Hornady 174 gr Interlock on games, good or bad?

The 30-30 moose kill, I didn't remove the bullet, (Kick me please) It penetrated about 17 inches, ending in the off side shoulder. Massive blood spot visible on the leg muscle.

I've taken many deer with that bullet, and never recovered one, it always exited. The last, taken with a 308, I found a chunk of meat about half the size of my fist on the ground, where the deer stood. I found the deer about 20 feet away. Exit wounds typically, in the 308, and 30-30 on deer are 1.5 to 2". My shooting is usually up close, typically under 50 yards, although the 308 shot mentioned above was about a hundred.
 
I'm loading that bullet for my 7.62x54R Mosin Nagant. A friend of mine took a deer with the same type of gun and the same bullet this season. It took him three shots to put the mulie down. The first shot was a solid good hit, the deer dropped right away. As he thought the deer was done, the buck unbelievably got up and started running up hill. So he took the second shot, the deer dropped again and got up again, until he fired the third shot. He looked for blood on the spot where the buck took the first shot, there was very little blood. But the buck was hit very well by the first shot. So I was wondering if the bullet didn't expand enough?
 
If terminal velocity is less than 2400 fps Hornady Interlocks are good. They work well in 30-30's, 7mm Mauser, 303 British etc. At higher velocity they tend to break up. For deer sized game through the lungs they are good enough doesn't matter the velocity. For bigger game I use Nosler Partitions and I've shot many big game animals with them. Worth the little extra $'s.
 
rollingrock said:
I'm loading that bullet for my 7.62x54R Mosin Nagant. A friend of mine took a deer with the same type of gun and the same bullet this season. It took him three shots to put the mulie down. The first shot was a solid good hit, the deer dropped right away. As he thought the deer was done, the buck unbelievably got up and started running up hill. So he took the second shot, the deer dropped again and got up again, until he fired the third shot. He looked for blood on the spot where the buck took the first shot, there was very little blood. But the buck was hit very well by the first shot. So I was wondering if the bullet didn't expand enough?
Click to expand...

The 7.62x54 is very similar to the .308 and the .303 too.It is a MUCH better caliber all around for big game than the 7.62x39 any day.
Mulies are tough and sometimes take more than one shot to put down especially if the shots are less than perfect.
 
303carbine said:
The 7.62x54 is very similar to the .308 and the .303 too.It is a MUCH better caliber all around for big game than the 7.62x39 any day.
Mulies are tough and sometimes take more than one shot to put down especially if the shots are less than perfect.
Click to expand...

Oh well I know that this cal is better than 39, only by judging by the size. :)But why couldn't he find more blood than he thought?
 
There probably wasnt an exit wound... or his shot was more poorly placed than he thought.
Another thought - perhaps that deer would have expired after the first shot anyway - a little way down the line. I've hit deer right in the boiler room, had them jump and take off like nothing happened - wait 15 minutes, and find then in a crumpled heap 75 y away, with very little blood trail, and no exit wound.
This has happened with both 303 (174 RN Hornady) and 6.5 X55 (160 RN Hornady). I leave you to consider whether the expansion was sufficient....
 
Last edited:
cosmic said:
There probably wasnt an exit wound... or his shot was more poorly placed than he thought.
Another thought - perhaps that deer would have expired after the first shot anyway - a little way down the line. I've hit deer right in the boiler room, had them jump and take off like nothing happened - wait 15 minutes, and find then in a crumpled heap 75 y away, with very little blood trail, and no exit wound.
This has happened with both 303 (174 RN Hornady) and 6.5 X55 (160 RN Hornady). I leave you to consider whether the expansion was sufficient....
Click to expand...

This was almost exactly happened to my friend's buck, except that his first shot was a lung lung shot, but the bullet didn't go through. No exit wound. He was very surprised at the result. Given the load and the bullet weight he thought it must have been easy to create something more visual. When both of us picked 174 RN we looked up the Internet, nothing bad was said about the bullet. Now a little confused.
 
I have shot 8 deer, some pretty big mulies, with interlocks or SST's. Most have been boiler room shots and almost all had larger exit wounds. This is a great bullet for standard cartridges.

My first few deer were taken with the 150gr version at 2700fps out of a No1mk3. Excellent penetration. The 174gr would be more of the same.

Shot placement and the willingness for the deer to succumb can lead to some serious head scratching.

I have 'killed' deer and they have run off a significant ways. Don't be surprised if they don't fall where you shot them.

My last deer was a large 4X4 mulie (approx 250lbs live weight) shot at 100yds with a 150gr SST out of a 270 (2900fps). The entrance was 2" X 3" with 2 1/2 ribs taken out. The exit, diagonally across the chest cavity, was a smidge over 3" X 3" 'square' taking out 3 ribs cleanly. The buck decided that this was no fun and ran off approx 50yds at a full gallop.

When we got up the where I shot it, I have never seen a blood trail so big and dramatic. Looked like someone got a spray gun out and painted the area.

We caught up the deer a minute or two after the shot. It was still in its last few gasps and trying to get away. The bleeding out was more then I had ever seen before.

The bullet did exactly what it was designed to do. The deer also did what it was designed to do.

I have ALOT of respect for deer's tenacity for life AND the performance of these bullets.

Jerry
 
Honestly when I hunted deer with 7.62x39, if I didn't miss I didn't need more than two bullets to put a buck down including mulie. His buck was first shot at 80-90 yards away. At that distance my SKS wouldn't have had any problem to kill the buck. The fact that he did't see a lot of blood and a significant exit hole on the first shot still makes us scratch our heads.
 
I have not shot anything with them but it is the bullet I use for ammo I give to others in 6.5, 30cal and 303. Many kills, all one shot. Bullet went through on deer and on skin on far side with moose.

Bullet placement is 95% of a good clean kill. That comes from a fair amount of shooting from the standing and sitting position (not off a bench).

I load the Hornady bullets because they seem to shoot well in a a broad range of rifles - and because they are cheap.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom