Peregrine 480gr VRG-3 Vs Hornady 480gr DGX Bullet Performance

We all know that bullet performance is crucial when hunting animals, but how much of that trust is earned and how much is just hey say because of the brand you choose.

Well this weekend i decided to put two bullets to the test to see if they could stand up to their name. The first bullet was loaded with a Peregrine 480gr VRG-3 point and 92gr of S335 powder and the second was a Hornady 480gr DGX also loaded with 92gr of S335. Both of these rounds were shot out of my Sabatti .450 Nitro Express at a speed of 2150 f/s.

So the test was shooting at a paper target into a heap of sand and then recovering the soft point to see the performance of the bullet.

The bullet on the left was the 480gr Peregringe VRG-3 and the one on the right the 480gr Hornady DGX.




From the pics above you can see that both bullets mushroomed but that the Hornady has deformed completely and has lost its lead core. So after this i weighed both of these points to check the weight retention.




The bullet above is the 480gr Peregrine VRG-3, it only lost 8gr from its original weight. To me that is unbelievable performance!




The bullet above is the 480gr Hornady DGX, this point has lost more than 216gr which in my opinion is pathetic performance from a dangerous game bullet from a well known supplier.

So if we compare the stats from above the Peregrine had 98% weight retention and the Hornady had 45% weight retention. My question to you would be the following : If you are hunting Dangerous game and your bullet performance is of utmost importance, would you risk your life on the Hornady or the Peregrine?

Let me guess?!

The Peregrine bullets are very impressive in performance! I'm not shocked about the Hornady bullet, given a hard surface, the core is going to separate.

I don’t care for Hornady softs but even my beloved Woodleigh softs would be hard pressed not to shed some grains in sand. I did dabble with a shot or two like that years back with 570 grain Woodleigh softs, but can’t recall the retention. I’ll have to have a play again.

I've never hunted DG so I have no experience to draw from but I do have a few questions. Will the Peregrine exit a broadside Cape Buffalo? If so not all of the bullets energy is transferred to the buff and you run the risk of hitting an animal behind it. If your hunting Buff in a herd the DGX may be the better choice to prevent over penetration. Depending on your hunting situation or how well the round shot in your rifle you mite pick the DGX over the Peregrine.

Was that DGX the original "Cup and Core" design or was it the new Bonded version?

Art Lambart II said:

I've never hunted DG so I have no experience to draw from but I do have a few questions. Will the Peregrine exit a broadside Cape Buffalo? If so not all of the bullets energy is transferred to the buff and you run the risk of hitting an animal behind it. If your hunting Buff in a herd the DGX may be the better choice to prevent over penetration. Depending on your hunting situation or how well the round shot in your rifle you mite pick the DGX over the Peregrine.

Was that DGX the original "Cup and Core" design or was it the new Bonded version?

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If you don't get sufficient penetration into the vitals you are in for a long tracking job on a now pissed off buffalo. Transferring all of the energy is certainly a good thing if its being transferred into the vitals creating a mortal wound. It's not if the energy is being transferred into outer edges of the animal creating a big bruise. Taking a shot at any animal with any bullet with other animals behind it is never a good thing.

But specific to your question, most of the NorthFork bullets that I have used which will retain the mushroom shape like the Peregrine have not exited. On those that it did, it was when the shot was in a thinner area of the animal such as a high shoulder shot. I believe this is due to the mushroom creating something of a trampoline effect on the offside hide in which I've recovered a number of bullets. I've no experience with the Peregrines but I would expect the same.

Art Lambart II said:

I've never hunted DG so I have no experience to draw from but I do have a few questions. Will the Peregrine exit a broadside Cape Buffalo? If so not all of the bullets energy is transferred to the buff and you run the risk of hitting an animal behind it. If your hunting Buff in a herd the DGX may be the better choice to prevent over penetration. Depending on your hunting situation or how well the round shot in your rifle you mite pick the DGX over the Peregrine.

Was that DGX the original "Cup and Core" design or was it the new Bonded version?

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We have hunted numerous buffalo's with the peregrine and have not once had the bullet exit, they all seem to penetrate right through to the other side and lay just under the skin, making a bulge just under the skin. But this does not mean that it can't exit, especially if no bone is hit during the pass. Anyway shooting at animal with other animal behind them is never a good idea!

That test was obviously the non-bonded version of the DGX. I've done media tests with the same 480 gr .458 "DG" bullet. The results were similar. A bonded bullet, at minimum, will show a thick "smear" of lead attached to the interior jacket surface even after severe, high velocity impact dynamics.

Hornady has been in denial about their so-called hunting bullets since the 1970s! They sell to the budget market. How many years did it take Hornady to come to the "table"?

Hornady's suck.

Pro Hunting Safaris said:

If you are hunting Dangerous game and your bullet performance is of utmost importance, would you risk your life on the Hornady or the Peregrine?

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Well.... If the goal is to risk my life then I'd absolutely 100% use the Hornady over any other DG bullet I know of.

fourfive8 said:

They sell to the budget market.

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This!

Royal27 said:

Well.... If the goal is to risk my life then I'd absolutely 100% use the Hornady over any other DG bullet I know of.

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So, there are situations where you would use a Hornady?!?!

for what its worth,

the peregrine is a pretty darned good bullet. obviously. it would be worth trying the new bonded dgx in this comparison. i suspect it will perform quite a bit better. i am fairly impressed that hornady was willing to change the recipe based on feedback, largely from sites like this.

i am waiting to find some for my 375 ruger, or 450-400. if they work as i think they will, then i would be willing to use them on a buffalo.

now, i am not a hard core DG hunter, but i do guide brown bears and would be happy to use a bonded hornady on them, but NOT the original DGX. in fact i am bringing north forks with me this year.

if you get the opportunity to use the bonded bullets, i sure would like to hear your results.

Why anybody would want to use marginal bullets on DG or even PG in Africa is beyond me. There are so many premium quality bullets with proven track records that testing of marginal bullets cannot be justified.

Why risk the chance of losing an animal or putting lives at stake by even considering cheap inverior bullets?

Use premium grade proven bullets, period.

I'll stick to the Woodleigh's, thanks!

IvW said:

Why anybody would want to use marginal bullets on DG or even PG in Africa is beyond me. There are so many premium quality bullets with proven track records that testing of marginal bullets cannot be justified.

Why risk the chance of losing an animal or putting lives at stake by even considering cheap inverior bullets?

Use premium grade proven bullets, period.

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Agreed. Fly halfway around the world and spend five figures on the hunt of a lifetime, and use cheaper ammo just to save fifty dollars? That’s crazy.

I'm with @CTDolan on this, cost of projectiles is not worth considering for D/G (not that I've shot any, bar one Nyati). So find a PROVEN projectile that's sufficently acurate in your rifle, shoot them a LOT, then go hunt D/G. Hornay have literally copied Woodleigh with their core bonding (an old Speer idea, who worked with Geoff MacDonald of Woodleigh years back).
To test D/G bullets, shooting them into sand, or sticks, or ballistic Gel is merely playing; do what Woodleigh have done for years; shoot the real thing: Dangerous Game; thousand of water buff, and dozens of Elephant and who knows what else.
Sorry, if I'm a bit "heavy" on this; we're hunting DANGEROUS game, things that will kill you as quick as they can get to you, just ain't worth the risk.

I used a Hornady inter bond on a gemsbok just because the PH had a bad opinion of the other, heavy for caliber, Nosler partitions I had on hand. The gemsbok was hit squarely but ran off. We tracked for one and a half days before losing the spoor in a stampeded area. Every once in a while a big spray of blood would shoot out of the animal, the rest of the time there was scant blood. A hartebeest on the same hunt with the same bullet went down, but the recovered bullet was a teardrop of lead--don't know what happened to the jacket! At least I had the joy of watching a bushman tracker in Namibia...

Mmmh, cannot speak for the Gemsbuck. What calibre, what range and where exactly the shot was planted will all have played a role and outcome would probably have been the same regardless of projectile. (A 150 or 165gr bullet from even a "puny" 308 takes these animals easily if correctly placed, provided range is not excessive. At long range a 300 or 338 Mag is the right medicine)

As for the test that started all of this i can say 2 things.
The first is that the peregrines are very highly regarded over here and one of the top choices for dangerous game.
The second is that firing into sand is not really representative of any hunting condition , save perhaps for hitting a buff on the boss. Swift A frames have a very good rep on buffs but would probably have behaved much like the Hornady if fired into sand.

One other thing: monometal bullets are more inclined to exit than lead core designs. Whether it is likely to happen depends on calibre , bullet selection, target animal range and shot placement. Calibres featuring long for calibre bullets (like .338 and all.416 calibres) are known for "overpenetration" and consequent accidental woundings, so one needs to take care. On the other hand this also makes them great for follow up shots. e.g a 416 Rem Mag with a sufficiently tough bullet will penetrate a buffalo length-ways.

Sometimes weight retention and penetration are not the only measures of bullet performance. A military HPC bullet (Hardened Performance Core) will usually retain 100% weight and out penetrate most all hunting bullets....but it is not a good choice. I know of an African PH who has killed 4 charging lions with the W-W 270 grain Power Point in his 375. This is a soft bullet. Sometimes, rapid energy transfer is best in his opinion. And, yes, I once took Hornady Interlock loads to Africa, and they did fine. But I did not go after buffalo, for which the Peregringe looks better based on your test. Simply saying a broad generalization is difficult to make............Thanks for the pics and the info................FWB

The rifle used on the gemsbok was 30'06. They were light magnums with 180 gr. bullets.