it got 70 fps faster!
They may be really good but Ive never heard them talked about on this forum(please forgive if Im wrong folks) I think the SMKs have a better name for them selves IMO

Regards 300WSMAD

 

[Long Time Long Ranger]

I'm glad you brought this up again. It came up earlier and I really put them to test before my deer hunt. I shot them in several 338 rifles known for excellent accuracy. All were 1-10 twist which shoots the 300's fine so that should not be a factor. These are rifles that shoot 3"-4" groups at 600 yards. They were doing that at 100 with the 250 match. They were responsible for the worst, most embarrasing group I think I have ever shot at a quarter mile which was about 10 1/2 ". I tried seating depth, different powders and loads and they would not shoot in my rifles. I really wanted these to shoot because I can run them 300+ fps over the 300's with a good bc and they don't rattle my fillings nearly as bad as the 300's in a 10 pound rifle. Beautiful bullets to, I can't understand why they do not shoot. I have had excellent success with other Hornady bullets. After the 10 1/2" group I fired four shots into a little over an inch at the same target with the same rifle with 200 grain noslers at 3660 fps. Guess what I shot my deer with!

 

[7mmrowland]

What the hell? thats bad. You would think Hornady would figure it out. Hopefully we get more input.

 

[Long Time Long Ranger]

If you want to buy some I have some for sale cheap.

 

[davewilson]

i'm kinda in the same boat with Ranger. i viewed these as a possible deer hunting bullet. i like the 250gr over the 300 because of less hang time to 1k, and the BC and larger hollow point of the Hornady was of course attractive. initially, without any load developement, accuracy was close to what i was getting with the 250SMK's. then i wanted to do some terminal performance, which i did at 300 and 700 yards. i can say there's no doubt in my mind they would perform very well on game at long range, so i went about trying to get accuracy at longer ranges. i just couldn't get acceptable accuracy. i can usually shoot the SMK's 1-2" at 300, 2-3" at 500. the Hornady's were about double that. i didn't get anywhere near the, i think **** poor was the term Ranger used, sized groups. but having considerable better accuracy with the PROVEN Sierra's, why bother with the Hornady's, especially at close to twice the price.

my understanding is they are bringing out an A-max in 338. i'm deffinitely going to try that as the A-max's have a proven accuracy and killing record.

a 200gr nosler at 3660.....ouch!

 

[royinidaho]

I'm with Ranger and davewilson on this one.

In my RUMand Winny they shot 'pretty' fair but not up to snuff with others.

I've settled on 225 NABs and will limit shooting to checking zero, harvesting, and the occasional drop check rock.

 

[Topshot]

I think Hornady has modified this bullet? I just purchased two boxes (January, 2009) and the meplat has been rolled closed a bit. On other posts some shooters reported that the hollow point was rather large, this is not the case with the batch I bought.

For what its worth.

 

[Topshot]

I think Hornady has modified this bullet? I just purchased two boxes (January, 2009) and the meplat has been rolled closed a bit. On other posts some shooters reported that the hollow point was rather large, this is not the case with the batch I bought.

For what its worth.

Just had a chance to try them out and was very happy with them. Got good group sizes and velocity ave of 2738fps with a load of 70grn of AR2209 (H4350) out of my .338 Win Mag - Sako with 24" tube. E.S. was 14.

Photo for comparison 250 Hornady to 300 SMK