Hornady 7mm 162 Amax or BTHP's or??????

[Assault116]

I'm in the stages of getting ready to have the smith spin up a barrel for one of my rifles in 7/300WSM and thinking about the hornady 162's as my bullet of choice. I've been able to source exactly 1 box of the 162 BTHP's that my local shop happened to have on the shelf. Now this chamber will be throated specificly around a set of dummy rounds made for mag length (which is short) so my bullet pretty much needs to be selected now and not later, or at a bare minimum I'll be limiting myself to bullets with very similar dimension at the very least.

Here's my current available options:

The Hornady 162 BTHP and or Amax based on very similar dimentions (nearly unicorn status)
The Barnes 171 Match Burners (seem readily available)
and Berger 168 VLD's (small qty's)

I want to stay on the lighter side due to loss of case capacity and the velocity target from this rifle, so I'm ruling out the 180's for that reason.

Here's the question.

Has ANYBODY heard credible info on when Hornady is looking to put the 162's (either flavor) back into production? The rifle won't be finished until probably August or September (stock wait time) so I have some time to gather projectiles, but if they don't have them in production by then I'm going to be bummed with a new rifle and only 100 bullets to shoot from it until god knows when.

Unfortunately none of my choice bullets are readily avaiable in qty at the moment, but the Barnes 171 is most available right now, so that's probably choice number 2. It's just that everyone I know of that's shooting the 162's is getting great results and the price is damn good as compared to the Bergers

 

[greggrissom]

Good luck with that. I bought the last box from PSA and haven't seen any since then. As many people shoot that bullet as it is, I'll never understand why they suspended production on it. You might want to look at the 168'S.

 

[Assault116]

Good luck with that. I bought the last box from PSA and haven't seen any since then. As many people shoot that bullet as it is, I'll never understand why they suspended production on it. You might want to look at the 168'S.

I hear ya, I have the 1 box of 162's and ordered a box of the Barnes to measure up and compare the difference. I did pick up a sample pack of Berger 168's and they are amazingly close dimensionally to the 162 Hndy HPBT, so at least I should be able to run the 162 and have the 168's as a backup plan, I'm hoping the Barnes are similar as well which will pretty much open it up to all my choice options.

 

[Runamuk]

[MENTION=29324]Runamuk[/MENTION] has some 162bthp (not amax) he may be willing to come off of.

Sorry don't have those any longer, they found a new home in North Dakota, and I wouldn't start a new build with plans to shoot a bullet that's no longer being produced and no word when they may be available again.

I get that their cheap when their available and light for caliber with a decent BC but there are other bullets out there that are being manufactured today that can do everything the Amax/BTHP's can do and most importantly you can buy them which is only one of the reason I sold off the one's I had. You don't have to look to hard to find a better solution.

 

[Assault116]

Actually in my travels today I happened to stop by a hole in the wall shop down south (I hit every shop I can when I'm out and about) that had 500 162 BTHP's on the shelf so I grabbed them up. I now have 600 on hand which will take me through a good long time with the rifle planned as it won't be my primary match rifle. So I'm good for quite some time.

Thanks a bunch for the help locating some though. It's much appreciated.