Saturday, August 18, 2012

Hornady XTP

I recently bought some bullets from Hornady, for the .357 magnum.  After having accuracy problems with my 180 grain RF cast bullet, I decided that maybe it was time to invest in some good jacketed bullets and see if I could get my Marlin 1894 to group with them.  I ordered one box each of the Hornady XTP bullets, one billed as a hollow point, the other as a flat point, if the FP designation is to be believed.

They appear to be standard cup-and-core bullets with flat bases, however I'm a bit intrigued at what Hornady is calling a FP bullet.

That's the FP on the left, with the HP on the right.  As you can see, the HP has a big ole cavity in the nose, just exactly what you'd expect from a hollow point bullet.  What I didn't expect is the smaller cavity in the FP bullet.  It's not necessarily a bad thing, but something I wasn't expecting.  A better photo might show the FP a little better.

That's better.  The FP on the left, the HP on the right.  I suspect that the smaller cavity on the FP is an artifact of the manufacturing process.  It certainly shouldn't hurt the bullet any and will probably retard expansion as compared against the HP.  This is what I'm looking to accomplish as I'll be pushing this bullet about 1800 fps from the Marlin.  I'll load them over a starting charge of 16.0 grains of Hodgdon's Lil' Gun.  Hodgdon says that in a pistol that load will be traveling about 1500 fps from the muzzle which should translate into about 1800 fps from the carbine.

I haven't loaded jacketed bullets in the .357 in well over a decade.  It'll be interesting to see how this experiment comes out.

8 comments:

Old NFO said...

Huh, that IS an interesting 'flat point' from Hornady...

Skip said...

You will like the XTP hp.
Pretty accurate out of my 4" Smiff.

Hobie said...

My XTP-FPs ARE FPs...

Gerry N. said...

Damn, just damn.

Between you and RiverDog I'm beginning to feel a rifle coming on. It's been several years since I had a lever rifle, now I'm getting the itch. Thing is I can't walk more'n about 50 yds at a time and my single shot ,30-30 loaded to M1 Carbine velocities with 130 gr. tumble lubed wheelweight bullets does all I need done and more. As does my much loved ol' TC Hawken .50 kit rifle. I "Need" another rifle about as desperately as I need a fungus infestation. But need and want are funny concepts.

Gerry N.

Rivrdog said...

I wonder if they would be better off calling that bullet an Open Point?

16.0 gr of LilGun? That sounds about Keith-level, since 2400, which Keith used, is #54 and L'ilGun is #61.

Look at Cor-Bon's Hunter BCSP. It's a 180-grain JSP-FN, with a true flat nose. They don't say what they put behind that big pill, but they get 1200 fps from a 6" revolver, so you would likely get 1500 or so, which would give you 899 ft/lb ME. I suspect that round is still a bit short of a Keith load, though, and if you played with the powders some with that 180-gr bone-crusher, you might get another 150 fps out of the rifle at SAAMI max, which would give you 1088 ft/lb ME, about the top for a .357 magnum.

Pawpaw said...

Gerry sez: and my single shot ,30-30 loaded to M1 Carbine velocities with 130 gr. tumble lubed wheelweight bullets does all I need done and more.

Dammit, Gerry, I've got a bunch of tumble-lubed 130 grain bullets and I haven't even thought about the .30-30. Now you've got me to wonderin'.

Can't help you with the rifle addiction. Ain't no 12-step process for us.

Jester said...

Anything by that line of that company shoots well. factory loads seem to be more accurate than you can figure for a factory load, load your own pills and well..
Something about those bullets just seems to shoot well.

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