XTP

Dep...I find your problem with mis-fires rather suprizing since I have been shooting hornady ammo for years now and have found it the most accurate and reliable ammo I' ve ever used.The light magnums do seem to be less accurate than the Custom line and for the marginal increase in velocity I personnally don' t think it is worth it.The 140 gr BTSP is a fairly conventional bullet with the interlock ring inside.I have heard mixed stories about their performance in the field,but I have taken deer as close as 20 yards and as far as 200 and never had a failure(.270 win,140gr Custom load).I tend to think the L.Mag and Federal Hi-enery was created more for the hunter than for the hunting.None of my deer would have fallen any quicker if the bullet was travelling a little faster.My advice....if you want to try them..go ahead.....if they work...use ' em! !

bigbulls

FL/GA Hunter, in all honesty you should try the Federal premium high energy in the .270. It' s a 140 grain TBBC @ 3100fps. I haven' t been able to do any actual testing between the hornady and the Federal but I have read some testing reports and they have all said what was said here, that hornady fell well short of the advertised velocites. The Federal loads were all reaching published velocites and some even exceeding by a few FPS.

Another load to try should be Winchesters 140 grain fail safe bullet. While it is not clocking at 3100 fps it is a potent load for elk. Excelent penetration. It' s able to go through the shoulder and still continue through the boiler room.

I have used both of these on elk with great results and will use them again.

remington_nc

I have always found Hornady to be the most accurate factory loads in my rifles, but every gun is different i guess.

bigcountry

remington_nc, are talking about light magnums??

oldelkhunter

Contrary to popular belief they(HE) cartridges don' t generate more pressure they just extend the pressure curve. I have tried them in 3 cartridges ...280 rem, 300 win mag ,300 wthby magnum. Out of the three only the 300 wthby Federal matched regular Weatherby published data...The 280 Federal trophy bonded was off by 80 fps.... The Hornday 300 win mag was off by 100 fps....These were all shot in factory production rifles at specified length...24" length for everything but the 26" Weatherby mag. I would not buy a smaller caliber thinking I could make it into some sort of magnum. I could give you some input on the Hornady 140 grain spbt load for the 270 based on my experience with Hornady spbt out of my 7 mag..... That is not an Elk load by any means....will blow up on a deer(albeit a huge mulie)...stay away and use Failsafes or X bullets if you want to upgun..

oldelkhunter

Oh by the way they shot ok out of the 300 win mag 2" ...better in the 300 wthby 1 1/2 avg and 4" groups in a Remington Custom Shop KS 280....

bigcountry

You know my gunsmith is a big weatherby fan and said there is no way to reproduce weatherby' s velocitys until Retumbo came out. He said they use a duplex powder variation from Norma. Probably all hearsay. I don' t know how he would know that. But I believe him on not being able to reproduce thier velocities.

oldelkhunter

I know that Weatherby' s get bashed on this site quite a bit and sometimes a bit unfairly. They don' t follow SAAMI specs when it comes to loads and they come out of the factory hot...the reasoning behind the excess freeebore they have. Even with all that the ones I have owned have all shot extremely well...

ewc

About 5-6 years ago, I tried the Hornady Light Magnums 140gr in a .270. Hunted with them the entire season and was lucky enough to kill 10 deer with them that year. All were spectacular kills right up to the moment I walked up to the downed deer. I experienced bullet failure in all 10 deer. Entrance holes varied in size from 2-10 inches in diameter. In fact, on one medium sized doe, you could about put a volleyball through the wound. It almost cut the deer completely in half. On another kill, there were 4-6 entrance wounds, suggesting that the bullet fragmented before impact (that kill was made in a open field), and no exit wound. I didn' t have to track a deer all that year, but I still did not like the bullets performance on deer. Maybe I just got a bad lot of ammo. FWIW - they shot 1 1/2 @ 100 yards out of my A-Bolt.

bigcountry

Wait now. You mean 4 to 6 exit wounds don' t ya. I mean I hate these light mags, but have never seen bullet fragmentation in mid air. I mean never. And I shoot the 180gr interloks thru a 300RUM going at 3400fps with 98gr of retumbo.