Factory Hunting Ammo

[tomc]

Hornady shows their Custom 123 gr SST ammo for hunting and their Black ELD Match 123 gr for targets. Does that mean the Black is not suitable for hunting (deer & hogs)? There is quite a price difference and my AA/AR 16" likes it.

[bfk4lyfe]

Respectfully, do some reading in the hunting subforum, all your will be answered.

[Kswhitetails]

The Black worked great for me. I didn’t recover a bullet, but there was devastating soft tissue damage in both carcasses. The first shot from direct front broke both the sternum and a rear femur, meaning there was plenty of penetration capability. The second, a broadside shot on another very small deer was a high heart double lung shot, which broke a rib on exit. The wound showed more than sufficient expansion to deliver terminal energy transfer, the exit wound was over two inches. Maybe larger, I didn’t measure it.

As with all ammunition, shot placement is as key, if not even more so than the “purpose” of the bullet.

That being said, there is never a time when you should use ammunition you are not comfortable or capable of using yourself. You should confirm zero and have sufficient practice with your cartridge of choice before you commit to taking a shot on live game.

For me, ELD-M has been stated to be similar to it's predecessor, the A-Max, where only the tip and slight changes to the factory ogive seem to have been changed. If I remember correctly, the jacket even measured similarly in thickness after being compared when recovered from animals. There are thousands of documented cases of A-max being extremely lethal in real world situations.

As far as my two cents, I’d say it sounds to me like you have the pre-requisites covered, go shoot some hogs and confirm for yourself whether or not you think ELD-M pills are good enough. The SST is designed to expand quicker, but I wonder if it could be called “more effective”.

Doublenaughtspy is versed in the terminal performance of the Grendel. I will defer to his experience. He has great insight into this topic as he has a few hundred if not thousands of kills now with it, and several ammunition types that I know of.

[Double Naught Spy]

I wasn't impressed with the ELD-M on hogs. I did limited testing and the results were not great and I abandoned the testing.

Here is my take. I do not believe that just because something was not designed to do something that it won't work for it. LOTS of products were developed for one purpose and used for another. That the designers/inventors/developers failed to realize the full potential of what their product could do does not mean the product is incapable of doing something. Viagra was designed for hypertension and did not do well in drug trials for that purpose, but it is a fine erectile dysfunction drug, LOL. Rifle bullets were not designed to detonate tannerite. Etc.

So I did not feel that ELD-M was a worthwhile replacement for SST for HOGS. You can kill hogs with it, but then again, you can kill them with .22 subsonic ammo also. It isn't a matter of whether the ammo will kill, but how well and I feel like SST is better. SST also costs just a little bit more, but it is worth it to me to not have to shoot as much or track as much by using SST over ELD-M. That is my opinion.

With that said, ELD-M might be fine for smaller hogs and maybe I didn't take that into account. When I hunt, I want something that covers the full range of hog sizes. SST does fine across the range of hogs.

ELD-M may be fine for deer. I know a lot of hunters really liked AMAX for deer and it wasn't designed for hunting either. While some used AMAX for hogs (and I never tried), those that I knew that using AMAX for deer did not think it did as well for hogs.

ELD-M shot very well from my guns and on the day I tried it, I was able to group better with ELD-M than SST from my rifle. It wasn't hugely better, IIRC, but it was better, but SST usually does pretty darned good for me anyway.

[bj139]

DNS,
You have the most experience by far in killing game of anyone here so I bow to your experience.

When I was deer hunting my Howa was loaded with 123g SSTs.

[Double Naught Spy]

Thanks, but I am only one guy with a limited set of experiences. I liked SST for hogs because it is a factory ammo that works just fine. If you reload, there are a myriad of choices you could go with. I don't reload.

When it comes to hunting and bullets, there is rarely only one answer and there may be multiple very good answers.

[Keef]

So far I've been happy EDL for hunting for deer. It shoots the most accurate for me which is what I care about, if you put a hole thru somethings lung/heart its going to die, but I used to kill em no problem with wolf 7.62x39 HP and the internet says thats no bettter than a fmj....

BUT the only pigs I've seen on the farm were this year when a sorry human dropped 30+potbellied pigs off in one of the fields. Not exactly wild boars.

[Double Naught Spy]

Okay, here are my two ELD-M hog videos. When the ELD-M works, it works great, does lots of damage, and penetrates well. Other times, it doesn't seem to work well at all. In one case (first vid), one round did not appear to expand at all. In the second video, I had a shot that hit the side of the hog's head and failed to penetrate. This was a cheek shot. No reason it should not have blasted into the skull. Contrary to popular belief, hog skulls are not made of thick bone and are not particularly hard. So given the varied performance of the round, I chose not to continue testing. I wanted something that would perform more reliably.

https://youtu.be/YnsKs1fu7fs

https://youtu.be/8IME_0wF1DU

Also, here is a Coyote kill.

https://youtu.be/DSZhQSuhj9E

[tomc]

Thanks for the info DNS. Enjoy your videos. Looks like I just need to keep an eye out for better prices on the Hornady Custom SST ammo.

[tracker12]

DNS thanks for the info. I'm heading to GA on Monday for a few days of pig hunting. I have the ELD's and will be seeing how they work. Wanted the SST but they were not available before the trip. SST's will be in the gun on the next trip in March thou based on what I have seen from your results and others I know. I'll save the ELD's for the small Sika deer on the Eastern shore of Maryland.

[Armadillo66]

I have yet to see anyone with experience using the Nosler 125gr Partition in Grendel. Seems like that bullet out of 20" or longer barrel even in AR should do 2500fps which out to 200yds should have no trouble expanding and dumping all it's energy into a pig or deer or even bear or Elk with sufficient energy.
100gr 6mm Partition does excellent, I would expect 100gr 6.5 partition to do well also, the 125 having just a little more mass should be a great hunting round

[tracker12]

Ended up killing 2 pigs with the ELD's and one with a SST (got 5 to try from a friend). All three were head/neck shots and dropped at the shot. One of the ELD kills the jacket separated and was found in the off shoulder. The other ELD kill just destroyed the neck. I did not clean the SST kill so not sure of the damage.

[KC Huntin]

Need more testing!

[tomc]

A few days ago I made a 90 yd shot on a 125 lb hog with Black ELD Match 123gr ammo. It entered a couple of inches behind the ear and did not exit. I couldn't see any sign of a hit until I skinned it. It must have hit the spine because the hog dropped in it's tracks. I plan to hunt with the SST ammo in the future but the ELD worked on this hog.