What was wrong with Hornaday's ijavascript:void(0)nterbond 500gr 458 cal bullet?
Aren't bonded bullet all the rage now for a premium bullet.

I cringe at the thought of shooting a steel jacket bullet down the bore of my M70 (even if the rifle wasn't a colector item now).

They are trash.

As to the steel lined bullets, the only thing that comes in contact with the rifling is the outside copper, so it's no problem, as they have been used for decades.

quote:

Originally posted by walksfar:
They are trash.

Walksfar, What has your experence been with the Hornady .458/500g Interbond ?

First, I have not shot game with it. Mainly due to the fact that my main complaint came before I even thought of hunting with them. That is, the fouling enduced on the barrel, which is so hard to clean out, and has, in my experience been hard on accuracy. Simply put, a copper jacket will not do this. With the interbonds, it is the fouling of the barrel in my opinion that is a downfall. This is why, to this day, I won't use anything other than traditional copper jackets.
I must add, also, that there is no need in reenventing the wheel, so to speak, as they have been trying to do with all of the monometals, and interbonds. The British went through absolute mayhem trying to perfect the correct big game bullet, and succeeded, finally, and these come in the form of Woodleighs to this day. As for the original hornady's-they are close enough for me to work in the .375-.458 calibers.
Of course, these are all just my opinions, and there will be those who disagree, which is perfectly fine. Each to his own.
I'm simply stating it as I see it, and this may not be the same as someone else sees it. They may, in fact, work very well, in someone elses rifles.

the "formula" was wrong..

and like the tasco titan scopes (who would REALLY pay 600 bucks for a scope that said TASCO on it?), it was marketed incorrectly...


hornady bullets are SOFT, and are excellent for thin skinned game... my personal experience is that the unbonded bullets are TOO soft, expanding radically, in .358, .375, .416 and .458, to the point of huge exit holes in smallish game (200# pigs and 150# deer) or, in one case, not exiting AT ALL from a deer (at <25 yards, .458 500 gr from a watts, texas heart shot as it ran away (i was a witness, not the case of the event))

the innerbond bullets suffer from brand history (don't use hornady on dangerous game), price (*I* will buy woodleighs for the same price) and unknown performance.

jeffe

Jeffe

That was good for a laugh.
Neal

I finally figured out how to clean my barrel... but had similar fouling with these Hornady interbonds that I have had with nosler partitions in my .416 rigby.

I suspect that the reason Hornady came out with these bullets was because they were part of Ruger's launch of the .458 Lott as a commercial load, and they wanted their high-end to be competitive... it was all part of the roll-out. However, the market already has competition. These hornady's shoot well in my rifle, so I'll miss them.

As for performance, I have very little to offer. I happen to have a couple of items that might be of interest on that score. Shortly after I got my Lott, I loaded some cartridges and took them to the range. Temp was around 14 F. Our backstop is comprised of 3' logs endwise backed by dirt. The bullets passed through the logs and hit the dirt. I suspect the frozen logs slowed down the bullets enough so that the interbond didn't open up all that much... But the pics are attached. The one on the left is the interbond. The one on the right is their FMJ encapsulated. Yes, I know that is not as tough as a buffalo -- but all it had to do was stop the bullets.

Dan

The jacket material was too brittle and would break up.

Also, as others have posted. The price was in the same ballpark with the Woodlieghs, a proven performer and they got the nod.

Keith

I used them on two cape buffaloes (500 gr. .458 Lott) and the result was the same on each. The shots were broadside perfect heartshots - one at 20 yds. the other at 40. In both instances the bullets virtually disintegrated with less than 50% of weight retention. Were the shots other than broadside, I doubt adequate penetration to reach the vitals would have been achieved. Both rounds were quickly followed up with solids that brought the buffs down. If I had been shooting interbonds exclusively, I would have likely been following up two wounded bulls in thick bush.

There was already considerable posting on AR warning that the Interbonds were too soft before I left on safari. My shipment of TBBCs were delayed at the last minute and I found myself stuck with Interbonds. I called Hornady and expressed my concern. Steve Johnson, with Hornady, assured me that the Interbonds were very effective on cape buffalo and the like.

Given that was last September and Hornady dropped production in the first quarter of this year, it's pretty obvious they knew of the problems when I called them.

I'll take advice from Hornady regarding their products with a couple barrels of salt in the future.

As mentioned above, the bullets have a good reputation on thin skined critters such as bear. For buff, elephant etc. - don't even think about it.

Here's a wetpack test on a 458 interbond
If the buff's died on a broadside shot I suppose the bullet cant have failed.

Most soft points wont mushroom if fired lenthways through wood, something to do with passing along the grain.

Mark

quote:

Originally posted by Hunter Formerly Known As Texas Hunter:
Were the shots other than broadside, I doubt adequate penetration to reach the vitals would have been achieved. Both rounds were quickly followed up with solids that brought the buffs down. If I had been shooting interbonds exclusively, I would have likely been following up two wounded bulls in thick bush.

.

Pretty clear to me that both bullets failed. Just 'cause the critters die doesn't mean the bullets did what they were suposed to. If they didn't, they failed. They were bonded bullets and supposed to stay together and retain weight. Neither did either. They failed.

JPK

quote:

Originally posted by JPK:

Pretty clear to me that both bullets failed. Just 'cause the critters die doesn't mean the bullets did what they were suposed to. If they didn't, they failed. They were bonded bullets and supposed to stay together and retain weight. Neither did either. They failed.

Agreed 100%.

Steve Hornady himself discovered how bad these bullets were on a buffalo hunt last year with Craig Boddington, IIRC.

BTW, I noticed on the Hornady website that the Interbond and Interlock soft points, and the steel jacketed and the encapsulated solids, are all listed as being for sale - all on the same page. God help the uninitiated buyer!

The entries for the Interbonds and the encapsulated solids should have disclaimers next to them: FOR TARGET PRACTICE ONLY.

quote:

Originally posted by MarkH:
Most soft points wont mushroom if fired lenthways through wood, something to do with passing along the grain.


Mark

That goes a long way to explaining the performance I saw. The explanation is very similar to something Charley Haley described about failure of the older thin-skinned solids that would drive through bone and fall apart when they got to softer muscle -- both seen in game and in the first "elephant sandwich" (iron buffalo, or whatever you want to call it) that I'd ever seen.

http://www.african-hunter.com/solids_vs__mono.htm

The next question is whether replacing the jacket is the primary issue Hornady needs to fix: are they just going back to their old softs and solids? or redesigning a new product?

Dan

Mrlexma:
I see want you mean about the Hornaday web site listing all the bullett types together. The worst part is their site give no explainations of the various types of bullet construction, their site is a real information vaccum.

Concidering how soft the interbonds have been shown to be, I notice that Hornady now shows the picture of the interbonds with an exposed lead tip soft point.
No doubt they would do very good as a soft point (like the A-square dead soft lion
loads).

quote:

Originally posted by mrlexma:



Steve Hornady himself discovered how bad these bullets were on a buffalo hunt last year with Craig Boddington, IIRC.

As a point of reference, I've read of a Boddington/Hornady hunt that involved the release of the .375 Ruger -- was that the hunt? Steve Hornady did another African hunt as well checking performance of their loads...

Dan

Interesting reading gents. Not to high jack, but is this sentiment shared of all Interbonds, or just the big bores?

I'm heading to British Columbia for an elk hunt in sept. and my .338 WM shoots the 225gr I.B. like nobody's business. It will be the first time I've shot anything other than paper with the IB. I like to prepare for the worst. Is the IB up to the task?

Rx, I believe that Hornady is only dropping the >.375" IBs. With the smaller stuff staying in production. Ads to how the .338IBs work, might should post that question on the Medium Bore Forum.

Keith

This leads to a different question:

If these Hornadys don't give sufficient penetration for buffalo (I assume that would go for similarly sized game, bison, water bufalo, etc), what would they be suitable for? Moose? Kodiak bear (which can get nearly as large as a cape buffalo)?

Dan

quote:

Originally posted by MarkH:
Here's a wetpack test on a 458 interbond
Most soft points wont mushroom if fired lenthways through wood, something to do with passing along the grain.

Mark

Not just lengthwise. I have here a Hornady Interbond .458 that I prised out of the back of a large dead tree. It's almost full length with a slight mushroom tip. Maybe the tough wood holds them togeather somehow.

My opinion is that the .458 and .416 IB at reasonable velocity, <2200fps for the .458 and <2400fps for the .416, will be adequit for cape buffalo. Velocities attained by .460wby and .416 wby will stress the bullet too much. Dr.C

I have some of these Hornady IB's; 400gr .416's and 500gr .458's.
Terminal performance of any bullet is always relative to speed. My .458 Lott at 2250fps MV may too fast for these bullets, but I wonder how they would perform at .45-70 velocities (1200fps or so)?
Anybody ever load 500gr bullets in their .45-70? I'm just wondering since I also have (2) .45-70's.