Hornady ELD-VT 62 Grain

Hornady ELD - VT 62 Grain Bullets in HAND.

To give them a good "first" test, NOT knowing what load is good or bad, we made a spectrum of loads through 2 barrels.
Brux 1:7 Barrel & Shilen 1:7.5 5R Both from WOA

These bullets are super long. Too long for practical use in AR15's. However, to manage this, we have special magazines that allow for longer OAL. Such as ASC stainless steel mags.

These were loaded to 2.300 OAL.

Here are all the loads: Brass: Starline 556, Primers AR Match Federal Gold Medal, all Neck turned brass, new.
Precision Rifle 24.1
N140 24.1 & 24.5
Benchmark 23 & 23.5
AR Comp 22.8
XBR8208 23.8
N135 23 & 23.5

Barrel #1 Shilen 1:7.5

4, MOA or less groups with what I would say the best one is the Benchmark 23 grains
AR Comp was dog awful with huge groups, TAC was super bad too

This indicates this bullet is more picky than SMK's or other like bullets

These bullets are undoubtedly TOP TOP tier for bolt guns that want long range and velocity. You probably can't do better on the planet. For AR15? With ASC mags and some others, you can load to 2.300 or near 2.320 and that is acceptable, as you can see from results.

Barrel #2 BRUX

The Unicorn AR15 Barrel almost nobody has. I bought it from WOA. It was expensive. All these barrels are 20".
As you can see, a few groups under 1", not 1 MOA, 1 INCH at 100 yards. All 5 shots. Brux shot the smallest group, the Benchmark at 23.0 grains, and you can see, it was 2909 FPS, which is good spot for that bullet and 20" barrel

Again we see this bullet hated those loads with TAC and AR Comp

A note about AR15 mags. They are about 2.380 Wide to fit into mag well. Then the width of the magazine walls, which on polymer mags are 60k each, so 60k+60k = 120k - 2.380 - 2.260. Make sense? ASC walls are around .030 thick. And metal mags that are stainless are thinner than polymer and can accept longer OAL. Consider this when you want to use 80 Grain SMK too.......

Hornady ELD - VT

I paid $144 or so shipped for 500.

VS 60 Grain V-MAX

2.300 OAL ELD VT vs 2.255 Vmax

Well prepped brass

Too much gap?

Even at 2.300, the bullet was .213 diameter where it entered the brass, which was .223 so 10k gap
This is why Hornady Recommends 2.400. But I think 2.350 could be near good

Good looking load