I'll add this too. I hope it's a different bullet design. I've always wanted to see hornady make a high BC BTHP bullet. Seen too many issues with plastic tip bullets.
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Hornady is making knockoff/clone bullets (Aeromatch)
- Thread starter The_Steward
- Start date
Per my long conversation with Hornady tech support today, they are clones as much as possible.
Go back and read my posts in this thread. I am not going to re write them for you because you are too lazy to read the thread. Your questions were answered on page 1.
No need to be a smartass because you were too dense to read what was laid out clearly in front of you. If you’ve ever looked at a Berger hybrid and a Hornady HPBT you would know they don’t look the same. Their profiles are obviously different. So unless Hornady is using Bergers or JLKs for there videos and images, it’s not the same bullet as a HPBT.
Then Kevin B. will copy it, secretly patent it, put it in his latest gun called the "Candy Mongoose" or some gay pride sounding shit, and dub the round the "8.6 Rainbow Warrior" and go around claiming he designed and developed it for the Special-Ed Ops Whiteout Diddy Missions and that he uses baby oil on the bullets before seating them...
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Because somehow I skipped over that information he posted earlier and I did not triple read every post. So my apologies for not reading every post. I mean he/she was playing middle man between hornady tech and here on the hide sooo is he/she not tech support? Are we supposed to take that word to the bank? Is there any validity to the statements made about the "color codes" ? I'm here for information and poking fun at the hornady marketing machine. Only time will tell i suppose.
There's plenty to go off of. Like the video which I also posted: "One thing we hear from a lot of shooters when we're out at competitions, we're out at the field, is availability of some of the very common hollow point boattail designs that are out there. A lot of shooters love these bullets. They have good aerodynamics, they shoot good groups. The problem is availability and getting enough of them of one lot to make it through a match, a life of a barrel, a couple years worth of supplies, so you don't have to keep changing your load. The arrow match line of bullets addresses all of those issues."
"You don't have to change your dies, you don't have to change your loads, you don't have to change anything to switch from your popular profile other brand to these."
They are telling you they are copies in as clear of terms as they can without violating copyright and trademark laws.
The bullets don't match the BCs of Hornady's existing HPBT match bullets. But the 105s are exactly the same as the BCs of Berger hybrid targets.
You guys change your loads on different lots???? Ain't nobody got time for dat!!
Didn't Nosler already do this with their 'Custom Competition' line, that were blatant copies of the Sierra Match Kings?
LOL @ the guys in this thread saying they're not blatant copies of Berger Hybrids for 140's and 105's and SMK's for 77's and 175's.
They're not hiding the ball, they're not even being coy about it. They're saying everything short of, "We made identical bullets to our competitors because our competitors haven't kept anything in stock for 4 fucking years, and people really like the design of those projectiles."
If the quality and price are there, I'm game. They said they'll sell in boxes of 500 and cases of 3k. A box of 3k is a pretty good number to burn out a 6mm barrel so lot to lot consistency wouldn't be as important to me. Love to see more options out there.
Also don't feel terribly bad for Henderson. Great company and a great product, but the biggest complaint about it is the lack of a micrometer adjustment. Looks like Hornady picked up on that and made some more minor improvements in their own design. If they're making it for not $700, it'll be a hit.
They're not hiding the ball, they're not even being coy about it. They're saying everything short of, "We made identical bullets to our competitors because our competitors haven't kept anything in stock for 4 fucking years, and people really like the design of those projectiles."
If the quality and price are there, I'm game. They said they'll sell in boxes of 500 and cases of 3k. A box of 3k is a pretty good number to burn out a 6mm barrel so lot to lot consistency wouldn't be as important to me. Love to see more options out there.
Also don't feel terribly bad for Henderson. Great company and a great product, but the biggest complaint about it is the lack of a micrometer adjustment. Looks like Hornady picked up on that and made some more minor improvements in their own design. If they're making it for not $700, it'll be a hit.
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And if your assumption is true, that’s a hell of a way to commit market / marketing suicide. I guess I don’t believe in Hornady’s corporate greed as much as you.
I mean it was kinda laughable when they announced the DVRT tips. I'm pretty agnostic when it comes to brands. I'm loyal to none.And if your assumption is true, that’s a hell of a way to commit market / marketing suicide. I guess I don’t believe in Hornady’s corporate greed as much as you.
The only question i have is are there really shortages of the SMK bullets they are cloning? I'm not particularly interested in them but I feel like ive seen them available a lot. TMKs on the other hand.. lot harder to keep in stock.
The 107s have been pretty spotty this year.
But I doubt they clone that bullet.
They aren't as hard to find as others for sure. Makes me wonder if they weren't making them for OEM contracts for Black Hills or other manufacturers we don't know about yet and they had enough capacity to offer it to the public.
I’d be down for some 1/2-priced Berger .257 133, and 7mm 175 Elite Hunters… 
Hornady makes a 77gr bullet for AAC (Palmetto State). They also make the bullet for AAC's 168gr 308. And a 140 bthp 6.5 for them. I would be very surprised is these aren't the same as those. The BCs are a little different, but that could be measurement error.
Brunos has .22 69gr and 77gr TMK, 6.5mm 130gr and 140gr TMK and TGK in stock.
At this point TMK is pretty easy to find.
I would agree since they are already cloning the 105 hybrid. I am a fan of 107s though.
The 75g bthp isn't really .395 g1. Seems they weren't worried about correcting their existing inflated BCs when they got all serious about BCs with the intro of the ELD line. Apllied Ballistics says 0.348 G1 for the 75 bthp. It sounds like they were already making SMK clones for black hills and possibly others.
Interesting. The 140 BC is listed the same as the existing 140 bthp so I would guess that's what it is rather than a hybrid clone. The others may very well be SMK clones though.
$193 for 500 (oos):
www.precisionreloading.com
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I know that the Aeromatch 140 is a 140 hybrid clone. I'm saying that the 140 BTHP that has been being used in loaded AAC 6.5 ammo and marked as a .580 G1 bc, is probably the existing hornady bthp that happens to have the same BC and not the new aeromatch bullet.
This looks like about a 20% savings over the yellow box:
Shop Rifle & Shotgun Reloading Supplies | Dies | Bullets | Hulls | Wads | Powder - Precision Reloading
Shop online for shotshell and metallic reloading supplies, shooting supplies, metallic presses, rifle reloading components, shotshell reloading components, shooting accessories, rifle reloading brass and Bullets.
Shop Rifle & Shotgun Reloading Supplies | Dies | Bullets | Hulls | Wads | Powder - Precision Reloading
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So, if I'm seeing this right, they are just popping out clones of SMK and Bergers now. Theory is that if you have difficulty finding what you want in stock, you just get an Aeromatch bullet and you can use your same load.
Super weird though.... I guess bullets aren't protected IP unless they are patented. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding this product.
AEROMATCH™ - Hornady Manufacturing, Inc
The new Aeromatch™ bullets feature the most popular match bullet profiles and weights from across the industry – now perfected and available from Hornadywww.hornady.com
As far as "intellectual property" concerning bullet profiles... I couldn't say. I think the rule to avoid patent infringement is that there must be a 40% difference between two like items. How that 40% is quantified, I wouldn't have a clue.
But typically even if that design is patented, the patent is only good for 17 years or something... Case in point: generic Viagra.
So if there was a patent on the 168/175 SMK's it's probably been lapsed for a while. I'm surprised this hasn't been done sooner... Probably has. Consider some of the smaller manufacturers making "knock off" bullets.
I looked at the 30 Cal AeroMatch bullets the other day... The BC's seemed to be a bit lower than Sierra's... But that might be my memory failing.
Mike
Hornady’s sales model depends on flooding the market with less expensive and reasonably well performing products. They are good at it.
At least these guys are making bullets and a f ton of em, all the time. Sierra cloned the blackjack 131, even tho they dont have any their tmk line available world wide(one THE best hunting bullets made). Berger is now flooded with 105s on almost ever site around. They've finally caught up on a FEW lines but still a lot of stuff unavailable. I like the fact Hornady is always pushing new with a sprinkle of innovation. Let's face it, guys have been wildcatting stuff for over 100 years, EVERYTHING has been done already, it's just how you market it. I for one think the 338arc will be a badass sub round out to 200+ yards. Ultimate thermal night time setup. Dead quiet and big chunks of lead down range.
I actually don't hate Hornady, as much as I like to shit on the company.
Hornady is one of the few large companies in the firearms industry that has pushed the industry to increase/improve "mainstream" offerings to Fudds over the last decade. Companies like Federal, Sierra, RCBS, Lyman are (arguably) working to keep up, while companies like Lee, Winchester, etc. are stuck in the 90's. And then there's Remington.
Hornady (& Ruger) gave me the 204. For that I will be forever grateful! Love the hurt it puts on varmints man, I
backflips 
IIRC Sierra was always making that bullet for Blackjack and then when they went tits up Sierra released it for them selves
Now we know you’ve never experienced the ease of finding an extremely accurate load with a smk and then given up after futile attempts with the eldm you speak of. Plus the smks don’t need a special magazine. If they thought for a second the eldms were a threat to the 77 smks, they wouldn’t have swallowed their pride and copied the smk.
Kudos to Hornady for setting ego aside and trying to provide a positive experience for the shooters while also improving their bottom line! If all companies operated in similar fashion, consumers would benefit greatly.
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Pretty sure he was talking about the 75gr BTHP that Hornady sells and loads in a lot of their 223/5.56 factory ammo:
It's a great bullet. Easy to tune, available with & without cannelure, and fits in an AR magazine just as easily as a 77 SMK. And is usually more available and cheaper than the 77 SMK. But it also doesn't have the crazy high BC of the 75 ELD.
75 HPBT = a great option because it cost like $0.18 for practice ammo.Pretty sure he was talking about the 75gr BTHP that Hornady sells and loads in a lot of their 223/5.56 factory ammo:
It's a great bullet. Easy to tune, available with & without cannelure, and fits in an AR magazine just as easily as a 77 SMK. And is usually more available and cheaper than the 77 SMK. But it also doesn't have the crazy high BC of the 75 ELD.
SMK is a much better bullet in terms of quality/consistency of flight beyond like 450-500yds
at least in my limited personal testing of them.
They also have slightly different pressure curves, which is IMHO one of the reasons why all this cloning business is potentialyl valuable to end users and not just simply greedy money-grabbing rip-offs etc.
Sierra did indeed make the bullet, but it was Blackjacks design. I shot several thousand of them. Sierra never filled contract orders for 2+ years and blackjack had to fold up. Low and behold sierra comes out with the exact same bullet in their own boxes. It's fd up. Very low dirty move.
I dont shoot 25 cal, so have no dog in this fight, but if that is true its honestly messed up.
Sierra probably did have issues producing bullet's during Covid I'm not sure, I'm sure Black Jack was aware of the supply issue but was still taking people's money and never refunded, which knowing that maybe there was an issue with Sierra getting paid as well?
I don't really care but I wouldn't be so quick to blame Sierra here.
Two sides to every story. Don't just assume one side is the bad guy right from the get go.
