Medic wrote:i've had "Interesting results" with HPBT match ammo branded as "Hunting ammo" in the past... some of it not good. So I'm a bit shy
And rightly so.
If you're talking about varminting with a .308 and 150gr loads I think most will agree any projectile will do the trick. There is just such an excess of energy in play for the small size of the target animal it as near as makes no difference.
If you're talking about hunting medium and large game though you'd really need to know more about the projectile to judge it's suitability than just the fact that it's a HPBT.
A boat tail design is to increase the ballistic coefficient of a projectile.
A hollow point can be utilised to promote expansion in the case of a hunting bullet. In the case of match bullets the meplat can be manipulated depending on what attribute they're seeking to improve, resulting in a hollowpoint, but with no consideration given to expansion after the impact.
Neither feature is inherently bad for hunting.
Sectional density, jacket thickness, bonding etc. are all more important than either being a HP or BT alone.
Sierra for example make their GameKing which is a renowed hunting projectile, and their MatchKing bullet which they themselves say is not suitable for hunting. Both are HPBT's.
See the cross section picture below, MatchKings on the left, GameKings on the right (credit to sadefensejournal for the picture).
sierra.jpg
You can see the jacket, ogive and aperture are all significantly different despite both being "HPBT" by the same bullet maker.
This is a general statement based on a few assumptions, but if a manufacturer was relabelling what was clearly purpose designed match ammo as hunting ammo suitable for game species (as you've implied above?) chances are it's far from ideal for consistent, ethical hunting of that kind.