Hornady ELX - No Good for Hunting Elk???

[Wind Gypsy]

Range?

100ish yards. Mid 2800s muzzle velocity.

Either the 175 7mms make a bigger mess than the 200 30 cal or bullet rpm makes a notable difference in terminal behavior because the 200s at a similar muzzle velocity from a 10 twist have been less messy than the 175s from an 8 twist.

 

[Derek44]

178 gr. ELDX IN 30-06. 3 dead elk past 4 years. One shot one kill on all. And the shoot like tack drivers out of my x bolt. Ranges 100-250 yards. Until I convert to a mono, I’m going to keep using them. I’ve had very minimal meat damage. One of the lucky ones I guess.

 

[mtmuley]

I love bullet threads. mtmuley

 

[Ought Six]

More anecdotal evidence: friend shot a whitetail buck quartering away last night with an ELD-X. Said he thought it hit angled toward the offside shoulder mid body, 180ish yards. Buck ran to neighbors place. Buck was able to maneuver enough through the brush and trees that he couldn’t get a follow up shot. Still hasn’t found the buck as of today.

Seem like a ticking time bomb for a bad experience.

 

[Gynaroo]

This years experience with this bullet (never shot Hornady, before this year. My brother has used interbonds in the past and uses a lot of interlocks in his loads.) Always used Nosler or Barnes.

338 weatherby rpm, 230 grain eldx:
1: raghorn bull elk. Shot at 35 yds a little back (won’t pretend I made a good behind the leg shot). Turned him hard. Follow up shot 50 yds high shoulder. Done.
2: Cow elk, behind the shoulder at 106 yds. Spun and ran two leaps and was dead.
3: Cow elk. 313 yds. Quartering away high shoulder (downhill shooting angle, and under compensated for wind). DRT.

As for meat loss or damage. No more then any Accubond I’ve used in the past.

Will I use this bullet again. Yes. I’ve tried LRX and haven’t got a good load figured out. Did find some 200 grain accubonds that I’d like to try. Bought a few hundred from SPS but can’t find anything more. So back to the reason I started with ELD-x. Affordable and seemingly easy to find.

 

[Forkyfinder]

More anecdotal evidence: friend shot a whitetail buck quartering away last night with an ELD-X. Said he thought it hit angled toward the offside shoulder mid body, 180ish yards. Buck ran to neighbors place. Buck was able to maneuver enough through the brush and trees that he couldn’t get a follow up shot. Still hasn’t found the buck as of today.

Seem like a ticking time bomb for a bad experience.

Interesting - would love to see how the physics of that work - beyond a piss poor shot.

 

[Ought Six]

Interesting - would love to see how the physics of that work - beyond a piss poor shot.

Agreed, probably didn’t hit where he thinks, but wasn’t able to recover the buck to perform an autopsy, so who knows.

 

[Forkyfinder]

Agreed, probably didn’t hit where he thinks, but wasn’t able to recover the buck to perform an autopsy, so who knows.

Yeah - i am a believer most "bullet failures" are actually bad shots. And.... no matter what you shoot it with - some animals run farther than others.

 

[Guy]

178 gr ELD-X from my 30-06 at 2790 fps mv, 405 yards to a cow elk. Bullet smashed through the onside leg bone then went through the heart. Didn't recover the bullet. Sadly, even with all that damage, she was still alive and needed a finisher at shorter range. Accurate and performed well.

Guy

 

[Don Fischer]

Hi All,

Last year I developed a great load with some heavy ELDX bullets for my Browning x-bolt in 30-06. They were tack drivers and shot great and outperformed the same weight Nosler Accubonds.

My original intention was to use these bullets on Elk.

This fall I was able to harvest two deer with the same load. Both shots were around 150 yards. The bullets did their job, however upon recovering one, some concerns came to light. On both deer there were complete pass through shots with lots of internal damage and good sized exit wounds. The deer dropped immediately. On one animal I was able to recover the jacket and bottom half of the bullet, which were still together. The jacket showed pretty devastating damage, however the upper portion of lead, above the ferrule in the bullet had completely separated and likely went through the animal.

My concern is with the fragmentation of the round. It just did stay together as say an Accubond is suppose to. Basically as the lead sheared off the bullet, the overall bullet lost mass and did not pass through.

My concern is that this bullet is just not robust enough for tough animals like elk. I have heard the same comment reiterated on a number of podcasts lately. The consensus I have heard from some is that the ELDX is a great shooting bullet, but just not tough enough for large game hunting applications.

Anyone have similar experiences? Is mono metal the way to go?

I found that with Hornady spire point bullets years ago. Shooting some 154gr bullet's into newspaper at 100 yds I was retaining 84% of the bullet weight and the cores were loose enough in the jacket to twist them with my fingers but none came completely apart. Kept using them in my 309 and 7x57 but quit with my 7mm rem Mag and went to 150gr Speer Hot Cores. Same weight retention and core stayed tight in the jacket, couldn't turn them at all. and they were just a bit more accurate than the 154gr Hornadys were in that rifle. Only cup and core bullet's that ever came apart on me were light for caliber bullet's driven to fast. With my 25-06 and 100gr cup and core you didn't want to hit anything you might want to eat! Went to 117gr bullets and the problem went away. At the time I did that I also shot 140gr HP's sierras from my 7x57. What happened with them was the HP tip bent over and closed up. Same bullet from the 7mm mag would blow up on me badly, to light and to much velocity.

Is momo metal the way to go? If you don't mind the cost, that could be! Myself if I started having problems with reg cup and core I'd go to bonded bullet's. Little less expensive I think.