Why avoid Hornady DG bullets and ammunition?

[Paul Edwards]

well i find my flint bullets still work fine, so dont know what all the whoo haa is all about.......

Lol! I had the opportunity to fire a flintlock at the range a couple of years ago. Nice!

 

[BRICKBURN]

...............
Used to use Barnes X-bullets exclusively - seems like the newer TSX are not nearly as consistent (in my opinion) - wouldn't catch me using them in a rifle hunting something like brown bear or lion

Try the TTSX. You'll see a difference.

 

[sheephunterab]

Ok, here's another comparison between the DGX "Hornady's dangerous game controlled expanding bullet" and the Barnes TSX controlled expanding bullet. Just like the other comparison- similar impact velocities and the test media was same. Draw conclusions or use info as you like.
View attachment 191659

You can't really compare a cup and core to a mono metal...well I guess you can but the two are totally different designs. The DGX is designed to remain in an animal so as not to hit others in the herd. Rapid expansion and fragmentation is one way of ensuring that. Fragmentation is not necessarily a negative either...it's just a different type of performance. For soft tissue hits, a fragmenting bullet will cause much more extensive and immediate damage vs a bullet that retains all its weight. We've been brainwashed into believing that to be classified as anything but a failure, a bullet must be a perfect 95%+ mushroom and that isn't really true.

 

[sheephunterab]

I shoot F class and have NEVER seen an ELD used. Probably 99% run Berger, Lapua, and Sierra bullets. This "group" of F class shooters you talked to are definitely not at the top of the game. .

Considering that the ELD has been on the market less than two years it's not surprising more shooters aren't using them but many are beginning to switch...even those at the top of their game.

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

You can't really compare a cup and core to a mono metal...well I guess you can but the two are totally different designs. The DGX is designed to remain in an animal so as not to hit others in the herd. Rapid expansion and fragmentation is one way of ensuring that. Fragmentation is not necessarily a negative either...it's just a different type of performance. For soft tissue hits, a fragmenting bullet will cause much more extensive and immediate damage vs a bullet that retains all its weight. We've been brainwashed into believing that to be classified as anything but a failure, a bullet must be a perfect 95%+ mushroom and that isn't really true.

I have to respectfully disagree with you here. If a hunter is depending on bullet design to not hit other animals in the herd, presuming those animals being in the line of fire but behind the intended target, they're taking an irresponsible shot.

Rapid expansion and fragmentation is great if you're hunting smaller animals. I love the Nosler Ballistic Tip for Coues deer hunting as an example.

There is truth that a high weight retaining bullet is not required or a must to kill DG, but it is an advantage. The performance of the A-Frame and NF bonded cores is you get reliable expansion and that mushroom stays intact through the animal creating a great wound channel. The retained mass helps to hold momentum which in turn allows for deeper penetration than the bullet that blows up. That's physics not brainwashing.

And from my own experience, unless the bullet path is through a smaller thickness of the animal (think neck shot or high shoulder), most of the North Forks with that big mushroom generally don't exit. This of course translates to all of the energy being dumped into the animal just like a more frangible bullet. As mentioned I wouldn't count on it not to hit animal behind, but this is what I've witnessed on more than just a few animals.

The next best step down from there would in my opinion be the Nosler Partition. The Partitions were at one time used for DG, but particularly when it comes to buffalo they've fallen out of favor due to their weight loss. But I would not describe a NP as frangible.

 

[sheephunterab]

Energy dump is not a real thing . It's total bunk. Energy is not a killing force. Energy is what is required for the bullet to expand and penetrate, It's that subsequent hole that kills! A bullet that passes completely through can do equal damage to a bullet that remains in the animal...all other things being equal of course. With expanding bullets, fragmentation and velocity are the real influences on tissue damage...both in permanent and temporary wound channels. The reason that fragmenting bullets often result in more rapid death is the increased tissue damage...not energy dumping. The real key with fragmenting bullets is how far they penetrate before fragmentation begins. If it begins early like with varmint bullets, then yes, you have an issue on large game but if it begins well after penetration, it can be very beneficial. The only negative with fragmentation is reduced penetration if fragmentation begins early...if it doesn't and penetration is not compromised, then death can be very dramatic compared to stouter bullets. That physics isn't brainwashing either. We can do a lot to control when expansion occurs. But you do end up picking chunks of lead out of your meat. I guess my point was about the comparison, it was like throwing a baseball and an egg at a wall and concluding that because the egg broke that the baseball would make a better omelette.

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

Energy dump is not a real thing . It's total bunk. Energy is not a killing force. Energy is what is required for the bullet to expand and penetrate, It's that subsequent hole that kills! A bullet that passes completely through can do equal damage to a bullet that remains in the animal...all other things being equal of course. With expanding bullets, fragmentation and velocity are the real influences on tissue damage...both in permanent and temporary wound channels. The reason that fragmenting bullets often result in more rapid death is the increased tissue damage...not energy dumping. The real key with fragmenting bullets is how far they penetrate before fragmentation begins. If it begins early like with varmint bullets, then yes, you have an issue on large game but if it begins well after penetration, it can be very beneficial. The only negative with fragmentation is reduced penetration if fragmentation begins early...if it doesn't and penetration is not compromised, then death can be very dramatic compared to stouter bullets. That physics isn't brainwashing either. We can do a lot to control when expansion occurs. But you do end up picking chunks of lead out of your meat. I guess my point was about the comparison, it was like throwing a baseball and an egg at a wall and concluding that because the egg broke that the baseball would make a better omelette.

Hmm, kinetic energy transfer to something soft, easily destroyed and full of water I don't think is bunk. A number of years ago I shot a Coues deer at about 300 yards. 140gr Nosler BT. Dead on the shoulder, watched the deer go down in my scope and never twitch.

This happened to be the one and only time I've ever been part of a double. My buddy that was with me had downed his deer just moments after mine, but it had disappeared behind a giant prickly pear bush. That is where I guessed it to be. But I stayed behind with a radio to talk him into the spot. Sure enough he found his deer right where I thought it would be and conveniently about 15 feet from mine. So he started gutting the deer while I made my way over. I asked him that if he got to mine to please put the heart somewhere to stay clean. Nothing like fried deer heart to me.

So by the time I got down into the canyon and back up the other side, Rich had both deer gutted. He showed me what remained of my deer's heart. It was the very bottom, from top to bottom of this little piece of heart would be about half of your thumb.

We couldn't make out any other pieces of tissue as being heart, it had pretty much blown up along with the lungs. Bullet passed through and made a pretty clean and larger hole than 7mm. I have a pretty hard time believing this was due entirely to fragmentation and a KE/KE transfer had nothing to do with it. When an object at rest is hit by a moving object, if the resting object is now moving, there was an energy transfer.

Kevin Robertson discusses this sort of killing effect in his book The Perfect Shot. One principle he specifically discusses his the heart full of blood suddenly being squeezed causing pressure in the vascular system to go high enough to burst blood vessels, all the way up into the brain. One reason for an instantaneous death.

 

[sheephunterab]

Of course there's an energy transfer, physics tells us that but it's not deadly a deadly force as referenced by an energy dump.. No doubt small blood vessels in the temporary wound channel burst but so too do they when you get a bruise! Larger holes are most easily attributed to tearing as a result or stretching tissue and no doubt from from hydraulic transfer but regardless,that happens as the bullet passes through the affected tissue...not by some massive dump. Velocity plays a much bigger role in hydraulic transfer......it causes the liquid in the tissue to move at a more rapid rate, increasing the reach of the temporary wound channel. The bullet passing through or remaining inside means little when referencing energy...especially as a killing force.

 

[CTDolan]

I am squarely in the camp which believes that energy is lent too much credence. Yes, it may be be applied as the potential to do work, but as we all know the reality of the situation is substantially more complex.

 

[CTDolan]

Further, personally, I prefer two holes, not one. It makes follow up (tracking) much easier.

 

[Red Leg]

You can't really compare a cup and core to a mono metal...well I guess you can but the two are totally different designs. The DGX is designed to remain in an animal so as not to hit others in the herd. Rapid expansion and fragmentation is one way of ensuring that. Fragmentation is not necessarily a negative either...it's just a different type of performance. For soft tissue hits, a fragmenting bullet will cause much more extensive and immediate damage vs a bullet that retains all its weight. We've been brainwashed into believing that to be classified as anything but a failure, a bullet must be a perfect 95%+ mushroom and that isn't really true.

If the target is a cape buffalo, and the question is which bullet should be used to cleanly and safely take him, then of course you can and should compare any bullet of any design suggested for such use. To me, the notion of recommending a bullet that could potentially fragment on the shoulder of such an animal is irresponsible at best.

 

[colorado]

Based on the reports of the DGX on this and other forums, it seems like a 1960s design Remington CoreLokt is a better bullet, never mind an A-Frame or a NorthFork bonded soft point. Hornady makes great brass, but they would be better off putting A-Frames, North Forks or Woodleigh bullets in their ammunition or just buying one of them up.

 

[sheephunterab]

Been a lot of buffalo killed with cup and core bullets. DGX included.

 

[Royal27]

Been a lot of buffalo killed with cup and core bullets. DGX included.

A lot have been killed with a .303 too. That doesn't mean it's the optimal buffalo caliber.

 

[sheephunterab]

I think we both understand the difference.

 

[CTDolan]

Certainly, if you're going to hunt Africa and its incredibly tenacious, pugnacious, dangerous game, by all means use the absolute best components available. And, if factory loads fall short, that way, and you choose to not reload (entirely your right), then appeal to a custom ammunition firm (such as Phillip Massaro's concern). In the grand scheme of things the cost is truly negligible, yet the risk (in particular, on the part of the PH) anything other.

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

First response to latest posts and the overall selection of a bullet. I like to research this stuff, almost to the point of obsession, not quite, but almost. It's what I do.

I have never suggested that the DGX or any other bullet hasn't killed. That would be stupid as it certainly has. It comes down to a choice. Perhaps I'm over conservative, but when my life or someone else's comes into play, I'm funny that way.

I also spend my days working as an engineer for a medical company. My company makes amongst various product, implantable electronic devices which are responsible for keeping people alive and/or saving there lives. Some of you who read this may be familiar with implantable cardio defibrillators. These are devices which are implanted into patients who are at risk of their hearts going into ventricular fibrillation. Certainly everyone has seen on a tv show if not in person, when the doctor yells "Clear" and in come these paddles with which the patient receives a very strong electrical shock which is intended to shock the heart out of the very fast and deadly rhythm it's in and back into a normal heart rhythm. My company makes these in smaller packages which are implanted as mentioned into people who need this kind of close monitoring.

So put yourself in the spot of the person who just was told by an electro physiologist that you need one of these devices or you're at risk of sudden cardiac death. He gives you a choice of lets say 4 manufacturers who have the following rates of being successful in saving a person with their ICD (implantable cardio defibrillator).

1) 85% of the time company A's device will shock you appropriately. Meaning when you need it and not when you don't.

2) 90% of the time company B's device will shock you appropriately.

3) 95% company C

4) 99.99% company D

Tell me, whose product would you want?

This is how I look at this. It doesn't matter if the DGX works 85, 90 or even 95% of the time. There's just too much evidence that there is a failure to perform as well as other bullets out there. Wish to take your chances? That's fine if you're hunting on your own, but to knowingly put others at risk? When you simply just don't want to put your pride aside and have to admit there are better options than what you thought was best. Sorry, but that's bullshit.

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

Second response to latest posts.

I'd like to go back a couple of years to a day I care not to relive more than is needed. @Paul Edwards you weren't around AH at this time, so you may not have seen this.

As I recall it was early March in my morning, not long after show season that I first started seeing posts on Facebook that something had gone wrong, very wrong. Jaco Strauss of Kwalata Safaris had posted something on FB, I don't recall exactly what he said, but I knew something was wrong with Reinhard his partner. Kwalata had two clients in that both wanted to hunt lion. The lions were for some reason particularly aggressive and also decided to take cover in the thick bush that of course is available in March in RSA. Jacques Spamer was to be the head PH for this hunt.

As they approached one of these lions, visibility was limited and the hunting party was charged by the lion from close quarters. Reinhard was not able to get a shot off, but Jacques was. The shot was true and into the shoulder. The lion barely flinched. You can really only see the reaction when the video is played in slow motion. Damage was later determined to be minimal from this shot. The lion made it to Reinhard but fortunately got him by the shoulder instead of his head and I'm convinced to this day is why I still get to see Reinhard at the shows. Reinhard eventually fell under the weight of the lion and Jacques moved in. Jacques got the attention of the lion who decided to drop his grip on Reinhard and charge Jacques. Jacques in quick order put a shot into the lion's head which killed him. The bullet managed fortunately to penetrate into the brain.

The bullet used? Yes the DGX. The second bullet that penetrated the brain looked like the other pieces of junk displayed on this and other threads. Did it kill the lion? Well yes it did. But please don't forget the first shot which accomplished nothing. And don't forget that the bullet from the head shot came to pieces.

This is the difference that I and others are trying to get through here.

It's not simply a matter of did it kill or didn't it. It's a matter of how quickly? It's a matter of did the bullet slow a charge down if it didn't kill it immediately such that a follow up shot could end the matter.

 

[sheephunterab]

Phil, I think you are being a bit melodramatic but each to their own.

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

Phil, I think you are being a bit melodramatic but each to their own.

Melodramatic? Tell that to Reinhard.