Hornady 88 ELD

[highside]

Does anyone have these that are factory loaded? I need the OAL.

[kindabitey]

Just got some in yesterday. I'll measure when I get to the shop tomorrow and let you know.

[highside]

Thanks. I have some projectiles on order. Wanted to get a factory baseline oal before playing with it. Seems Midsouth is the only ones to carry just the bullets.

[kindabitey]

COAL of the factory Hornady 88 Eld-m is 2.25
CBTO is 1.694

[highside]

Thanks. Gives me an excellent starting point.

[Azureoval]

Just loaded up some Today @ 2.325. Hopefully I can shoot them soon.


EDIT: posted the pic wrong . oh well.

[highside]

I'm doing some tonight. Thinking of 2.25 to 2.29.

[highside]

Range visit went better than I thought it was going to go. Forgot a few things, like my bipod, bags and such. So I used what the range had. Wood blocks. 

Bullets were 88 ELD M and 62gr SS109. Range is at 100 yards, no idea of temp, mostly sunny slight breeze.




Load 27.5 PP 2000MR OAL 2.27






Load 26.5 2000MR OAL 2.27



62gr SS109 Load 30.1 2000MR 



Just looking for a plinking round

[Freddyp]

I too tried the 88 ELD's this morning.  Ran them through a Rem 700 with a 25" varmint contour 1-7 twist McGowen barrel. I chambered it with a PTG match Valkyrie bolt-gun match reamer, .050 free bore. The 88's shot a .34 group at 100 yards.  Once I shot them at 500 and 800, things fell apart. I could not keep them on an 18x24 steel plate.  I also tried the Hornady factory load and it too had the same problem.  Just for reference, I shot the Federal 90gr MatchKings and no problems. At 500 they stayed inside 1.5" with little effort.  It seems the Hornady 88 is just a little too long for a 1-7 twist. This is confirmed by the Berger website that indicates the stability is marginal. Running the Sierra 90 through the same program indicates that it is very stable. So for now, the Hornady's are getting set aside and I'm sticking with the Sierra's.  As far as I can tell, the Hornady's are going to need a 6.7 twist or 6.5 barrel to shoot at extended ranges. Here is the load info:

Hornady 88gr ELD
Aliant 2000MR  25.5gr
CCI 41
Starline brass
Col 2.290  .060 off the lands 
Vel 2720

[highside]

I’ll be trying them out to 500 next weekend. They seem to work better for me than the 90SMK. Mine seems to love the 88s, was on paper right off the bat.

Now our loads are a bit different. I'm loading mine to 27.5gr of 2000MR with no signs of case damage, was going to go up from there. And it's coming out of a 20 inch barrel not 25.

I'll check next week, or maybe tomorrow. It's a long drive.

[Alaska_guy]

Those 62gr seem to be grouping really well.  Curious to see more load development from those 88gr.

[highside]

Those 62gr seem to be grouping really well.  Curious to see more load development from those 88gr.

Will work on that tomorrow, may have to drive out to Sterling and do some longer range test. Looks good so far. Yea, I got the 62 gr SS109s cheap so I figured they may just work for low cost shooting.

[Alaska_guy]

Wow, all the way to sterling?  Birchwood has 300yards...  nice weekend for a drive though.

[highside]

I have all day, It's only a couple hours drive time and they have 1000 yards and berms at 600 and 800. We'll see.

[brantfredrickson]

I'm thinking starting with the 88eld-m's for a rifle I want to build. Ahead of buying the components, I'd like to build the rifle in Quick Load to get an estimate of performance.  But Quick Load doesn't have Starline brass or the 88eld-m in its database. For the 88eld-m I would need to put in a bullet length, boat-tail small diameter, and boat-tail length.. If someone has these values would you share them with me and/or the forum. I realize that bullets vary especially lot to lot and understand that these values would be estimates.

For the Starline brass I have seen a grains H20 total capacity estimate of 30.83. If another has a different estimate I would average them.

My intent is use a overall cartridge length of 2.295 and let Quick Load calcuate the seating depth.

In addition I understand the boat-tail small diameter and boat-tail length are difficult to measure so it okay if you just provide a length. Quickload gives for the 80 grain Amax a boat-tail diameter of .176 and a boat-tail taper length of .180. I would use those in absense of actual estimates.