Berger Hybrid, Nosler LRAB, Hornady ELD-X Elk review

Alright, so earlier this year I mentioned the plan to get elk with the 215 Berger Hybrid, 210 ABLR, and 212 ELD-X and me along with my two buddies managed to get two with each bullet on some late season cows. All were shot from the same rifle, all loaded with H1000 and all at 2,960-3,000FPS, ranges were 235yds to 702 yards.

Rifle specs:
.300 Win. Mag.
Remington 700
McMillan A3 stock
28" Hart 1-9" twist Hunter BR contour
Jewell trigger @ 1lb
Kelbly rings and 20MOA Bases
.750" Defensive Edge brake
Leupold VX3 6.5-20x50LR

Berger 215gr Hybrid 2,991fps (standard go to load)

Got one cow at 275 yards, shooting up hill facing us (pic included) bullet entered chest, made soup of lungs and chunk out of heart, bullet didn't make it through diaphragm. Dropped like a ton of bricks.

Second cow shot at 702 yards, broadside feeding. Bullet entered mid way up the body, tight behind shoulder, cow hunched at the shot, trotted a few steps and started to wobble and was down in less than 15 yards. Caliber entrance and half dollar exit, lungs destroyed.

Load work up super easy, not hard to tune, not jump/jam sensitive, groups at 100 sub MOA, .3" normal. This is my bullet of choice.

Nosler ABLR 2,960FPS

First cow at 688 yards, broadside. Shot entered just above centerline of body, 4" behind shoulder, cow dropped like a rock, picked its head up 2-3 times and was dead. Recovered bullet under hide on off side, forgot it up at the Cabin but it was literally just like the pictures on the box, and internally the bullet performed just like any other AB I've used. Will post pics and stats of the bullet when I get back up there and get it.

Second cow was shot at 297 yards, through the shoulder, surprisingly, same performance was observed, only the bullet exited just behind the off side shoulder.

Bullet was hard to get to shoot, very sensitive to seating depth, liked a lot of jump and groups were in the .5-.6" at 100 yards. Was pleasantly surprised by the terminal performance of this bullet, however, i have more respect for it than I did, I thought it was going to be a little soft but it held together and did great, wouldn't hesitate to use them on elk again one bit.

Hornady 212gr ELD-X 2,986FPS

235 yards, shot behind shoulder, elk took off as if not hit, required 4 shots total to bring it down, bullets were blowing up on impact and fragmenting everywhere, not penetrating worth a crap. ended up losing front shoulder and rib meat on the cow.

Second cow was at 348 yards, again, four shots to the boiler required, 3 of the bullets fragmented and one appeared to work as it should, slightly larger than caliber entrance, grape fruit sized exit, that dropped the cow.

Really put off by this bullet, it was a little sensitive to seating depth but not terrible, groups in the .5" range at 100 yards. Out of 8 bullets, 1 worked like it should have. I will not use these bullets again, and I don't think the my should have blown up at those intermediate ranges.

So after the season, myself and one buddy are sticking with the Berger 215's for our go to hunting ammo, and my other buddy is love struck by the Nosler 210 ABLR.

Hope you find this informative and useful, do what you please with the information

The rifle

Thanks for posting this very detailed account of bullet performance in the field.

Sad to see that the new Hornady hunting bullet didn't perform well.

I really appreciate it when hunters make the effort to document the performance of the various bullets used. Things like range, muzzle velocity, accuracy, results on game... It all helps educate us, so we can do a better job of picking from the many different hunting bullets available.

Regards, Guy

Excellent field data that should benefit anyone taking time to weigh what was done. Thanks for posting.

Excellent report, thank you for taking the time to post.
Always nice to have photos .

Blessings,
Dan

Excellent review, glad to see that the ablr is working out well.

Great post buddy. That post should be a sticky in my opinion. Great info and excellent review of elk killed. Very darned cool.

Glad you guys are finding it useful. It was fun to see the difference in the Bullets in as controlled of a fashion as possible when hunting.

I'm with Guy and disappointed to see the Hornady perform the way it did, I had better expectations for it.

Sorry I didn't get pics of wounds on the Noslers, those were my cows, the last two we needed. Shot them both in the evening and then we were dealing with two elk in the dark, we were cold, tired and hungry, just wasn't thinking to take pictures. Those bullets worked awesome though! Nosler has a winner with those as far as I'm concerned!

With respect to the Hornady ELD-X, I should imagine they will address this matter in due time. I can still recall some of the early disappointment with the Ballistic Tip, which many slammed as fragile. I should hope that Hornady will be sensitive to negative feedback.

DrMike":12v33gz0 said:

With respect to the Hornady ELD-X, I should imagine they will address this matter in due time. I can still recall some of the early disappointment with the Ballistic Tip, which many slammed as fragile. I should hope that Hornady will be sensitive to negative feedback.

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Great point, Mike

Great report and thanks for putting the time into it. My nephew in Colorado shoots a 300 Win Mag.
He switched from Barnes Bullets to the Nosler 190 ABLR. He has killed 3-4 Elk now with this bullet and stated it is lethal on Elk!!

This report makes me want to try the 210 ABLR in my 300 RUM now! :wink:

Don

Thanks for a great report, it is nice to see you had an open mind and presented what you found. It is really good to try all sorts of bullets to see how they work than just relying on one bullet only and being close minded after that. I'm sad to hear of the Hornady ELD-X not performing well, hope they tweak it for better performance.

Really interesting report, I was also surprised about the Hornadys, and of course this is "the place," to prance out Nosler bullets storys.......... However I will be even more surprised, if the
Folks over at Joyce Hornadys outfit, don't make very short work, Of any problems, they may have with one of their preamium bullets.
As Mike said ,it wasn't very long ago that Nosler was having a similar problem with the BTs. Rumor has it they have revamped it now 2/3 times to finally get it to what we have today.......
Congrats on the 688yd shot ! It always nice to get those instantaneous kills. You must have had "perfect bullet placement" , to have had that result ? With the projectile then slowed down to less than 30/30 velocitys, at that distance???
I like your loads though ,your getting the exact same numbers with 210gr bullets that we used to struggle to get with 180 slugs back in the early 80's. When I had a 300WM .
The fact that the AB bullets perform the same at 300 and 700 yds is pretty interesting to say the least! When I think Back over the years of all the Elk that were wounded ,hit with some pretty stout calibers at 1/4 of the distances your shooting, the bullets would have still retained twice the energy at 200yds, your bullet had at 700 yds, and we spent hours and sometimes days tracking them down because of poor bullet placement. Your report certainly reinforces "it ain't what you hit them with, or how hard their hit, it's where you hit em." Very successful hunt.
Anyway it sure Looks like ,your going to eat well this winter!

35 Whelen":2aad3lq2 said:

Really interesting report, I was also surprised about the Hornadys, of course this is the place, to prance out
Nosler bullets storys.......... but I will be even more surprised, if the
Folks over at Joyce Hornadys outfit, don't make short work Of any problems they may have with one of their bullets.
As Mike said ,it wasn't very long ago Nosler was having a similar story with the BTs.
Congrats on the 688yd shot ! It always nice to get those instantaneous kills. You must have had perfect bullet placement , to have had that result with the projectile slowed down to less than 30/30 velocitys at that distance.
I like your loads though ,your getting the exact same numbers with 210gr bullets that we used to struggle to get with 180 slugs back in the early 80's. When I had a 300WM .
The fact that the AB bullets perform the same at 300 and 700 yds is pretty interesting to say the least! When I think
Back over the years of all the Elk that were wounded ,hit with some pretty stout calibers at 1/4 of the distances your shooting, the bullets would have still retained twice the energy at 200yds, your bullet had at 700 yds, and we spent hours and sometimes days tracking them down because of poor bullet placement. Your report certainly reinforces "it ain't what you hit them with, or how hard their hit, it's where you hit em." Very successful hunt.
Anyway it sure Looks like ,your going to eat well this winter!

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You were about spot on. Did the calc this morning and looked roughly like 2100FPS AND 2100 Ftlbs of energy at 700 yards. So in essence with that soft bullet it is just about like hitting the elk off the end of the muzzle with a factory loaded 170.. Pretty amazing really how far Bullets have come.

Some over on the long range hunting forum have went to the ELD Match bullet. They say it's less explosive because it lacks the small gap between the polymer tip and inside lead the hunting bullet has to initiate expansion. They had the same issue with the bullet fragmenting. Sounds like Hornady has a little work to do.

Thanks for the great review, I love seeing actual field performance.

mcseal2":1ydul9mt said:

Some over on the long range hunting forum have went to the ELD Match bullet. They say it's less explosive because it lacks the small gap between the polymer tip and inside lead the hunting bullet has to initiate expansion. They had the same issue with the bullet fragmenting. Sounds like Hornady has a little work to do.

Thanks for the great review, I love seeing actual field performance.

Click to expand...

Interesting info, sounds like that could be possible.

I did the numbers and it looked under 2 grand both ways,
I think for the normal comparision a 300WM with factory fodder shooting 210gr bullets are going to look ALOT more
Like 2800fps and when those numbers get run the 300 hits alot closer to the 30/30 at 100 yds. However again assuming all that is a fact, the next question is which one would be more likely to be able to lay one exactly where you would need to ????? One of our guides has a Scoped Marlin 30/30 that will shoot 1" groups regularly. Ones ability to hit at 700yds with that persision would certainty be very questionable........... Then pops up the question is a 30/30; a really Good choice for Elk???? Or another one can a good shot consistantly kill Elk at 700yds and expect instant kills.
Pulling from 45 years of guiding hunters lugging 300WMs
And Bee's (two of the most common calibers we saw in Alaska) I dont feel this is realistic at all.
Can it be done with a very knowledgeable shooter with a supertuned rifle do it........ Yes he can.
Could you likely do exactly the samething with a 6.5 Creedmore, 6.5x55, or 6.5x06.(With a Hornady,Speer,Sierra bullet, Easily .......
With less than perfect conditons, could you hit the Elk exactly where your going to need to,and drop it in its tracks? OR more likely, going to have a wounded Elk, very very good possibility. There is nothing Magic about a 300WM......... Its a fine round and will buy you a little more distance than a 06, But will it consistently kill elk at 700 yds; and render one shot kills, under normal WIND conditions? :roll: Another one; Should a hunter expect to kill Elk with the age old 30/06 at 600 yds ? Shooting the same Nosler bullet ? Since the velocity of the 06 would be about the same for 06 at 600, as it is for a 300 at 700, running a suped up handload in the 06???
Or does a common 30/30 consistently kill Elk at 100yds normally dropping them in their tracks? :shock: Since that is really whats happening here, Actually for the record: I actually think its totally cool if you can hit an Elk at 700yds; and flatten it with one shot!(Hats off to those that can!) I just am still pretty hesitant to accept that one shot, drops in there tracks, "you just flattened him" kills, are that common, even at distances much less than 700 yds.
Or atleast it had not been the case in 85℅ of the game we have observed over the years.

Elk can be bullet sponges for sure. They didn't gain that reputation because everyone made bad shots. Hunt elk enough you'll end up tracking one that was well hit with a good bullet.


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Here's the calculations with the data from the magneto and kestrel used for the shot, I also used litz's G7 BC of .332

Excellent review and thanks for the information. Much rather hear from hunters like you than reading worthless reviews on Midway or places like that!