Can't decide. 165 or 180 accubonds for cow elk

Decided on the 165 accubond with an average muzzle velocity of 2830. It's out of a 22" barrel. Being pushed by 58 gr of h4350.

Lots of fooling around with different powders with both 180 and 165. Chronograph sold me on the 165 at that speed.
 
I've dropped several Elk with a .257 Weatherby and 90 grn bullets... Go down to 150 if you shoot it better with less recoil. The felt recoil between 150 and 180 is significant and if you shoot it better because it beats up on you less and therefore you practice more... Any of those weights will kill Elk. I do suggest Superformance if you can handle it. That takes out a lot of drop.

Hornady says 48.6 inch drop at 500 with a 150 grn Interlock.

38.4 with a Superformance 150 SST at 500.

10 inches is significant compared to 2 for bullet weight.
 
Not bothered by recoil from either. Buddy of mine using 165 superformance with 24 inch barrel. First shot through chronograph was 3013 fps. Pretty impressive. 3 shot string gave us an avg of 2980.

But what's the point of Reloading and not using your reload to hunt? Kind of like tying fly hooks and not using them to catch fish because you bought fish at the store.
 
I'd go with whichever weight shoots better in your rifle - either weight will do nicely. With H4350 though, you can more than safely go up to 2900 fps or a little over with the 165's, and around 2750-2800 with the 180's, and still be safe.
 
powder burner said:
Not bothered by recoil from either. Buddy of mine using 165 superformance with 24 inch barrel. First shot through chronograph was 3013 fps. Pretty impressive. 3 shot string gave us an avg of 2980.

But what's the point of Reloading and not using your reload to hunt? Kind of like tying fly hooks and not using them to catch fish because you bought fish at the store.
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You can buy Superformance powder...
 
Dogleg said:
Yep, but in practice I can't get any more speed out of it than H4350. Or to put it another way, the old Flintstone powder seems to do everything the wunderpowder is supposed to.
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I wasn't suggesting that he "should" buy it... only that he "could" buy it, as it seemed that he thought it could only be had in factory loadings. I have one Superformance .30/06 load that is excellent, other than that, I prefer other powders, H4350 being one of my favourites... but also RL-19, RL-22 and W760.
 
Found some of that powder. Was unable to get any information for 30-06 when googling on the phone at the store. put it back on the shelf. What are you using for a recipe with the superformance powder and bullet in 30-06?
 
powder burner said:
Found some of that powder. Was unable to get any information for 30-06 when googling on the phone at the store. put it back on the shelf. What are you using for a recipe with the superformance powder and bullet in 30-06?
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According to the Hodgdons site, max of 61 grains of Superformance for the 165 and 59.7 for the 180. check for yourself, work up and any other standard disclaimers you can think of to insert here.
 
So we went out this morning before light. Set up and waited for legal light. Shot a cow elk at lasered 258 yds. Hit it twice. It ran 35 yards laid down. I'm confident the 165 accubond is all I should need for moose, and elk sized critters.

No pics but was a good time!
 
My personal rule is : For edibles (elk,moose,caribou,etc), I use the biggest bullet I have on hand, for non-edibles (wolf, wolverine etc.)I use the smallest I have on hand for max velocity.
 
I was never fond of the 150 grainers in a 30-06. I'm not suggesting that they aren't effective, but the ones I tried were factory loads the the ole Sako didn't group them well. I've always felt more confident with accurate loads over powerhouse loads.

In factory loads the federal premium with 165 SGKBT have always grouped well and the results have always been terminal. In the 180 grainers I recently discovered the Hornady SST with Superformance. Both loads are reported as producing very close to the same speed. Roughly this is about 2800 fps. That is plenty for most ranges out to about 375 yards or so.

Hand-loads have different potentials and bullets that may not group effectively at lighter measures of powder can group better at higher amounts of powder - and vis versa. It's good to find a factory load that works decently as one may not always have time to work up loads to get an acceptable degree of accuracy.
 
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