A Genuine Question : Why Is Hornady So Hated?

[Dr Ray]

Woodleigh Bullet manufacturer just sent me 34 450 grain 416 caliber Bullets to try.
Only da

 

[Pondoro]

I can only comment on the bullets I have used myself and seen used in the field..

I have shot and killed elephants with 480 grain DGS (.458Win. Mag), compressed reloads that made 2100fps over the crono.. I used a ZKK602 with 25" barrel, heart lung shots...worked well..

A friend have used DGS .375H&H factory ammo (300 grainers) supplied by me, he took spectacular frontal brainshots on ele on two occations, one was a huge bull...so they cant be that bad.. he has taken even more using heart-lung shots with the same ammo..

That said….I would rather use a banded mono on ele in the future..

However, I would not use DGX on DG as long as there are Swift-A frames, Woodleigh etc. around..

 

[Ray B]

My experience with Hornady bullets only involves smaller calibers, mostly those of .257". I really liked the discontinued 120 hollow point but it was very fragile. Hit a deer anywhere but between the ribs and the front quarter would be lost. For less dramatic bullet action the Speer or Sierras were more reliable. At the time Remington corelokt 120 PSPCL bullets were available in bulk. While they were not as accurate as the Hornadys, they killed the deer with much less disruption and they were way cheap enough to provide a lot of practice. So I guess I don't "hate" Hornady, I just liked other bullets better.

 

[Hogpatrol]

Their PR department did an outstanding job with the Creedmoor. Not so good with the denial of bullet failures. As soon as reports came in, they should have recalled all ammo and bare bullets. Ammo and gunpowder manufacturers have had recalls so there is no reason they shouldn't have followed up too. It says a lot about company culture.

 

[WAB]

A few years back I took the 4 failed DGS bullets mentioned earlier and dumped them on their counter in Vegas. They had been recovered from a buff rodeo in Mozambique. I then showed them a perfectly mushroomed trophy bonded bearclaw recovered from a one shot kill on another buff. It was an interesting conversation.

 

[Foxi]

Sure, there is always someone better.
Until a buffalo hangs on the wall in your home, you have spent about 25.000.- USD.
The bullet prices play no role at all.
I could never complain about Hornady bullets.
And there is no other bulletmaker, that offers the same value for money as Hornady bullets.
But I am not a benchmark, I like the .458 Win MAg. also .

 

[grand veneur]

I should also defend Hornady.

I shot about 15 buffalos with my rifle caliber 460 Weatherby Magnum and the classic 500gr Interbond bullet from Hornady. With the bullet on the right place there was no problem and mostly one shot kill. The mushrooming of such bullets is certainly very irregular , and you don't always have a exit hole. I also shot an elephant with the same rifle and a 500gr FMJ bullet from the same company. The bullet , with which I killed him by an frontal brain shot , looked like a mixture of mushroom and bean , but the elephant was dead.

Nevertheless , the classic bullets from Hornady kill big game , and many other classic bullets do it. Otherwise , how could we have hunted in the past ?

 

[Forrest Halley]

I tried Hornady in my M70 Safari Express in 375H&H. As I said in my earlier post about my other DG rifles, I found Federal ammo to be more accurate. Good luck.

Interesting. I'm finding mine to be ridiculously unspecific in what it shoots well.

I think I should come in with my two cents worth. No, I haven't been to Africa and haven't chased down DG. However, I have used Hornady DGX on deer. The new bonded DGX is world's different from the older DGX. I have never recovered a single bullet from my .416 Rigby that has taken a deer. This year I tried out the new bonded DGX and they tended to act more like a solid on whitetails I shot.

For my money, and whitetails, the old non-bonded DGX is better. Again, from my limited experience the new bonded DGX is much harder. I have used the DGX rounds since they shoot the most accurately from MY RIFLE.

Well you're shooting whitetails with a .416 Rigby. That fact alone might have a lot to do with the lack of recovered bullets. At some point the ballistic horsepower applied exceeds the ability of the target to provide sufficient density to allow the bullet to perform. Were it me shooting whitetails with a .416, I would load up the highest BC bullet I could find and let the velocity and shot placement do its work.

 

[grand veneur]

I particularly value accurate shooting and therefore choose the bullet that works best in my rifle. I am also willing to compromise , and if there is no other way , to choose an older classic bullet , from Hornady for example. In practice , this approach has never disappointed me. The shot placement is still the most important and anyway , I also had failures with modern bullets.

The components from Hornady are therefore still one of my choices. I have no experience with the ammunition of this company.

 

[Longwalker]

I'm sometimes using Hornady products as I indicated previously, and I am willing to give them the benefit of trying again with the new DGX BONDED bullet. Only because they are the only available choice for one of my rifles. I actually swore off using them for some years in the past.
I was hand loading .308 Winchester ammunition with their 150 gr. Spire Point Interlock bullet #3031. I had one bullet stick in the seating die. After dislodging it, I looked for the cause of the problem. to my dismay I discovered that the factory had inadvertently mixed up a .312" diameter # 3120 bullet meant for the .303 British in with my .308 bullets. They look identical except for diameter. I have never purchased the .303 bullet in the past, and the box was new factory sealed, but somehow it ended up in my box.
I sent a letter, pictures and lot numbers and explanation of the problem to Hornady, explaining my concern because I was loading ammunition that was at "book maximum" pressure and therefore had no room for more pressure. I was concerned about their quality control and asked for an explanation of the error and what they would do to prevent a repeat.
Their answer came from what I assume was their customer service department. It said, in effect, "we make many thousands of bullets every day. Those two were really similar. Shit happens. "
No apology, no thanks for the notice, no promise to do better.
I switched to Norma and other European bullets after that for a long time.

 

[ryan80]

My own experience is quite limited with Hornady, however, I will add what little I have if it helps at all. I own two 6.5 Creedmoor rifles (a Mauser M18 and Tikka T3x). Both shoot the Hornady Interlock 129 grain factory cartridges very accurately and for white tails they do exactly what I need them to. I paid under $17 per box with free shipping, and so far I just don't see any reason to change for this purpose.

Hornady offers several fairly unique technological attributes which I appreciate, at least on the surface:

1. The partnership with Ruger is attractive, though if you don’t have confidence in the bullets and don’t handload, this doesn’t work.

2. The Leverevolution theoretically make the 30-30 a much more useful cartridge and I had thought to try them in my grandfather’s Winchester ’94, but if they fail as badly as Skinnersblade demonstrates above, then you won’t get the extra range or better trajectory, so what is the point? I had not heard this was a problem, but will be researching further.

3. The Superperformance line of bullets looks attractive and paired with their 180 grain Interbond at the advertised speed of 2,820 fps in my 30-06, I had hoped that this would be a great elk or moose combo. I think this combination has since been discontinued and I have read a few reviews saying that the Interbond is a much softer bullet than an Accubond or Oryx, however. Am curious if any forum members have experience as I still have a box of these laying around.

Finally, my best friend and sometimes hunting partner is one of those odd guys who actually prefers to shoot his muzzle loader over a modern rifle any chance he gets. He has used the Hornady SST .45cal sabot bullet in his .50 cal muzzleloader on several deer due to it giving him the very best accuracy among many different bullets he has tried. He finally gave up on them this past season and made a switch, however, due to minimal blood trails and recovering bullets that have failed to expand sufficiently lately.

The poor customer service and allowing ammo with known deficiencies to continue to circulate and be sold is very upsetting and I hate the idea of supporting a company that would allow this to happen. They have seemingly done a good job on producing accurate bullets (from my experience), innovating and providing a wide range of calibers and products, however, there are just so many stories out there with them having issues with their bonding technique and creating bullets with the correct hardness that it is hard to ignore.

 

[Tubby’s Canteen]

@ryan80
I found their leaver evolution ammunition to be very accurate and fired over one hundred rounds through the summer becoming accustomed to my rifle. I will say my henry was very accurate with them.

However the fact that a Young deers neck would stop one at that distance was disturbing to me and lead me to doing further tests.

I still use their ammunition including the leaver evolution for target shooting as again its very accurate through my rifle. I simply wont try it on game.

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

This was removed from the neck of a whitetail spike buck I shot late this fall approximately forty yards. The bullet hit the first vertabrae under the skull there was no exit wound no sign of the lead.
This was factory ammunition at an advertised mv of 2000fps. I've sense began to reload and have found that in order to get the bullets to remain intact. I have to slow them down to below 1700fps. At which point I may as well be shooting caste bullets. These tests were conducted into five gallon water jugs at fifty yards layed down.

View attachment 326078 View attachment 326079

Skinnersblade
Goes to show one person can have great results whilst others have piss poor results. I have never bought factory ammo for my 444 Marlin ($86-$99) a box in Australia. I have reloaded hundreds of 265 grain .430 flex tips for my 444 and have never had a failure. A big Sambar stag @ 170 yards pole axed with a rear raking shot. Projectile found in the lungs nicely mushroomed, others thru and thru. Excellent penetration on pigs at any angle.
If I can find a projectile in my reloading room I will post it.
It's disappointing you had such failures. My mate knows what it's like with the ELDX.
Just out of interest I was pushing my 265FTX's @ over 2,400fps.
Cheers mate
Bob

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

@ryan80
I found their leaver evolution ammunition to be very accurate and fired over one hundred rounds through the summer becoming accustomed to my rifle. I will say my henry was very accurate with them.

However the fact that a Young deers neck would stop one at that distance was disturbing to me and lead me to doing further tests.

I still use their ammunition including the leaver evolution for target shooting as again its very accurate through my rifle. I simply wont try it on game.

Skinnersblade
Found what I was looking for mate. The projectile is a hornaday .430 265 grain fix it went thru a 70 kilo pig side on thru the ribs at around 60 yards. The projectile was recovered in a stump about 15 feet behind it. As I said launch speed over 2,400 fps. The rifle was my 444 launch platform an SMLE number 4 rebarreled and modified for the 444. A real easy conversion that is stronger than the the Marlin lever action.

 

[Tubby’s Canteen]

I'm a big fan of the smle actions they're very common here also no surprise considering we're both commonwealth country's so they'd of be surplus.

My Henry was a single shot Not a leaver action. Model ho15b-45-70 I don't have a picture as I recently sold the rifle.

 

[Tubby’s Canteen]

Unfortunately the lee endfield action was never made left handed.

 

[Bob Nelson 35Whelen]

Unfortunately the lee endfield action was never made left handed.

To true but being left handed and right eye dominate I was basically force to learn to shoot right handed

 

[Foxi]

I should also defend Hornady.
right place there was no problem and mostly one shot kill. The mushrooming of such bullets is certainly very irregular , and you don't always have a exit hole.

but it wasn't than cape buffalos, was it?

 

[grand veneur]

but it wasn't than cape buffalos, was it?

I don't understand exactly the question and what you mean. Can you put it differently ?

 

[Tokoloshe Safaris]

Due to availability we use what we can get here in Zim. My personal preference are the following, Trophy bonded bear claws and sledgehammer solids, .375H&H, Woodleighs, .470, 404J Hornady because that is all we have. The Woodleigh hydro shocks seem to work perfect, but have not had that much experience. Hand loading is out of the question, so whatever bullet is used must come in a factory loaded round. I would state my personal dislikes, but someone would reply that "bullet" is my favorite!