Hornady A-Max Bullets

Roskoe · 03-30-2005, 09:02 AM

I noticed, in the thread about the .300 Ultra Mag, that a couple of Hornady A-Max bullets were mentioned by Elkhntr along with some regular hunting bullets. Just curious - have you or were you going to use these target bullets for big game hunting? Roscoe

driftrider · 03-30-2005, 09:31 AM

According to my Hornady Manual the A-Max bullets in the "deer" calibers (>.243cal, 105gr) are listed as recommended for deer sized game. I would think that the heavier for caliber versions would do fine with deer sized game, as it doesn't seem to take too tough of a bullet to kill them considering that the Nosler BT seems to do the trick nicely. For anything bigger than deer, or for tough shot angles, the A-Max would not be my first choice. There are just too many really good hunting bullets out there to use one that's primary purpose is accuracy over all else, not terminal performance.

Mike

Elkhntr04 · 03-30-2005, 04:03 PM

Roskoe if you were asking me directly, my intended use of these bullets were on varmints. The accubonds were for deer and elk.

johnch · 03-30-2005, 06:06 PM

I ask a Hornady rep at a dealer product show about the A-max and hunting .
He recomened Not using them on deer or larger game because the bullet is constructed more like a V-max than a SST .
Accurey is the important thing ,not how the bullet preforms after impact.
I ask because I use the 75 gr A-max for long range chucks.

Johnch

Roskoe · 03-30-2005, 06:54 PM

The reason I am asking is that I already have some experience with them in the smaller calibers and was wondering if they would work similarly in bigger bores.

About two years ago, one of my customers sent me an article from the "Journal of the Texas Trophy Hunters" - Horace Gore - talking about the use of the .224 TTH on Whitetail deer. The .224 TTH is a 6MM Remington necked down to .22, and has some pretty impressive ballistics. Those folks were playing with shooting deer with .224 bullets - tried a bunch of them, including the 50 grain Barnes X, along with some of the heavier VLD type bullets. Through the 8 inch twist barrel, they used the 75 A-Max, 77 Sierra HPBT Match, and a number of other long range target bullets. The article indicated that, although most all of the bullets tested would kill deer, some were better than others and some were more consistent than others. The best of the lot appeared to be the 75 grain A-Max at about 3700 fps. Shot in the ribs, deer hit with this bullet were a 100% "lights out" kill - could not take even a single step. The bullets appeared to penetrate several inches without any expansion, and then explode - sending lots of shrapnel through the vitals.

Well, .224 calibers are not legal for big game here in Colorado - but I began to wonder what this bullet's big brother - the 105 grain 6MM A-Max - would do on big game. I had a 6MM-284 with a 10" twist - it wouldn't stabilize that bullet - but I shot it into some expansion medium, and it performed similarly to what the article described for the 75 grain .224 A-Max - penetrated about four inches and then cam apart, creating a huge wound channel in the medium. The biggest piece of the bullet I could find weighed only 7 grains.

Shortly thereafter, I ordered a Jeff Lawrence .243 SS blank with a 9" twist. Finally got it about a year later (these barrels are worth the wait) - chambered it for the 6MM-284 - it shot the 105 grain A-Max into .3" at 3443 fps. In a late season elk hunt back in January, I shot a mature cow elk in the ribs broadside at about 250 yards. Elk went down "lights out". And a field "autopsy" indicated the same basic expansion as the earlier tests - penetration through the ribs with almost no expansion, and then an area of shrapnelled organs about the size of a volley ball - right in the middle of the chest. I know this is only one animal . . . . but elk are hard to kill, and almost never go down DRT from a rib shot. Plus we had shot another cow out of this herd only about ten seconds before this one was shot, so you can guarantee they were up on their toes full of adrenlin. Now I am kinda wondering about some of the other bullets in this A-Max line up . . . . . And I'm planning on some additional tesing on this one. Roscoe

Coleridge · 03-31-2005, 07:20 AM

Roskoe,

Do you have any idea where I could possible read that artical. I was actuall thinking of having a 22/6mm (.224 TTH) built. I'm not really wanting one for a primary deer rifle, more for a toy than anything

. I might would try it on a deer or two though. Swift is making a .224 75 grain Scirocco now. Sure it would give more penetration, although thats not what it sounds like you were wanting.

Elkhntr04 · 03-31-2005, 08:30 AM

My hope was that they would explode like the V-max bullets would. I planned to shoot chucks out to 600 yards with them So if I can get them to shoot out of my gun I will test them out and let you know.

Roskoe · 03-31-2005, 08:24 PM

You might go to a website called TTHA.com. I had a computer crash about 6 months ago and lost a lot of stuff - including this article.

As far as comparing the A-Max to the V-Max . . . . there seems to be a delay in the A-Max's rapid expansion that the V-Max doesn't have. I have sectioned these bullets, and the A-Max's (at least the .224 and .243 ones) don't seem to have an air pocket behind the plastic tip like the V-Max. I'm not sure what the A-Max would do on varmints - would suspect that it start expanding just as it exited.