6.5 Creedmoor load development: Hornady 147 ELD with H4350 and H4831SC

6.5 Creedmoor load development: Hornady 147 ELD with H4350 and H4831SC

Hornady bullets are popular with the 6.5 Creedmoor crowd. While I’ve mostly been shooting Sierra, a few readers have asked about the Hornady. I ordered some 147 grain ELD Match bullets from Brownells and headed to the range to get a baseline for how well they shoot.

Opening up the red box brought me back 20 years. I haven’t been loading a lot of Hornady lately; however, back in the 90s, the Hornady InterLock was my go to bullet. This brought back some fond memories.

The 147 is a big bullet. Capped with a red polymer nose cone, the 147 ELD is at the heavier end of 6.5 mm bullet spectrum.

Before we get to the good stuff, let’s take a few minutes to review the disclaimer:

WARNING: The loads shown are for informational purposes only. They are only safe in the rifle shown and may not be safe in yours. Consult appropriate load manuals prior to developing your own handloads. Rifleshooter.com and its authors, do not assume any responsibility, directly or indirectly for the safety of the readers attempting to follow any instructions or perform any of the tasks shown, or the use or misuse of any information contained herein, on this website.

For a test rifle I went to my favorite 6.5 Creedmoor rifle.

I built it with parts from Brownells, including:

To begin the load development process, I started with new, unfired Starline 6.5 Creedmoor brass. Starline offers 6.5 Creedmoor brass with both large and small primer pockets. I elected to use the large primer pocket with a CCI 200 primer.

All shooting was done prone, from a bipod with rear bag. Velocity data was recorded with a MagnetoSpeed V3 barrel mounted ballistic chronograph. Target is a Rite in the Rain Storm Sight Target.

Results are shown in table below:

For the 147 ELD with H4350 powder, muzzle velocities ranged from 2,555 to 2,621 feet/second and standard deviation ranged from 10.9 to 17.6 feet/second. Five shot groups sizes ranged from .391″(.373 MOA) to 1.078″(1.030 MOA) with an average group size of .714″ (.682 MOA).

When paired with H4831SC powder, muzzle velocities ranged from 2,497 feet/second to 2,580 feet/second and standard deviation ranged from 5.7 to 24.8 feet/second. Five shot group sizes ranged from .409″ (.391 MOA) to 1.407″ (1.344 MOA) with an average group size of .825″ (.788 MOA).

The 40.0 H4350 and 41.0 H4831SC groups seemed pretty promising!

My initial experience with the 147 Hornady ELD was positive, something that many 6.5 Creedmoor shooters have been saying for a long time. I’ll be continuing the load development process and once I’ve settled on a load, I’ll push the 147 ELD out to distance.