I had a friend give me 5 boxes of 30cal 180gr Hornady spire points that were marked as purchased in 1969. Are these bullets any different than the 180gr spire points they sell today? The good news is I picked up a 1975 vintage & little used Rem mod700 in 30-06 for $300, dropped it into a pretty Boyd's laminate stock and the first batches I loaded up with these bullets using H414 all grouped 5 shots under 1&1/2" up to 2800fps. Now I'll see what I can play around with to squeeze the groups down a bit. It has a 22 inch barrel. What sort of maximum, yet safe velocity is realistic in a 30-06 with 180gr bullets? Anything wrong with using these on Elk?

I don't believe Hornady had introduced their Interlock feature at that time.....my 1973 manual does not mention it at all.

Use them for deer and get something like a bonded bullet or partician for elk.

Pretty Sure, I know I was using them in 79, but 1980 for sure. I know when Joyce died in the plane crash, He had been testing the Interlock in Africa for 3 years, and I think he died in 1981. But the older bullet still had the intergroves that did start to peel back, just like the Interlock still has.

Thanks, I won't try to push them any faster, and maybe I'll back off a bit. Seems to me 50fps less in this caliber and this bullet won't amount to a hill of beans of difference out to it's effective shooting range. Although it is kind of interesting to see what you can safely squeeze out of the handloads both in accuracy and velocity.