Hornady 53-grain V-MAX (223 Remington) Superformance

I suspect that many of you, like me, are avid reloaders. I started in the early 1990s mainly because the ammunition I wanted to use was not always available and as a bonus saved some money. Since then, factory ammunition has come on in leaps and bounds, with, supply allowing, a huge choice of options in all the popular and even many lesser-known calibres. Manufactures have not rested on their behinds and are constantly tweaking and improving on what they have on offer. Perhaps of all of these companies Hornady seems to have always been at the forefront of this development, seeming to add ever better ammo for our needs. The one that I think most of us will recognise is their Superformance range!

LOOKING FOR PERFECTION

Although most of my rifles normally run on carefully developed and constructed home loads, I have always had a couple of different factory loads for each calibre for emergencies, or when I have clients here shooting. With this in mind I am always looking at new ammunition on the market, just in case there is something better out there.

The Superformance range as a whole has been a bit of an eye opener to me! Most factory quoted velocity figures can be taken with a pinch of salt, as there are so many variables between test guns and those of the consumer. Probably the biggest difference being barrel length as to actual bullet speed! However, with this range of ammunition there is often very little difference in performance between quoted and actual figures. Indeed, one of my friends has stopped reloading because he cannot make anything significantly better and at current prices the factory loads are highly competitive, especially when adding ones time into the equation.

BRITISH FAVOURITE

The .223 needs little introduction and has been a firm favourite in this country for many years, as has Hornady’s range of V-MAX bullets. Until recently, most commonly used were the 50 and 55-grain but we now have a new 53-grain version, loaded as part of the Superformance range. Quoted muzzle velocity is an impressive 3465fps, with a 200 yard zero only needing to be 1.1” high @100 yard and still only dropping to 5.6” @ 300 yards. Through my Remington 700 VSSF with a 23” barrel cut down from an original 26”, 5-shots produced a high of 3415 fps, low of 3382 fps, giving an average of 3398 fps and an ES of 33 fps. The ‘worst’ 3-round group was marginally over ½” and the tightest had all three touching.

I have only shot three foxes with the new 53-grain Superformance; they all dropped on the spot, cleanly taken! Carrion Crows have not faired well either, the furthest being 273 meters and looked like a pillow bursting. For those of you looking to try new factory loads, or wanting to have a reserve option available to your home loads, these are well worth a look!