Ok, Hornay, one of my favorite companies did it again.-A New Mono on the Market

[LRNut]

We're gonna end up with bullets full of golf ball dimples to decrease air drag…there's an old Simpsons episode from when the Simpsons was still funny, i forget what happened but homer ended up punching a bunch of holes in Flanders' car, and convinced him he was just being neighborly and putting "speed holes" in his car to help it drive faster . We're gonna have bullets with speed holes soon!


Not really though. I've actually looked into this, wondering why no one's done that. Turns out the rules are all different at supersonic speeds and no, denting up a bullet won't improve anything haha.

My knowledge is limited to the single fluid dynamics course I had years ago, but parasitic drag is why high BC bullets have boattails and why 18 wheelers often have the "boattail" faring on the backs of their trucks. The groove on mono bullets creates a slight vacuum as air passes over it.

 

[asd9055]

I agree with both of your experiences…

I love hornady PROJECTILES…and sometimes them and Speer are the only ones left not wanting me to choose between affording to eat and affording to go shooting!

Hornady BRASS is just plain irritating to work with, and their loaded ammo is very overrated and overpriced for what you get (for cheap full power loads Winchester super x has always delivered, and if I were ever to spend big money on premium ammo again, federal premium is awesome stuff…a bit pricey and honestly a bit watered down but it's accurate as all get out, every different federal premium combo I've tried SHOOTS!)

YEP, Hornady brass that I have tried, is usually thicker, less actual capacity, so you always have to reduce the load.
Now on the loaded ammo, I used freedom munitions 208? grain 300AAC loaded with Hornady bullets and mixed cases and they shot so much better than the Hornady brand loaded ammo with the same bullet. So, defnitely not the bullet, but the rest.
I do have about a 1000 Hornady projectiles, various calibers...we will see

 

[Cory Bache]

Came across this last night.

https://www.hornady.com/bullets/cx#!/#product-line

Hornady seems to have recognized the trend towards mono's and has come into the market with their own new offering.

I've been a really big fan of Hornady for better than 30 years since I first started shooting their varmint bullets when I was hiding and doing predator control and shot their Interbond, in my opinion the best bonded bullet in the US for as long as they were manufactured.

Once I get things set up again I'm going to have to try their CX bullets.

If nothing else I'll have to give the 190gr 30 cal and 250gr .375's a ride just for fun.

This great and all. But imagine if they put in as much effort producing enough bullets to keep up with demand on their already popular line as they do coming up with new. Just going to be another bullet we won't be able to buy.

 

[CMP70306]

I definitely agree with you here but the reason for all that shooter hype is because of what Hornady did to market it. Brilliant none the less, look at how that stupid round has sold and all the rifles chambered in it.

Don't take the difference of opinion as a personal attack here. Just other people's perspective. I used to be a huge Hornady fan until some of their recent business decisions. That's my stance but also understand yours as it is something you have had great success with for a very long time.

Hornady marketed the 6.5 Creedmoor as a target cartridge that shot flatter than the .308 to 1000 yards with trajectories closer to the standard 190gr .300 Win Mag loads at the time and could also be used for hunting thin skinned game like deer.

Over the years that whispered down the lane into the 6.5 Creedmoor is better than the Win Mag for elk out to 1000 yards.

This great and all. But imagine if they put in as much effort producing enough bullets to keep up with demand on their already popular line as they do coming up with new. Just going to be another bullet we won't be able to buy.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the planning predated COVID and since this is a replacement for the only mono metal projectile they produce it will most likely be produced on the same machines so it really has little effect on the supply.

 

[spladi]

Personally I love the small "boutique" manufacturers because they are the "cutting edge" that is driving larger companies like Hornady to innovate and give us not just more choices but superior products over what they've produced in the past.

Most people under 50 probably have no idea what it was like for the last half of the last century.

There was no internet, no youtube only a handful of magazines where new products would really be debuted for the public and the handful or writers and editors that decided what products would be pushed severely limited and controlled the market.

Word of mouth is a really amazing thing, somebody has an idea, shares it with someone else and maybe it gets then into the head or desk of someone that can carry that idea forward. Without the internet it might take decades to see a really great new idea actually come to market.

Today, with light speed communications at the fingertips of everyone with a phone the rate at which technology is advancing is orders of magnitude faster and continually accelerating.

The big manufacturing companies are generally way behind the curve and of course tend to be very conservative or they'd be out of business. Never forget it's those small guys willing to take a whole lot of risk that are improving the market for everyone, they lead the way and the big guys follow.

Yes, I only used two popular smaller companies' bullets for a long time before I tried Hornady products, BUT Hornady has stepped up enough that I feel secure competing with them as much as any. Lower prices, higher BC's plenty accurate.

 

[Lone Texan]

If you scroll down that page you see a couple of videos. I'm watching the first one and indeed this isn't just a remake and rebranding of the GMX but it is a completely redesigned bullet that has higher BC's than the GMX and expands better.

I admit to having some Bias towards Hornady having had such great luck over the last 40 years or so particularly with the Interbond which they unfortunately seem less than inclined to produce in any numbers any more although they have not officially having discontinued it.

In talking with their sale's folks today they are doing what most companies do, they are putting the bulk of their lines into the bullets that have the highest demand and of course that's primarily target shooters and weekend hunters than serious folks like us.

All that being said I think when the time comes I'll have to give these a ride to see if they measure up to the hype. I'm fortunate that where we're moving to we have a much wider variety of game and some really big country to hunt and shoot in so it's going to be a lot of fun.

I happen to be primarily one of "the other hunters" you downplay here. However, since I am a serious varmint hunter, I probably shoot more bullets for a monthly average than the long range shooters do in a year. My volume certainly helps pay for your toys!

 

[ButterBean]

They look good to me

 

[Rob L.]

Beyond that I may have to compensate more for drop and windage but let's face it, with today's ballistic calculators that's just not a big deal. If you're shooting MPBR faster and flatter wins the race but even there BC is of little consequence if any in practical terms.

This is one of the most common-sense replies I've read.
For those of us who are reaching the end, or nearing the end of our beloved hunting life, on one hand I'm glad to see constant improvement and development in bullets. But on the other hand, it kind of irks me that now I've got to try out the new stuff to how much better it really is...or not...again.
I've been shooting monos since the early 1990's and the improvements since then surely made a better bullet. But now that I'm at that point in my life where my hunting expeditions are fewer and shorter, I think I'll stick to what I have. So far, they work great, and I won't be switching anytime soon.

 

[LVJ76]

I agree with both of your experiences…

I love hornady PROJECTILES…and sometimes them and Speer are the only ones left not wanting me to choose between affording to eat and affording to go shooting!

Hornady BRASS is just plain irritating to work with, and their loaded ammo is very overrated and overpriced for what you get (for cheap full power loads Winchester super x has always delivered, and if I were ever to spend big money on premium ammo again, federal premium is awesome stuff…a bit pricey and honestly a bit watered down but it's accurate as all get out, every different federal premium combo I've tried SHOOTS!)

I've never had Winchester ammo shoot good at all, or the Hornady Superformance stuff either. The Hornady Whitetail line with Interlocks though, shoots really good.

Agreed, the Federal Premium stuff shoots really good, but on my 7mm Rem Mag they all give me some form of pressure.

Especially the 140gr Throphy Bonded Tip, stuck bolt every time. With the 168gr Berger Hybrid version I get flat primers, and around 3,050 fps, and they advertise it at 2,850 I believe.

 

[Kiwi Greg]

I just hope they expand the range & go lighter for calibre

Yes lighter is lower BCs but it also equals more velocity, high velocity impacts are where Monos really shine

On the whole Monos don't fear well at long range compared to their competition, the opposite can be said for close range impacts

 

[Ga6570]

I'm not impressed. They will do the same chit they did with the Shemoor and hype it up to the point of unrealistic expectations. (Ex: my shemoor will kill an elk at 5000 yards, drt!)

I will quietly laugh when people start trashing them because they glazed over the speed for effective killing part... they will have people shooting heavy for caliber monos and wondering why they aren't getting performance at 1800fps and below.

Who knows maybe I'm wrong but if I were a betting man....

Hornady didn't make those claims that the Creedmoor would solve the world's problems and end hunger…

 

[sierracharlie338]

Hornady didn't make those claims that the Creedmoor would solve the world's problems and end hunger…

Mmmmkay

 

[Alibiiv]

No bc improvements that I can see, maybe they updated the GMX for a lower velocity expansion threshold with the wider, shallower cavity , bearing surface appears same, maybe they are using a different alloy to reduce pressure from the previous design with the Gilding Metal that spiked pressures much like the old Barnes X of the 90's ?

Grooves are slicker on the CX and the new tip won't melt ....

Not a Hornady fan but I'd try them ....

they should start showing up soon out here, for some reason we don't have a problem getting Hornady bullets, just the other night, a local joint got in a big stack of 6.5mm 143 gr ELDX and 147 ELDM bullets along with 30 cal 200 gr & 220 gr ELDX and a bunch of other cals, while everywhere on the web is out of stock ...

1st pic is the old GMX
2nd pic the new CX
....
View attachment 334470View attachment 334471

Could be just a change in the type of metal they're using??

 

[.300 Dakota]

Looks like curved grooves rather than the straight edged grooves on the GMX plus a wider and shallower hollow point under the tip.

View attachment 334466View attachment 334467

Those grooves are narrower than the GMX and are way up closer to the ogive. There's a ton of bearing surface there, even though their introduction says bearing surface is optimized. Based on what I know about bullets and physics, the thing pictured here is going to spike peessures faster and foul bores much faster than the GMX, Barnes, or Hammers, and maybe even more than the bore-clogging Nosler E-Tip. Unless there's something to this design that isn't evident in the photos. It kind of resembles the Barnes LRX, and maybe the area between the bands is a thousandth or 2 undersized, which will help.

We can debate this all day, and you can't know how it's going to perform until we put it through a bore. This is just my opinion based on what I see in 1 photo. I look forward to testing it against Hammers in my .270 wildcat.

Hornady generally puts more research into these things, though. Surely it performed better or they'd have scrapped it?