Field Testing Hornady's ELD-VT Bullets on Varmints

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Shooting varmints, particularly prairie dogs, is not only great practice for the rifleman, it is also an incredibly fun way to spend the months where nothing else is in-season. Cartridge and bullet technology are rapidly evolving, and varmint bullets are not immune. Hornady’s ELD-VT bullets apply the lessons learned from the long-range precision shooting community to the varmint hunting world. I set out to see just how good these bullets were.

Prairie dog shooting has always been about hitting small animals over long distances. Bullet drop and wind drift are constants under those circumstances. In the past, particularly in the pre laser rangefinder era, the solution to the problem was to push light bullets as fast as possible to create a flatter trajectory and shorter time of flight. A standard varmint setup would have been a .22-250 pushing a 50gr. flat-base bullet at 3,800-plus feet-per-second. These stubby bullets had terrible ballistic coefficients by modern standards, but their speed made up for that, at least for the first few hundred yards.

Bullets in Flight Study

More than a decade ago, Hornady’s ballisticians began using Doppler radar to study bullets in flight. Their lab work demystified many ballistic questions and de-bunked more than a few “truths”. Thanks, in part to that radar work, Hornady has led the industry in many areas of long-range cartridge and bullet design over the past several years. Like it or not, products such as the Creedmoor cartridges and the ELD and A-Tip bullets changed the entire marketplace.

At its core, Hornady is a bullet manufacturer and that’s where much of their R&D efforts have been focused. Their ELD series has been one of the fruits of that investment. ELD stands for Extremely Low Drag—these bullets have been optimized by Hornady’s ballisticians and engineers for optimum flight characteristics. Hornady has applied the ELD concept to its match bullets (ELD-M), expanding hunting bullets, (ELD-X) and its varmint/target bullets (ELD-VT).

Design Intentions

On the ELD-VT line, the bullets were designed to share the external drag models of the match bullets, but with lighter weights to allow more muzzle velocity. The weight reduction was achieved by removing lead from the bullet core. Essentially, they took an ELD-M and removed lead to create air space underneath the bullet jacket just behind the tip. This process began as a way to create target bullets with less recoil but the applications for varmint and predator hunting were quickly realized.

The 62gr. ELD-VT has the same ogive profile as the 75 and 80gr. ELD-M bullets, though it was shortened slightly. That means that the user gets all of the attributes of the ELD-M including the aerodynamic profile, heat shield tip, and AMP jacket but with less mass. It flies like an ELD-M but impacts with the mechanical violence of a varmint bullet.

Though a 62gr. bullet starts out a bit slower than a classic 50-55gr. varmint bullet, its superior drag characteristics mean that it performs better at longer ranges: less drop, significantly less wind deflection and more stability. The bottom line is that the further you shoot, the more likely you are to hit your target with the ELD-VT than you would be with a traditional varmint bullet such as the V-MAX.

EVD-VT bullets are available in four calibers: the 62gr. .224, 80gr. 6mm, 100gr. 6.5mm, and 174gr. .308. All of my testing was with the 62gr. .224. I handloaded using this component bullet in the .22 ARC as well as the .22 Creedmoor. I also shot several hundred rounds of the factory-loaded 62gr. ELD-VT bullets in Hornady’s .22 ARC V-Match ammunition.

Test Rifle

My test rifle for the .22 ARC was a Zermatt Arms TL3 set up for PRS style shooting with a 26” Criterion pre-fit barrel with a heavy MTU contour and a 1:7” twist. For the .22 Creedmoor testing, I used a Horizon Firearms Vandal with an 18” barrel with a 1:8” twist.

Since the .22 ARC was primarily designed to be used in semi-automatic rifles, its SAAMI pressure limits were set at 52,000 psi. Factory loaded ammunition is bound to this standard and produced 3,315 fps from my test rifle, on average. Handloaders who are using the cartridge in a bolt-action rifle can push the pressure quite a bit further, with a limit of 62,000 psi. I handloaded a batch of ammunition using the bolt-gun data and LEVERevolution powder and was getting muzzle velocities averaging 3,655 fps. With the .22 Creedmoor, my handloads averaged 3,414 fps thanks to the shorter barrel.

Since I did most of my shooting with the .22 ARC, l’ll use that cartridge to compare performance. With bolt-gun load data, the .22 ARC can fire the 55gr. V-MAX, a highly capable but traditional-weight varmint bullet with a BC of .290, at around 3,650 fps out of a 24” barrel. Comparable load data has the 62gr. ELD-VT, with its higher BC of .395, starting out at 3,550 fps so it is behind the eight-ball out of the muzzle.

Despite its lower initial speed, as distances increase, the superior aerodynamics of the ELD-VT allows it to eat the V-MAX’s lunch. At 600 yards, the V-MAX has a velocity of 1,048 fps, drops 156”, retains 142 ft. lbs. of energy, and drifts 76” in a full-value 10-mph wind. The ELD-VT is traveling at 1,364 fps, drops 122”, has 256 ft. lbs. of energy and drifts 45” in the same wind conditions. Out further, the differences are even more dramatic. At 800 yards, the ELD-VT drops 100” less than the V-MAX and has 50” less wind drift—all with a slower initial velocity!

Prairie Doggin'

My 11-year-old son James and I pointed my truck toward Casper, WY with both rifles onboard. We had two cases of factory V-Match for the .22 ARC and 100 rounds of handloaded .22 Creedmoor. We met up with my friend Kody Glause at Heart Spear Outfitters for two full days of prairie dog shooting. Kody took us to a gorgeous plateau where we had panoramic views of several dog towns at 6,400 feet of elevation.

James did most of the shooting while Kody spotted dogs and I ran the Hornady 4DOF app to keep the ballistic data flowing. My son has been shooting for most of his life and has taken more deer than I can count but he hasn’t had many opportunities to shoot beyond 350 yards. Kody has a solid bench setup so James could focus on the crosshairs and his trigger control. With these rifles, optics, and the ELD-VT bullets, our only real limitations were mirage. Within a few minutes, he was dialing his own DOPE and making hits on dogs out beyond 500 yards.

Thanks to the ability to dial accurately for elevation, a flat trajectory isn’t as important as it used to be, but reduced wind drift is vitally important. At those longer distances, our wind drift was nearly half of what it would have been with a traditional varmint bullet. A flat-shooting bullet is key at night, where judging distance can be difficult and the ability to dial for elevation might not be an option. This makes the ELD-VT a great choice for nighttime predator hunting.

Though not all of our shots were extremely long, most were over 300 yards. The drag properties of the ELD-VT really helped the bullets maintain velocity downrange. Even at 600 yards, the bullets were hitting at over 1,300 fps. To say that the impacts were violent would be a serious understatement. To quote one of my favorite lines in outdoor writing history, it turned prairie dogs into “works of modern art”.

The Brass Tax

This bullet isn’t a gimmick. Over the course of hundreds of rounds fired at varmints and predators, it demonstrated excellent flight characteristics and terminal performance. The reduced recoil wasn’t evident in the .22 ARC or .22 Creedmoor, but I suspect that would be noticeable in the larger caliber options.

If you are a varminter or predator hunter whose targets rarely exceed 300 yards, the ELD-VT might not be for you. If longer shots are on the menu, though, and your rifle has the twist rates to stabilize them, the ELD-VT bullets provide a real advantage in terms of bullet drop, wind drift, and downrange energy.

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