Hornady Released Superformance Varmint Today

[GunsAmerica Fan]

I totally disagree. If you are testing a barrel you are testing a barrel. If you are testing ammo you are testing ammo. Especially knowing that every handloader knows the hottest load is almost never the most accurate, to be able to say, when you take barrel harmonics out of the picture, the ammo does this, but we tested it in this this and this factory rifle and it didn't shoot as well as regular velocity brown box (I'm not saying it won't), I think that is the most valid overview of the performance of the ammo itself.

 

[Freedom_fighter_in_IL]

But Guns, the simple fact is, Ammo is NOTHING without the GUN! And ammo companies are NOTHING without the consumers! Basically what you are saying is that you are testing the AMMO in and of itself which is a waste of time. What I am saying is this, if you want to sell a product, that product has to have USABLE marketability. Just because it performs very well out of a "super barrel" does not in any way reflect on how it will perform out of barrels that it is INTENDED to be sold for. I.E. your typical Savage hunting profile barrel or Rem. or Win. Or Weatherby, Ruger, so on and so forth. Whatever the HUNTERS are using this product for. Now if this line was being aimed at the target shooter market then I would whole heartedly agree with your test method. But since it is aimed at the hunting community, then you need to modify your testing method to include typical hunting rifles. Get my point?

 

[GunsAmerica Fan]

I just said that lol. In fact I bought 4 boxes of both brown box and Superformance to test in the Teludyne guns. I just wasn't able to get any Superformance for the "out of the box accuracy" article. I could have been clearer I guess but the article is about the guns, not Superformance. I will most likely do a blog post or full article on the match Superformance, and there I would do a head to head comparison in regular deer rifles.

All I said is that it will be interesting to see what the Superformance does in the Teludyne guns where harmonics is not an issue. If it comes out that the Superformance is in fact as accurate as brown box (or Federal for that matter because I am testing several brands) it would be brain fodder for folks like yourself and me included that barrel harmonics on very hot loads is as much of an issue as we assume it is. I was not aware that there was hubub out there about the first line of Superformance having accuracy issues (not that I am entirely convinced that there is) but it would stand to reason, like I explained with the tomatoes.

 

[Freedom_fighter_in_IL]

Guns, Typically one of the main reasons I have found really hot loads to be less accurate is the pressures that are created within the firearm seem to cause instabilities in the barrel itself (Yes a form of harmonics theory) And some of it has to do with improper twist rate for that speed and weight of bullet mix. Some people have absolutely no clue that if you get up to a certain speed, you need to have a certain twist or you will get an unstable bullet flight along with very poor accuracy. Now one thing that Hornady has been stating is that they have gotten increased speed without increased pressure through new formulations in powder. So what this makes me think is they have changed the formula to a faster burn rate while SOMEHOW keeping the pressures stable and this of itself could be getting picked up in the barrels through harmonics. Heavier bulled barrels (which is what 90% of the ammo companies use for testing) are not as sensitive to harmonics as your hunting profile barrels.

By the way yes I have heard of the Teludyne process and have actually been a little curious about it as well. If or when my .220swift barrel starts to fade off I will get a new barrel made and give that a shot if I get good reports. The .220swift is EXTREMELY sensitive to harmonics as well as twists. Just the nature of the beast with it.

 

[GunsAmerica Fan]

No what they did, if you read the article lol, is mix available powders to achieve as much time before the peak of the pressure curve as possible for that cartridge and bullet designation. They have been mixing powders since before Leverevolution and only the real insiders knew that this was how they were breaking barriers that everyone else operated under. It is fascinating stuff.

I only found out about the Teludyne stuff back at NRA show and it took me a while to get guns out to them and get them back. One thing you should know is that the media acts as a heat sink, so throat erosion is so reduced that you can put 10k rounds through a gun and it looks like a brand new barrel, or so they say... So you might want to send that gun in before you shoot it out and maybe preserve it. I don't know it sounded like a great thing but we'll see. We have all seen "eliminate barrel harmonics" stuff come and go over the decades and I blew them off at first, but then they realized that I speak engineering language they brought over their chief engineer and I hit him with every "is this a bunch of BS" question I could think of. They seem to have tested the technology for a long time before releasing it, and the concerns I had they **claimed** to have tested (like the media cracking, the whole works falling off the front of the barrel, the cap falling off, etc.). They have several branches of the military involved already and some police departments are already using the rifles. They have also won a few major competitions this year. It is an interesting story to say the least.

 

[Art Eatman]

The thread's about Hornady, not Teludyne...

 

[Uncle Mike]

you can put 10k rounds through a gun and it looks like a brand new barrel, or so they say...

Looks like they will tell you anything to sell their idea, which, has been around for sometime, but never 'marketed' to the public...and btw it did not work as hyped back then either!

I mean, think about it, if firing a lot of rounds quickly, a heat sink may slow the severity of barrel erosion, but flame cutting and heat surface hardening is still going to happen...look at the old water cooled machine gun barrels, the throats still burned out, just at a higher round count.

Hogden has been blending powders for a while, but they were never able to find a safe way to market them, since 'blended' powders do not lend themselves well to kitchen table labs...if I just go 1 more grain.....

Enter Hornady, they market the 'blended' propellant cartridges to the public, it is a 'controlled' environment, and one unique to Hornady, for now.

BTW, blended propellant technology has been used in artillery and launching apparatus for....ever!

 

[GunsAmerica Fan]

Yea its been used in TC muzzleloaders for a while too lol, a little bullseye in with the goex. That doesn't mean it is or was safe to do so. It's not about being able to market it. It's about repeatability. We all know that powders vary from batch to batch. So every "blend" batch you make is going to have as many variables as number of powders contained in the blend. Each batch that comes in from a powder supplier, before it is blended, is going to have to be tested to see if it is within the tolerances you have benchmarked. It's a lot of overhead to maintain.