.264 practice projectile

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Nov 12, 2020
My wife wants to start hunting this year. She has zero long gun experience. She is going to be shooting a 6.5 creed and I reload. Looking for a reasonably accurate but cheaper projo for practice inside 500yds, mostly inside 300. Don’t care really ballistics/wind wise being too similar to whatever we settle on for a hunting round as long as it groups well enough for practicing marksmanship/field shooting. Probably looking to buy around a thousand of them so if I could save .10-.15 a round over hunting rounds that are .45 or .50 per it would be worth it.

I have 8lbs of H4350 so that’s pretty much the powder I plan to use.

Anybody know what is a good value for this purpose?


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I load 85 grain Sierra HPs over Hodgdon’s minimum charge of H4350 for my sons to practice in their 6.5x55s. I got the bullets super cheap and they shoot well for practice with negligible recoil.
 
+1 on the Hornady BTHP Match. Reasonable BC and very easy to get to shoot well.

John

I’ve shot a lot of these as well. I’ll load 143eldx, 140eldm and 140BTHP with same powder charge and I don’t even adjust the seating die. They are all really close.


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I've heard they aren't bad on tissue either, but I have no evidence to support that.
I can’t remember shooting any critters with them but my son shot a caribou with them. Dead Caribou, but didn’t seem as destructive as the 140gr Berger Elite Hunter was for me on the same hunt.

John
 
I've heard they aren't bad on tissue either, but I have no evidence to support that.

I can’t remember shooting any critters with them but my son shot a caribou with them. Dead Caribou, but didn’t seem as destructive as the 140gr Berger Elite Hunter was for me on the same hunt.

John


Yep. Hornady HPBT’s penetrate deeper on average, with a narrower wound channel than like weight Berger VLD’s.
 

Friends don’t let friends pay Larry’s prices.

If your looking to save money on about any component you can stop searching midway
 
Hornady ELDM of your weight choice. I like 130 grain and feel that is the right balance of speed and bc. No need to change for hunting. Build her confidence and familiarity using the bullet you will hunt with.
 
The Barnes Match Burners are shooting well out of my savage 6.5cm


 
This......one load for everything

Why though? Say a barrel lasts 3k if you can save $.15 to $.25 over that round count that’s a $450-$750 savings and you basically paid for your rebarrel.

As long as your practice ammo groups small enough that you can tell misses are you and not the rifle/load, there really isn’t any benefit to shooting more expensive stuff just because. Dope isn’t gonna change much unless you use dramatically different projos. Hell, my dope for my 6.5 and 7RM hunting loads are never more then .2mil different out to 600 so I only memorized the 6.5 dope and use it on both guns.

I could maybe see the argument if you shot less than a couple hundred practice rounds a year since the savings wouldn’t really add up.


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Wish I had the $$$ to only shoot Barnes TTSX etc.

I usually pair SST's with same weight TTSX or plain Hornady SP with Partitions and poi is usually identical.
 
Why though? Say a barrel lasts 3k if you can save $.15 to $.25 over that round count that’s a $450-$750 savings and you basically paid for your rebarrel.

As long as your practice ammo groups small enough that you can tell misses are you and not the rifle/load, there really isn’t any benefit to shooting more expensive stuff just because. Dope isn’t gonna change much unless you use dramatically different projos. Hell, my dope for my 6.5 and 7RM hunting loads are never more then .2mil different out to 600 so I only memorized the 6.5 dope and use it on both guns.

I could maybe see the argument if you shot less than a couple hundred practice rounds a year since the savings wouldn’t really add up.


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I use the exact same load, just different COAL, from Berger Elite Hunters to the Hornady BTHP. Zero stays the same. If you do a fair bit of positional type of practice, Bergers get expensive.
Still like them for long range and hunting though.
 

140 BTHP are $28 a box. $5 off per box if you buy 10 boxes.
 
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