225gr ELD-M vs 212gr ELD-X For Whitetail to 1000 yards

CMP70306

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Hello All,

Due to expected clear cutting of my local state game lands it appears I may have a one time chance to hunt deer from 300 out to 1000+ yards this year. Now I have a new 8 twist .300 WM barrel coming in and was wondering which bullet would provide better performance on Whitetails out to that distance or if there was even a difference in the terminal performance?

For background info I've been running these two bullets in my current 300 WM barrel(30" with a 10 twist) and holding between 1/4 and 1/3 MOA with both loads. Using the 77gr H1000 puts the 212 at 3005 fps while 74.7gr H1000 puts the 225 at 2910 fps.

Thanks for any advice you can give me.
 
I am interested what people think as well. If I had any input I'd say either should work, but with the potential of closer engagements maybe the 212 eldx would hold together better? I think it had the thicker jacket toward the base to aid in this. Just a thought and I could be wrong.

I bet the 215 berger hybrid would also be good. :)
 
I tried the 215 Hybrid first, around 700 of them actually. Averaged around 3/4 MOA while the ELDs do better for cheaper so I switched back to Hornady.
 
Choose the load which is most accurate at 1k or best in the wind. Sometimes you have to weigh what is best. The 225 bc should start to shine at lr. You won't need to worry about either not holding together enough for a whitetail. In fact with heavy 30cal bullets especially tough bonded bullets or monos I've seen them fail by punching through with minimal expansion because a whitetail doesn't offer much mass. With the eldx and eldm they should offer rapid enough expansion to serve ur needs
 
I tried the 215 Hybrid first, around 700 of them actually. Averaged around 3/4 MOA while the ELDs do better for cheaper so I switched back to Hornady.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing. The 215's have quite the fan club. But I have heard others mention the same as you. Curious did you try the 230 hybrids? I'd like to know your results if so.
 
I load the 212, they easily will work fine out to 1000 (judging by how hard they hit my steel plate )
I say around 1400 to start wondering about ethics with that load
 
Interesting. Thanks for sharing. The 215's have quite the fan club. But I have heard others mention the same as you. Curious did you try the 230 hybrids? I'd like to know your results if so.

While I didn't load the 230's in this rifle (I probably should try them in my new barrel) I shot them in my original long range rifle which was a Model 70 in .300 WM. I could get 2740 fps and sub 1/2 MOA accuracy out of them when loaded to 3.36 for mag length. Being a Hornady fan when they announced the ELD series I jumped and haven't loaded any Berger bullets since.

I load the 212, they easily will work fine out to 1000 (judging by how hard they hit my steel plate )
I say around 1400 to start wondering about ethics with that load

I've shot them during a long range class and it was amusing how much louder the impacts were compared to everyone else shooting the 6.5 Creedmoor and .308. Of the couple misses I was able to dig out of the dirt almost all of them had expanded past the innerlock ring with the jacket separating from the core. However I just wasn't sure if that was a fair comparison since the ground provides way more resistance than a 120# Whitetail.

In fact with heavy 30cal bullets especially tough bonded bullets or monos I've seen them fail by punching through with minimal expansion because a whitetail doesn't offer much mass. With the eldx and eldm they should offer rapid enough expansion to serve ur needs

That was my main concern between the two bullets, the 225gr does a little better in the wind and holds a little more velocity but I was concerned that due to the weight it might tend to pencil through rather than expand.
 
While I didn't load the 230's in this rifle (I probably should try them in my new barrel) I shot them in my original long range rifle which was a Model 70 in .300 WM. I could get 2740 fps and sub 1/2 MOA accuracy out of them when loaded to 3.36 for mag length. Being a Hornady fan when they announced the ELD series I jumped and haven't loaded any Berger bullets since.



I've shot them during a long range class and it was amusing how much louder the impacts were compared to everyone else shooting the 6.5 Creedmoor and .308. Of the couple misses I was able to dig out of the dirt almost all of them had expanded past the innerlock ring with the jacket separating from the core. However I just wasn't sure if that was a fair comparison since the ground provides way more resistance than a 120# Whitetail.



That was my main concern between the two bullets, the 225gr does a little better in the wind and holds a little more velocity but I was concerned that due to the weight it might tend to pencil through rather than expand.
I'd be more concerned with if there was enough *** behind the projo to get it to expand at beyond 800y. I mean the only way to know forsure is to go shoot something or someone, but if I was a betting man, I'd say you'd get full expansion and energy transfer
 
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