09-01-2022, 08:26 PM
Fess Wrote:An ironic disadvantage of the 6.5mm becoming more popular is that many of the bullets are now being optimized for higher velocity cartridges. It will be interesting to see Hornady's strategy with the SST and CX.
It appears they tried to extend the useful speed range of the ELD-X bullets, though. In a recent podcast, the Hornady reps claimed that most ELD-X bullets open about 200 fps lower than SST's. The ELD-M's are optimized for accuracy and use a constant-thickness jacket, but there are numerous reports of it being an effective hunting bullet, especially at Grendel velocities. I emailed Hornady a question about the ELD-M's use in hunting, but they never responded. I asked if there was any skiving or other feature on the jacket that would assist uniform petaling of the jacket.
A couple years ago I ran some ELDM through a jug test, I wrote about here someplace. It did have the innerlock ring and it did give a maximum expansion mushroom losing the cores.