73 ELD Match bullets

[markm]

Wow. Odd for Hornady to release a bullet so challenging with which to get good accuracy.

We'll be slinging the 178s out of 308 this weekend.

[Vegas]

Definitely odd compared to the rest of the ELD-M line. With the standard 75gr Match, minute at 100 is easy no matter the load almost. Then fine tune to get .75 and under was my experience.

[Pappabear]

Yea, every other bullet they make in the line is sub to half with a variety of loads. Hard to figure if they got cute and slightly changed some dimension thinking it didn't matter or trying to improve on great, making it VLD ish.

PB

[GMZ]

Maybe they are very sensitive to jump? Pretty sure most people shoot them out of 5.56 or at most 223 Wylde.

Over on the Hide user padom had great luck with these but from what I remember he was shooting a Kreiger (ETA: Bartlein and Rainier Match) with CLE Match chamber.

ETA: I have about 20 of them left, was thinking of loading a few to right off the lands (single load) and seeing whats what.

ETA2: I have a WOA so I guess Im SOL, hah.

I do not recommed the ELD's in WOA's. Of my 3 WOA's they ALL shot lights out with 23.6g 8208XBR and 77smk. Thats a 16", 18" SPR, and 20" SDM. They shot the older Hornady 75BTHP second best with same load. I did extensive testing with the 73 ELD's and many different powders and they just shot like shit in the WOA.

I decided to test 3 different Rainier Ultramatch barrels and they shoot lights out with the new 73 ELD's and 8208XBR.

Here is his Bartlein barrel

[Pappabear]

Reviving this old beast. Big D hand loaded some 73 ELD's for his new scope for his SBR. Bought a nice new Vortex. Anyway, he keep pushing the scope up down left and right until we concluded his mounts must be loose. Just before throwing in the towel, I threw him 5 of Markm's 77 load. He stacked them on top of each other. The 73's were like 5-6 inch groups. Just one more example of how bizarre this one flavor of ELD's can be. Its hard for a very skilled handloader to achieve a 6 MOA load.

PB

[markm]

I had forgotten about these bullets, and saw a box of them on the bench the night before. I nearly loaded some up.

[DCB]

Reviving this old beast. Big D hand loaded some 73 ELD's for his new scope for his SBR. Bought a nice new Vortex. Anyway, he keep pushing the scope up down left and right until we concluded his mounts must be loose. Just before throwing in the towel, I threw him 5 of Markm's 77 load. He stacked them on top of each other. The 73's were like 5-6 inch groups. Just one more example of how bizarre this one flavor of ELD's can be. Its hard for a very skilled handloader to achieve a 6 MOA load.

PB

I was still in denial that my favorite component company could make such a strange projectile. After my experience above with PB and Mark, I loaded up a bunch of 77 Nosler CC over Varget and the same batch of 73 ELD mentioned above. Both were hovering around 7 SD out of both my 24” Savage 1/9 and my 18” WOA. Hit the flat range and confirmed that the 73 ELD is one picky bitch. Both guns produced similar results:

[Pappabear]

It is insane. So very cornfusing.

[markm]

Maybe we're loading them backwards.

The remainder of these will be 25 yard steal banger bullets.

[Corse]

I shot multiple 3 rnd groups with the Hornady match ammo and they were all .4-.65”. I have tried to load some but they haven’t turned in groups that good. To be fair the 77 gr TMK were turning in similar groups.