Why avoid Hornady DG bullets and ammunition?

PHOENIX PHIL said:

If you want to be limited to this bullet's performance envelope, so be it. I prefer a bigger envelope. I also prefer bullet companies not put out bullshit advertising like that.

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Hornady does make liberal use of hyperbole. And it's their right, I suppose, but heaven forbid a PH gets trampled because the client believed the rhetoric.

It's not that the DGS or DGX can't do the job but, as mentioned, with so much better out there, why take the chance? After all, this isn't the year 1923.

sheephunterab said:

The solid nose is what primarily controls the lack of expansion. The lead only needs to squeeze if the harder metals around it deform.

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Makes sense.

CTDolan said:

Hornady does make liberal use of hyperbole. And it's their right, I suppose, but heaven forbid a PH gets trampled because the client believed the rhetoric.

It's not that the DGS or DGX can't do the job but, as mentioned, with so much better out there, why take the chance? After all, this isn't the year 1923.

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No doubt there's better in some circumstances and the DGX is ideal in others. No one bullet is universally perfect or better.

tomahawker said:

Recovered from Zim bull buff. 450 NE, put 6 rounds on him, 4 on his feet, 2 insurance. Not impressed with the bullets after the fact...however, he went down within 50 yards.View attachment 191990 View attachment 191991

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What range were you shooting from?

So, what kind of bullets are these? (I won't assume.)

Hornadys DGX 70yards down 15yards.

sheephunterab said:

No doubt there's better in some circumstances and the DGX is ideal in others. No one bullet is universally perfect or better.

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The thing I find interesting about the DGX is how it, in principle at least, so closely follows the design intent of the A-Square Dead Tough.

As for the DGS, I quite frankly don't know what to make of its failure. Fishtailing I've come to expect of a lead-core solid, but a ruptured nose most definitely not (at least in this day and age).

tomahawker said:

Recovered from Zim bull buff. 450 NE, put 6 rounds on him, 4 on his feet, 2 insurance. Not impressed with the bullets after the fact...however, he went down within 50 yards.View attachment 191990 View attachment 191991

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Would you have been impressed had you never seen the recovered bullets?

sheephunterab said:

Bigger envelope is pretty subjective. I never suggested you use the DGX nor suggested that anyone use it and understanding bullet performance is why I choose the GMX for my buffalo and Vanessa used the GMX on her lion at Serapa.....we chose the bullet that best suited the situation we thought we'd encounter and the velocity we were shooting. It only made sense to us and it was a pretty simple process actually. I never even read the advertising to be honest. Watch Nosler's video on their Safari ammo or a host of others.....they all say the same thing. No BS....you just need to understand a bit bullet performance and understand that all bullets have a performance envelope and appreciate that if you stray outside of it that you won't get optimal performance but that certainly doesn't mean it won't kill. As always, shot placement is king. I'm not trying to talk anyone into shooting the DGX here...just trying to explain what happened so they can make an informed decision when they purchase ammo and not have to rely solely on advertising.

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Bigger envelope for me is fairly simple, the wider the effective velocity range without blowing up is better, at least in regards to a DG bullet. I want the weight to hold in order to maintain momentum and plow thru as much of the animal as possible. For me, the North Fork Bonded Cores for a soft is my favorite, followed closely by the A-Frame. If there are other bonded bullets like that out there, I'd probably use those too.

A solid shouldn't deform and should maximize straight line penetration. The CEB and North Fork solids appear to have that nailed down. They're virtual twins, with one being brass and the other copper.

For the cats however I think things change a bit. In that situation a faster moving and somewhat frangible bullet appears to be the better choice. For me, the 250gr .458 CEB SOCOM turned out to be kind of a great choice. It's a great choice for PG within 200-250 yards before it's poor BC catches up to it and it starts dropping. With the controlled breaking away of the blades on that bullet, the lioness I ended up using them on hardly twitched at the shot.

Enough said for this thread, just rehashing now.

Yes, they did their job regardless.

tomahawker said:

Yes, they did their job regardless.

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I guess that's the point I was trying to make. We've become so enthralled with finding that perfect mushroom and showing to people that we've forgot a lot of what goes on inside an animal when each of those pieces breaks off. I went through a mono metal phase and still shoot them but I find myself going back to more frangible bullets for a lot of my hunting. The recovered bullets typically aren't pretty but animals are very dead. As important as looking at the recovered bullet is...it more critical to look at the results of what it did inside the animal. Still the most impressive bullet I ever saw recovered was a 139-grain GMX that had all six petals sheered off and looked like it went through a meat grinder. Pretty easy to say bullet failure of first examination but that tiny bullet passed through roughly four feet of water buffalo before coming to rest. One very dead water buffalo. The recovered bullet certainly didn't tell the story...the path it took and the destruction it did sure did though. The more I hunt the less I worry about recovering bullets and spend more time analyzing performance!

sheephunterab said:

I guess that's the point I was trying to make. We've become so enthralled with finding that perfect mushroom and showing to people that we've forgot a lot of what goes on inside an animal when each of those pieces breaks off. I went through a mono metal phase and still shoot them but I find myself going back to more frangible bullets for a lot of my hunting. The recovered bullets typically aren't pretty but animals are very dead. As important as looking at the recovered bullet is...it more critical to look at the results of what it did inside the animal. Still the most impressive bullet I ever saw recovered was a 139-grain GMX that had all six petals sheered off and looked like it went through a meat grinder. Pretty easy to say bullet failure of first examination but that tiny bullet passed through roughly four feet of water buffalo before coming to rest. One very dead water buffalo. The recovered bullet certainly didn't tell the story...the path it took and the destruction it did sure did though. The more I hunt the less I worry about recovering bullets and spend more time analyzing performance!

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Ballistics gel. As far as I am concerned, unless stated otherwise, each image of a bullet published by a manufacturer is the result of safe passage through so many feet of ballistics gel. For the hunter, it says almost nothing.

That's the issue with all test mediums. A million different scenarios can and do happen each time a bullet enters an animal. There's no way to duplicate it. What the final bullet looks like is influenced by so many factors yet few rarely try to reconstruct the story. Yes, gel is safe and always the same! Animals are always different.

Several years ago one of the hunters at a hog camp I was hunting at came back to camp complaining that his .223 had no effect on the hog he shot. This hunter was not what I would call a "gun guy" so I asked him about his ammo, the clerk at Cabelas sold him two boxes of Hornady "A-Max", now a shot right behind the ear with that bullet is lights out for any hog but if that same bullet hits the gristle plate its worthless. Is it the clerks fault for selling him the "A-Max" or was it the hunters fault for not shooting the hog behind the ear. At the end of the day it is the hunters responsibility to know the capabilities of his ammo and how to use it correctly.

To fix this hunters problem I loaned him my spare rifle, a .270 using 140 grain Accubonds, after that all the hogs he shot where DRT.

Well, against my better judgement, I am going to try one more time as well. And T.J., I really appreciate you rejoining our discussion. We will all benefit from every experienced voice. I think we are actually largely in agreement; we have merely reached different conclusions. And it is perfectly ok for equally informed people to draw different conclusions from the same observable data. In the end, I believe we all want a bullet which consistently, and effectively kills the game we are hunting. For me, based upon my experience, a deep straight penetration with lots of retained mass is the starting point for cape buffalo and larger plains game (it would also be the case for lion - but I have no personal experience killing lions). That personal prerequisite is effectively achieved over a fairly wide range of velocities by at least half a dozen premium bullet manufacturers and via at least four different manufacturing techniques. By the way, I include the new cup-nose solid designs in that list.

I also am inherently distrustful of any purposely designed frangible bullet. In my three decades in the military, we did a lot of experimentation with them. Except for ammunition load, the .223 is a pretty awful military round and for four decades we have experimented periodically with frangibles to try and turn it into a man-stopper. A frangible also would be a fairly easy way to technically stay within Geneva protocols. We could never get one to work. There was simply no way to predict what the fragments would do or when they would do it. Also bear in mind, we are not entirely upset with merely wounding an adversary, as he becomes a significant headache for the enemy. But all of that research, made me pretty certain I never wanted to shoot a deer with such a bullet - much less a large animal which can hit back (I would argue, that includes leopard - I want to drill a hole where I am aiming - not hope bits of debris act optimally). You, therefore, can imagine how off-putting I find an accidentally or occasionally frangible design.

So with DGX, we have a bullet which seems to sometimes behave like a frangible at high velocities - whether caused by very short range or original MV. There is a lot of observable evidence which indicates that sometimes happens. It has clearly happened to members of this forum. So, my conclusion, drawn from that observable evidence - and recognizing my previously reached conclusion that deep straight-line penetration is critical - is that the DGX is unsuitable for large and/or heavy-boned DG / PG. Note, that I did not say the bullet wouldn't kill them, but I am personally unwilling to take the risk of fragmentation when so many other bullets will deliver the characteristics I most value far more consistently. And of course, "bullet failure" - and by that, I mean the bullet not performing as I desire a bullet to perform against that particular target - has a much different context when poking cape buffalo rather than, say, a whitetail. Hence, my informed personal lack of regard for the DGX and my concern about its use by inexperienced African hunters who would never recognize the bullet design's limitations - or, if you are fan - its optimal performance window. And certainly, Hornady offers no such caveat in proclaiming the virtues of its product.

To digress, I will be wading around that infernal Zambezi Delta in October with my .375 R8 loaded with the 300gr Woodleigh Hydro. It checks off 90+% of my DG preconditions, and does so, in .375, over a wide range of velocities from muzzle to 300 meters. I will use it on everything from buff to duiker. Like the North Fork cup-nose, it is a solid which, nevertheless, leaves a devastating wound channel. I can personally attest that in its 9.3 guise, it is decisive on bear. The 10% of failing to meet my preconditions will be broadside presentations in a herd. The potential for pass-through is higher than a normal soft. For me, that is a known and fully manageable characteristic with which I am willing to live in order to take advantage of the bullet's other attributes. I am unwilling to live with any surprise performance deviations of any bullet. The DGX design seems rife with such surprises under field conditions.

If I want less weight retention and more expansion in thin skinned game, my own choice would be a Nosler Partition. We still shoot the 150g Partition in our 270s and it's a great bullet. For our 375, 416 and 500, we shoot A-Frames. Just a personal choice.

I guess the only thing I'd disagree with Red Leg is that I'd say the DGX is boringly predictable...it's just not the outcome some are looking for or perhaps it's not desirable in certain situations and fair enough. I'll be taking the GMX to Tanzania this fall primarily because of my MV...other than for the hippo...still not sure what's ideal there. Perhaps the DGS....perhaps not.

sheephunterab said:

At the urging of several people, including some I have great respect for on here, I decided against my better judgement to take one more kick at this cat. I'm still not certain what the issue with the DGX in the photos is. It's exactly what I'd expect from a cup and core at what I suspect was quite close range and an ensuing high velocity impact. These aren't bonded bullets and these aren't mono metals. They are a plain old cup and core. Anyone that's shot a lot of cup and cores wouldn't be surprised. If you are looking for a bullet that retains lots of weight at high impact velocity then there are a million other choices but on a thin skinned animals like lions and leopards there are a lot of benefits to this type of performance and at lower impact velocities they look a lot different. I'm not sure how you can classify as expected performance as failure. Why would you use these type of bullets if not looking for this type of performance? Anyone that has shot a variety of bullet types shouldn't and wouldn't be surprised. The solid is intriguing and I guess my first question is are you certain you didn't mix a soft and a solid up? If not then I have no explanation for that one. (no tone of any sort intended and full disclosure I work with a television series that is sponsored by Hornady)

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First and foremost no one intended on running you off but.... when people have actual field experience in field conditions and one dismisses it and is condescending it tends to strike a nerve.
As far as the bullets go, if it were advertised as such it would be one thing but simply it isn't. Even the advertisements posted earlier in this thread says what a great all round cartridge and bullet combination it is. If necessary I can quote exactly what it says as that and Craig Boddington are the reason I went with that round in the first place. I've since learned that Boddington, while he talks the talk when money is involved, uses A-frames to hunt personally.
As far as the solid is concerned, I know without a doubt that the bullet is indeed a solid. I personally pulled cartridges apart of both DGX and DGS out of the same lot numbers (DGS the same box etc) to confirm this. The reason I know is simple, the cup on the bottom of the solid in the picture is the exact same as the cup on the rest of the bullets from the exact same box. I assume it is there to make the weights exact. The DGX in the box that I pulled apart doesn't have this.
This is from actual field use and experience recovered from a lion that I killed personally. I know the circumstances involved and there is no way that anything could have caused this after the second shot. The first I took through heavy brush in a tree so I could expect that from 1 but not the rest.
I will NEVER use Hornady ammo against dangerous game again. I will always speak up any opportunity I have against it. The fact is it doesn't work as advertised. Period. It could well get someone killed.
I have the luxury of saying this without sponsorship being in conflict. I do use Hornady bullets to great success in 30 cal and under cartridges and swear by some but the DGS and DGX are horrible plan and simple. I'm not trying to be offensive to piss anyone off but that is the facts. The DGX didn't preform any better on my buffalo either which I have proof of as well.
Bottom line this crap is ok for target practice but not for practical hunting situations.

Don't believe I was ever condescending Gizmo.

As far as order of rounds is concerned, I know exactly what rounds were fired when as I had a badalier on my belt with extra rounds on the butt stock of my gun. The solids were on the butt stock as we had been hunting buffbthe day before and I put them there. Once I had ran out of softs I took the last two off of the butt stock and put them in the box magazine.

sheephunterab said:

Don't believe I was ever condescending Gizmo.

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Whether intentional or not you were very much so.