I got a great deal on four boxes of Hornady 470 NE. $60 a box. Since that is about the price of Hornady brass, why not. It's loaded with their DGX bullets. I'll still hunt with my handloaded Woodleighs, but thought this would be good practice ammo.
Has anyone shot these yet, or even chronographed them? Any idea what the factory powder charge is? With the blizzard raging outside, I probably won't get to play with them for several months here in SoDak.

The POI on the Hornady Ammo is about 3" lower in my Krieghoff than Federal Ammo. I did use it to put the Insurance shot in a Cape Buffalo last July. I took the shot at about 15 yards and it hit the Spine. The skinner recovered the Bullet later. He Told me it was under the skin and had went most of the way thru the Buff. It had lost a fair amount of weight and, but mushroomed fairly well. Felt recoil was slightly less then Federal Ammo or my reloads. I use up to 116 grains of H4831 SC in my reloads. I sold my remaining supply of Hornady as I have a large quanity of Federal Ammo on hand. Without that I would not hesitate to use the Hornady Ammo.

From what I have read, Federal supposedly uses non-cannister grade RL-15, no wad or filler and a special Federal 216, yes, 216 primer. I've read that in the .450 Nitro, Hornady supposedly uses non-cannister grade IMR-4831, no wad or filler, but I haven't taken a round apart to weigh the charge. If you have a bullet puller, you could do it, reassemble and still not waste an expensive round.

quote:

Originally posted by Marty:
I got a great deal on four boxes of Hornady 470 NE.........Has anyone shot these yet, or even chronographed them?

I ran a few through my Krieghoff, they averaged slightly over 2150.

Marty,
I shot a box of the DGX thru my Merkel and it shot to the same POI as my handload with woodleigh's that chronoed at 2150. I didn't shoot any on paper, but I could break skeet on the 50 and 100yd backstops off the sticks with the same hold as the handloads.

The 470 hornady DGS(500 gr) I chrono'd out of my Heym 88 Safari clocked an avg of 2150 FPS.
I also shot some Federal Woodleighs and they clocked almost 2200 fps. Both shot to the same point of impact in my rifle.

EZ

Thanks, that's the kind of info I'm looking for. I also have heard that the Federals use RL15 and 216 primers. I spoke with a technical guy at Federal last year and asked if these would ever be available, and was essentially told that it would never happen.
It would be nice to know what Hornady is putting into these.
I'm loading IMR4831 with 215 primers.

Marty:

When I first got my .470 Blaser, I picked up a box of Hornady ammo. I am pretty sure the Hornady stuff runs about 2150 fps and my rifle was regulated with WR ammo that was running a lot slower so I couldn't get it to regulate in my gun. 400 Nitro Express explained this to me. The original Kynoch standard for the .470 was 2125 fps but that was out of a 31 inch barrel so in a gun with a 24-26 inch barrel, most guns were shooting somewhere around 2000 fps. The WR ammo seems to duplicate those original ballistics but the Hornday ammo was designed for newer guns which actually achieve 2150 fps from a shorter barrel. If you are shooting a vintage gun, I doubt that you will be able to get the Hornady stuff to regulate but it should do great in a newer gun like a Merkel or a Krieghoff. Hope that helps.

Dave, after a few rounds with Wayne's 600 OK next week, you won't be able to regulate ANYTHING in your 470, because afterwards your eyes will be closed, teeth gritted, and you're likely to jerk like someone just plugged your privates into a light socket !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!