Hornady Released Superformance Varmint Today

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Hi everyone. I don't usually post links to specific GA magazine articles here because the mods give me crap but this is a pretty big deal. Hornady officially released news and details for a new Superformance brand specifically for varmint hunting today. The terminal ballistics for the .223 53gr bullet at 300 yards are almost identical to a 50gr .22-250. For all of the new shooters out there with shiny black ARs that they have no idea what to do with, this could bring some of them into the fold of committed shooter.

I have a full article in our new blog software (we are deprecating the forum it doesn't work for the GunsAmerica Magazine format). The link to it is here:

http://www.gunsamerica.com/blog/hornady_superformance_varmint/

Here is the intro:

You don’t hear “game changer” much in the world of production ammunition. But once again, Hornady Manufacturing Co. has indeed changed yet another game. If you have ever considered hunting prairie dogs with your AR-15 platform rifle but thought the cartridge slightly underpowered for 300 yard dogtown decimation shots, you can now get close to .22-250 ballistics out of your .223 Remington chambered AR. The Superformance line of ammunition from Hornady now has a Superformance Varmint line, and the possibilities that come from these “off the chart” new cartridges are truly amazing.
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I am adding the chart from the data sheet so you don't have to click out to read the article to see the numbers:
varmint-chart-800.jpg
 
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It won't be in stores until December. The distributors are just getting the orders. We couldn't even get any to test yet. I have my chronograph already warmed up lol.
 
It's obvious that the new 53gr V-max is ballistically superior. If used in the 22-250, it would not be close.
It is a definite boost for the 223 though.



Ncsmitty
 
That is what I feel separates Hornady from all of the rest of the ammo companies Smitty. They could have just made one round for ARs and done a huge promotion for the all of the tactical rifle owners on the AR platform out there. Instead they developed a whole line of individually researched cartridges for all the most popular varmint calibers, and you can bet that 53gr V-Max will be available to handloaders. As the article explains though, just the BC of the bullet isn't going to get you the numbers they got. They use powder blending technology to get the exact right burn. They are all gun guys and hand loaders at Hornady and that is why we took them as our ammo sponsor. They were the only company that didn't have a price increase on the O bounce too.

Art, does disremembering mean it is intentional or just part of the hardwiring lol.
 
Hopefully they will quickly release that 53 gr V-Max to the reloader. Can't get their velocity, but that .290 B.C. sure sounds nice, better than the 60 gr.'s B.C.
 
Hate to burst anyones bubble, But I and many others I have seen on here have found that the new superformance line is not all it is cracked up to be. Many have stated it does not shoot well at all from their weapons nor will it hold well in mine. Don't know about this new one for .223 since I don't own a .223 but in 30.06, it did not perform well at all. Wouldn't hold better than 1.5moa out of mine and this is a weapon that, with my handloads using 180g Sierra BTSP spitzter sitting on 57g H4350, I hold 1/2moa or better.

I am a big fan of Hornady and use their A-Max, Interlock, and SST bullets in several weapons but I seem to be seeing many negative reports on this new superformance line. Look around the web and you will see what I am talking about.
 
It isn't a one power Tony. It is a blend of powders that they don't release the data on. There is a Hodgedon line of Superformance powders coming out (or may be out by now) but it is not a blend, it is a new powder trying to get the blend ballistics, but Hornady will continue to blend regardless according to Steve Johnson.

Freedom Fighter, if this was an exact science there wouldn't be any stories at all. We'd all have the same physics and the facts would be the facts. You know that specific rifles like specific bullets travelling at specific speeds and that the whole science of reloading is a quasi-science because even the most advanced among us have no idea why.

I have hit SSG Haidu, who runs the custom gunshop at USAMU at FT. Benning with the whole barrel harmonics question and what makes a "good" barrel good. He answered that nobody has any idea. When they find a specific barrel and bullet combination, they buy thousands of bullets from that production run for that specific barrel and store them together. Nobody knows the true identity of what barrel harmonics actually are. We all just pretend we do.

So that a specific barrel/bullet/velocity combination shoots terrible in a rifle that something else shoots well in is part of our game. As my editorial partner and long time G&A author Ross Seyfried said in his article last month, most people in the field can't hit into a minute of basketball, so just over a minute for a factory load in a gun that doesn't apparently like it is not that bad. You can't compare factory ammo to hand tuned loads. I haven't tried the Superformance yet, but we have an article coming out in the next Magazine about out of the box accuracy and the regular brown box Hornady shot into under an inch in two Sakos, two TCs, one Tikka, one CZ 550, and one Savage that I have a target with 20 rounds into the black one inch hole in the middle of the target barely ripping the edges of it.
 
Guns, you are saying nothing I don't already know bud. My rifle was just one example of my point. That old 30.06 of mine eats pretty much anything while holding minimum 1moa and does very well with that load I stated.But it wouldn't hold well with the new SF line. My point was that I am not the only one that has had problems with this superformance line AND the new GMX bullets that they are pushing. Seems many weapons do not like it at all. Maybe the .223 line will be better, maybe not. My post was basically just to advise others not to go buying 10 boxes of the stuff as soon as it hits the market because all the advertisement on the line makes it seem better than sliced bread. It could very well be that they will do well. Just go in with caution and don't go buying cases of the stuff till you run some through YOUR weapon to see if it likes to eat it or not is all I was pointing out.
 
Anyone who has handloaded for more than two weeks knows that the hot loads are generally not the most accurate. As an experienced handloader I think a more productive comment might be something along those lines, "so check it in your gun" that you corrected it to might have been more in line than
Hate to burst anyones bubble, But I and many others I have seen on here have found that the new superformance line is not all it is cracked up to be. Many have stated it does not shoot well at all from their weapons nor will it hold well in mine.
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, because it **is** all it is cracked up to be, 100-200 fps faster than anything available with available powders. I knew I was not telling you anything you didn't know. I just said things you didn't say. I've seen your posts before and I know you are a competent handloader. You know that there are so many variables in accuracy that nobody is going to nail every variable, especially when they are specifically going for speed.

It's like the tomatoes you buy in the grocery store. They are optimized for machine handling, not taste, so they taste like water. If you garden and plant an heirloom variety that was optimized for taste, it bruises very easily and spoil quickly. You just can't have everything.

The upper calibers of Superformance were obviously optimized for whitetail hunting, where shots are generally under 100 yards. I myself am curious about how accurate these hot tomales are, because I have never seen a hot load come in as optimal for any rifle I've ever owned (except compressed black powder).

Coincidentally, Hornady also released a line of Superformance Match in the bigger calibers on the same day yesterday. Those I'm looking forward to trying even more because I have two straightjacket rifles from Teludyne waiting for me to shoot. That is going to be fun.

I'm going offline until tomorrow night so I will answer any searing replies then lol.
 
For all of the new shooters out there with shiny black ARs that they have no idea what to do with, this could bring some of them into the fold of committed shooter.
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Unlikely......I doubt a guy with a 14.5-16" bbl'd AR is going to see much of a difference. Even if they did most of those folks are blasting with cheap fmj's, not vmaxes.
What may get them into shooting is some ultra cheap ammo, doubtful if an extra few fps is going to get a guy off of the couch and to the range.
 
serious shooters shoot serious rounds. so make more .308 rounds
just kidding. my dad has an AR but only buys cheap 55 grain fmj.
He doesnt understand why the 14 year old buys 30 dollar boxes of ammo.
 
The upper calibers of Superformance were obviously optimized for whitetail hunting, where shots are generally under 100 yards. I myself am curious about how accurate these hot tomales are, because I have never seen a hot load come in as optimal for any rifle I've ever owned (except compressed black powder).
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But why? What standard velocity load in the "upper calibers" wasn't already plenty to take a whitetail at 100 yards and under? You don't need a flatter trajectory or a couple hundred more FPS at 100 yards out of anything considered for whitetail. The extra speed only comes into play at longer ranges where you can extend your point blank range and at the longer ranges where the extra velocity will expand a hollow point and drive it deep enough to pass through vitals.

So if it isn't accurate, what good is it? It's just like the stories of guys pushing handloads as fast as possible while not being able to hold minute of whitetail. It doesn't matter how fast the bullet misses.
 
The problem with the Sierra Blitz King and Speer TNT's is, sometimes they won't take a fast twist 223 or a Swift at 4000fps. You often get a vapor trail and no hole in the target.

I really like the 52gr A-Max in my 22-250, and no worries about vapor trails.



NCsmitty
 
I've shot the 150 grain SST Superperformance rounds out of my .308 and it grouped great. I also shot the SST Superperformance in my .243 with great accuracy as well. No complaints from me.
 
The BC of the bullet you linked to is 0.242 whereas the new 53gr is .290, the same as the previously existing Hornady 20 grains heavier I think.

Benzy the issue is what people perceive compared to what really is. Most experienced guides who have seen literally thousands of animals taken will tell you that an accurate .270 or .30-06 is all you need even for the majority of African game, never mind the whitetail. It's all about what people buy, not what they need, when it comes to whitetails at least. People think they are going to need that "flatter" trajectory but never actually run the numbers to see just how much flatter their magnum rounds are. And as I said before, most whitetail shots are under 100 yards, but nobody wants to believe they are. And we were not talking about poor accuracy. We were talking about a minute and half of angle, which is well within vitals on a whitetail at 200 yards. Show me a box of green and yellow that'll shoot that lol.
 
The problem with the Sierra Blitz King and Speer TNT's is, sometimes they won't take a fast twist 223 or a Swift at 4000fps. You often get a vapor trail and no hole in the target
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NC I have been shooting the Kings for a good while now and have yet to "vapor trail" one. And my loads are about as hot as you can get at just over 4k.

The BC of the bullet you linked to is 0.242 whereas the new 53gr is .290, the same as the previously existing Hornady 20 grains heavier I think.
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Guns the link I posted was for the 50 grain VMAX since I do not see it for the .224 (.220 swift) in the list.
 
Whatever, there is no exact science to this bullet, accuracy, barrel harmonics stuff, we know, but I have personally witnessed a LOT of rifles from DIFFERENT manufactures, on a regular basis shoot the Superformance ammo like crap....

I'll agree maybe the brown box Hornady has done well in some test, but the SF, I'll have to pull the trigger myself to believe that!

True, you do not NEED a half MOA rifle to dispatch deer, but, if you want, desire, must have, like or whatever, a rifle that will do that, then good for you, you should be able to achieve that, you should not be told that if your rifle does groups of 5" at 100y that's ok, and that's all you'll really need because you really are not going to kill ol' whitetail past 100y anyway!

And...just because some factory ammo shoots like crap, has gone down hill, but has a 'name', means not that every rifle that experienced bad accuracy with that particular ammo was a turd...kind of like Browning, it HAS to be good...it's a Browning...not!

The cases of inaccuracy are not isolated, and some of the rifles concerned have been shooting the SST's loaded into the light magnum ammo just fine, but shooting the same SST bullet loaded into the Superformance ammo like crap....go figure.
 
True, you do not NEED a half MOA rifle to dispatch deer, but, if you want, desire, must have, like or whatever, a rifle that will do that, then good for you, you should be able to achieve that, you should not be told that if your rifle does groups of 5" at 100y that's ok, and that's all you'll really need because you really are not going to kill ol' whitetail past 100y anyway!
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If I can't get a rifle laid in under 3moa @100y, trust me when I say this, it will get wrapped around a dern tree because to me that weapon is junk!

The cases of inaccuracy are not isolated, and some of the rifles concerned have been shooting the SST's loaded into the light magnum ammo just fine, but shooting the same SST bullet loaded into the Superformance ammo like crap....go figure.
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I've been seeing several range reports with the new lines of the SF with pretty crappy reports as well. Not saying that it is all bad in all rifles, just saying I have been seeing an UNUSUAL amount of bad reports and this is very uncommon from Hornady lines.

We were talking about a minute and half of angle, which is well within vitals on a whitetail at 200 yards. Show me a box of green and yellow that'll shoot that lol.
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If you are talking about Rem Corlock as the "Green and Yellow" I can show you MANY boxes as every 30.06 I own as well as my .444 and my 30/30 (which I miss dearly) and a few other of my older weapons shot well within 1.5moa with the old CoreJunk and dropped deer like bad habits as well! Used to use them all the time before I learned enough about reloading to be proficient.

I guess you can say, being a bit of a perfectionist, I expect at least CLOSE to my hand loads when paying extra for factory special loads such as these are SUPPOSED to be. I see on their commercial the statement "Better accuracy" which to me is saying, shoots better! Yet people like myself, Mike, and many others IN THE FIELD are seeing quite the opposite. Now again I will state this, I have been and still am, a big fan of Hornady bullets and I am in no way downing them. Just making a simple statement of fact. If you are going to CLAIM better accuracy, then deliver it.
 
It's funny you say that because I am actually looking at 4 boxes of Superformance .30--06 I bought at Bass Pro last week to test the two rifles from Teludyne. I had them modify a Sako A-7 that was already shooting brown box into a half an inch and the aforementioned Savage that put 20 into the black circle with no cool down. I don't know if you have read anything on the Teludyne technology. It is a press fitted barrel sheath that is filled with a proprietary media and a cap welded on. It supposedly takes all harmonics out of the barrel, which would mean that it should be an even field for all ammo, theoretically at least. We found a 500 yard range down here (well, Tampa, not down here) and hope be loading up the camper for a couple day trip soon. Vortex sent me on of their $2,500 Razor optics so no scope excuses either lol. The clicks are mrads, not 1/4moa. Crazy stuff!! We will see what that Superformance does without the all knowing and all powerful wizard of barrel harmonics taken out of the game. I'm taking my friendly neighborhood US Army sniper (ret.) with me to do the shooting.
 
Well guns, that in itself is a problem. Granted to test the ammos performance is great, but you need subjective test equipment as well. A "super gun" is not what the average hunter is going to be firing. They need to be tested in everyday barrels on everyday actions. The only factor I would take out would be the everyday shooter and replace them with a pro.
 
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