While the Hornady bullet will probably work fine for "plains game" style of animals It's my opinion that any hunt I spend $X,000s at should also be accompanied with a bonded or other premium style of bullet that I paid $1.00 for.

This includes Swift, accubonds, interbonds, woodleighs, Northforks, and other such bullets and on the overwhelming testimony of others this includes the Nosler Partician bullet.

D Hunter nailed the bullet choices.

The load is easy.

Either RL-15 or Varget; 71 grains for the 270 grain bullets and 67 grains for the 300 grain bullets. Those loads will always give you decent velocity, are velocity and pressure stable over a wide range of temperatures, won't blow up your rifle, and will extract fine in hot weather.

JCN

For what you want to hunt I can heartily recommend the Barnes 235 gr X bullet. I took a deeer with it in season 2002. I hit him at about 100 yards. Got good expansion and complete penetration. It did not tear up as much meat as my .300 H&H does. Here is a couple of pictures of what the 235 gr X looks like after it has passed through about 8" of railroad tie at about 10 ft from the muzzle.

Very impressive. I've got a friend that uses the 235s quite often. He just gave me a few of them to try in my .375 H&H.

hoehne: Don't overlook the 270 gr. Failsafe that Winchester offers when you are trying our loads. I've been using the 150 gr. load in a .308 Win and it is the cat's meow. I haven't recovered one yet while taking several whitetails and wild hogs. The most devestating account was on a 140# hog that I shot trotting at about 70 yards. The bullet chopped through his spine right about the lungs and ended up in the mud somewhere beyond the hog.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. I am understandably confused as Hornady has been my standby in lighter calibres. One interesting note, in the reloading section, there are a lot of shooters that are talking about the virtues of the Sierra Gameking. I have been lent to believe that they were too "soft" for larger game. BTW I will probably go with Nosler, but am always interested in other's opinions. Thanks Karl

I am with Ray on the premium bullet for hunting. For practice use anything your gun likes but for hunting use as good a bullet as you can. The 235 blue bullet gets a second from me too. I killed a really nice white tail buck two years ago with it. It only gave me one chance and a Texas Heart Shot. I took it and it did not dissapoint. I did not lose alot of meat with it either. No exit wound but I am sure it was in the broiler room on recovery.

I must be loading a bit warmer than most on this forum as I am topping out at about 74-76 gr of re 15 with the 270 gr loads. At 76 I am starting to get some pressure signs so went back to 75. My velocity is right at 2730 with a short barrel. I would suspect that if you are intent on using a Hornaday bullet on light game such as deer at short ranges you could load it to 2300-2400 and not do too badly. I don't like to limit my trajectory much though. That SAF 270gr load gets my vote.