7mm rem mag mv

I realize the hybrids are not recommended for hunting. I did however take 2 bulls in 2 shots with them this year. You can find my thread in the elk hunting section under 4 down opening day. The bullI shot was ranged at 438yrds. It was slightly quartering away and up hill. The bullet entered behind the shoulder and dropped instantly. Pics that show bullet placement are on that thread and I lost no meat and it was not hit in the spine. I will admit it's the first time I have personally made an exit wound on an elk. The body on this was a monster. Biggest bull I have ever killed body wise. Upon rolling him over a 6" round blood spot was found in front of the opposing shoulder in the neck area. I just attributed this to more energy than I have ever shot at an elk. I might change my mind on the hybrids later, but for now I will shoot up what I have and see how they do on coyotes and spring bear.

As far as load development I stated 2" verticle consistently and 4" horizontal. Gonna try a 20moa rail in place of the current leupold 2 piece bases with windage adjustment. I still need to do some better field testing to determine actual MV. The best I did was 550yrds at milk jugs.

I will email you more questions and data when I am not working and have my book in front of me.
Thanks, Matt
 
Matt,
Cant argue with success man. The rail may help with the "horizontal" too. Didn't know you had the STD rings and mounts. Go to our website home page and click on HUNTING then click TARGETS in the drop down bar. Check out the sweet spots on the animals and compare it to your 550yd milk jug shots just for fun. You might not have as far to go in load testing than you think. Will be looking for your email !
Take care,
Phil Hoham
Berger Bullet Tech
 
barefooter56 said:
upacreek,
You going to use the 7mm 180gr TARGET HYBRIDS? We don't really recommend that. With the thicker jacket of the target bullets you will probably get a small wound channel at best and a pencil through and through at worst. Any way, take some loaded "blow off rounds to the range and see how many rounds it takes before the bullet strikes stop rising on the target and begin to cluster. Then do your group testing and see if the vertical goes away. Horizontal is usually wind. Start on the lands and work back in .015 increments to find the seating depth sweet spot using the lowest powder charge listed for your bullet/powder/cartridge combination.Then work the load back up in 1/2 grain increments until you get 2 grains below MAXIMUM then drop to 1/10 grain increments. All the while you are checking for accuracy and pressure signs. With that long nose on that bullet you still may not get back to where it will cycle through the factory magazine. There are aftermarket magazines and bottom metal that are longer than stock that may get you to where you can use the magazine again. If all else fails go to the 168 grain CLASSIC HUNTER. Its a Hybrid too but with a shorter nose so it can be seated to magazine length and work there. As far as ES and SD. They really are just an INDICATOR of what may work and SD is the one that carries the weight between the two. The target carries the most weight though !! You may find that a load with a great ES and SD isnt as accurate as one with higher numbers . Go to German Salizars website and read the article on ES and SD by Jerry Engleman. The chronograph issue is another can of worms with sun angle, bullet height as it passes over the sensors, distance from rifle so muzzle blast is not affecting the reading ETC. If you can , get or borrow a MAGNETO SPEED chrono that attaches to the barrel and uses the magnetic impulse of the bullet as it passes over to read the muzzle velocity. They work. Especially the new version. If you are really close to ELK season and have a load with another bullet that works now use that for this season and do the load testing for the BERGER bullets after the season so you aren't stressing out before the hunt with load testing and just getting in some good practice before you go. We can get the Berger bullet sorted out later when there is time if you wish. Your choice. If you need more help on this please either respond on this string or contact us at [email protected].
Take care!
Phil Hoham
Berger Bullet Tech
Click to expand...

Hi Phil,
In actual use on game I have so far found that hybrids actually do just the opposite of what you suggest. In fact, I don't shoot them closer than 300 because they are TOO expansive if you hit bone. I think they are very similar to the nosler ballistic tip.
I am talking about 7 mm 180 hybrids at 3000 fps, impact velocities of 2400+

So I think this makes them an excellent LR hunting choice. Especially given how accurate they are. Did Berger actually test on game? Id be very surprised If any were just penciling through, kind of hard to imagine that after seeing what they do in the deer I have shot with them.

Waiting patiently ( actually not so patiently) for the 195s!!!
 
Norma cases, H1000, CCI 250s, 180 Hybrids 0.020 off the lands, 26" Hart #5
Averages over 6 rounds using Magnetospeed V3.
68.0 gr. 2843 fps
68.6 gr. 2873 fps
69.6 gr. 2943 fps
 
KYpatriot,
We did very extensive testing on animals with our hunting bullets on all types of game. Here and New Zeland, Africa etc before we were satisfied they could be used for taking game humanely. That being said their is always room for improvement and we are constantly working on that also to bring our customers the best product possible. We have gotten feedback from hunters with your same experience and other types of bullet performance at "short" range. We are working on figuring out why this happens on some occasions and not others. Its hard to do because of the lack of repeat performance shot to shot. Bullets do weird things on game as we all know. The target bullets because of their thicker jacket will leave a smaller wound channel than the hunting bullets if they expand. BUT they MAY not on occasion depending on where the animal is hit so you need to be aware of that. That is also why WE cant recommend them be used for hunting. However we have received reports of success like yours so if they work for you great! No word yet on the 195s unfortunately. Maybe after SHOT we will know more on how "caught up" we are with our regular line of bullets so we can start to offer the new products. The whole industry as far as bullets and powder is in that boat.
Take care!
Phil Hoham
Berger Bullet Tech
 
barefooter56 said:
KYpatriot,
We did very extensive testing on animals with our hunting bullets on all types of game. Here and New Zeland, Africa etc before we were satisfied they could be used for taking game humanely. That being said their is always room for improvement and we are constantly working on that also to bring our customers the best product possible. We have gotten feedback from hunters with your same experience and other types of bullet performance at "short" range. We are working on figuring out why this happens on some occasions and not others. Its hard to do because of the lack of repeat performance shot to shot. Bullets do weird things on game as we all know. The target bullets because of their thicker jacket will leave a smaller wound channel than the hunting bullets if they expand. BUT they MAY not on occasion depending on where the animal is hit so you need to be aware of that. That is also why WE cant recommend them be used for hunting. However we have received reports of success like yours so if they work for you great! No word yet on the 195s unfortunately. Maybe after SHOT we will know more on how "caught up" we are with our regular line of bullets so we can start to offer the new products. The whole industry as far as bullets and powder is in that boat.
Take care!
Phil Hoham
Berger Bullet Tech
Click to expand...

Phil, first-off, I am a HUGE Berger fan. Absolutely LOVE the performance I get out of yall's bullets.

That said, this past year I got a pencil-through shot on a whitetail deer around 175 yards away, with some 7mm 168 VLD's (hunting). Literally left 1 drop of blood on the ground (she flopped over and never moved again), when we picked her up and put her in the back of the Mule. I've never had a bullet not expand and still cause a bang-flop. But it did.

I have noticed that a lot of the VLD"s seem to have inconsistent meplats on them. I was wondering if you think this could have attributed to the problem? The bullets were hunting VLD's, and they left the muzzle at around 3,115 fps. I had shot another deer the morning before with the same bullets, from the same box and lot, and it was around 225 yards (lung shot). Left a nice small entrance, and a perfect 3" baseball-sized exit. It ran about 15 yards then dropped.

Both deer were harvested humanely...But that 1 bullet that never expanded got me thinking. So I went home and started looking through all my Bergers in all the different calibers and weights, and the meplats all seemed very non-uniformed.

I have also noticed a lot of other stories of people complaining about Berger bullets "not performing". And I think that a lot of those can be attributed to the same thing that happened to with mine.

I know yall are very busy trying to re-stock everybody after all the BS that went on for the last 2 years...But, have yall thought about looking into a way to uniform the tips of the bullets at the end of the mfg process, to see if that could help with making the bullets more of a "controlled expansion" tip without using a polymer tip on them, while still keeping the same high BC's that your bullets produce?

Just a thought and question that I've had for a while.

Oh, and I'm also one of the ones who is patiently awaiting the arrival of the 7mm 195 EOL... :D
 
MudRunner2005,
First of all, thanks for using our bullets ! The "uneven" meplat is just a function of finishing the jacket. We could point up the bullets but it would add to the cost because of the extra step. We don't know if this has any effect on how the bullet reacts in game as of yet but it is something along with many other things we are looking at. Could be just the difference in velocity between the two shots due to distance, could be what the bullet hit or didn't hit as it passed through in the animal. Who knows. Like I stated before " the problem is lack of repeatable results from shot to shot on a living animal. Massad Ayoob has commented on this in his magazine articals. Why is one guy stopped with a 25 ACP and another is fatally hit with a 45 or 9mm but keeps on functioning any way for minutes ? Both of your deer were hit with the same bullet but at a different distance with the bullets NOT placed in the exact same spot(?) The first one may not have had the same "will to live" so to speak or adrenalin dump as the other when it was hit. Again who, knows. Only common factor is that both deer died in short order. When people say a bullet "didn't perform" what do they mean? the deer ran a long way and they had to track it, the bullet didn't leave a big wound channel like you see in ballistic gel tests , didn't leave a big exit wound , did leave a big exit wound? Again the common factor is in most cases a dead deer.
 
Hit the wrong key !! Rats! Any way I am not making ANY excuses at all about our bullets . Its just hat there are ssoooooo many factors in this that making the "perfect" bullet that reacts on the target the same way every time with the same results MAY not be possible . But we are working on it. All I can say is be prepared for any eventuality and practice once you have your load figured out to keep more odds in your favor taking the game you are hunting. Have a Merry Christmas KYRunner ! And thanks again for using our bullets!
Take care,
Phil Hoham
Berger Bullet Tech
 
barefooter56 said:
MudRunner2005,
First of all, thanks for using our bullets ! The "uneven" meplat is just a function of finishing the jacket. We could point up the bullets but it would add to the cost because of the extra step. We don't know if this has any effect on how the bullet reacts in game as of yet but it is something along with many other things we are looking at. Could be just the difference in velocity between the two shots due to distance, could be what the bullet hit or didn't hit as it passed through in the animal. Who knows. Like I stated before " the problem is lack of repeatable results from shot to shot on a living animal. Massad Ayoob has commented on this in his magazine articals. Why is one guy stopped with a 25 ACP and another is fatally hit with a 45 or 9mm but keeps on functioning any way for minutes ? Both of your deer were hit with the same bullet but at a different distance with the bullets NOT placed in the exact same spot(?) The first one may not have had the same "will to live" so to speak or adrenalin dump as the other when it was hit. Again who, knows. Only common factor is that both deer died in short order. When people say a bullet "didn't perform" what do they mean? the deer ran a long way and they had to track it, the bullet didn't leave a big wound channel like you see in ballistic gel tests , didn't leave a big exit wound , did leave a big exit wound? Again the common factor is in most cases a dead deer.

Hit the wrong key !! Rats! Any way I am not making ANY excuses at all about our bullets . Its just hat there are ssoooooo many factors in this that making the "perfect" bullet that reacts on the target the same way every time with the same results MAY not be possible . But we are working on it. All I can say is be prepared for any eventuality and practice once you have your load figured out to keep more odds in your favor taking the game you are hunting. Have a Merry Christmas KYRunner ! And thanks again for using our bullets!
Take care,
Phil Hoham
Berger Bullet Tech
Click to expand...

My load development is about at its peak for this particular rifle (5/8-3/4" average 3-shot groups at 100) as it has a hand-lapped factory Remington 26" sporter barrel on it. But as I don't plan on using it over 500 yards, it should be just fine for this purpose. I have more accurate rifles for precision LR shooting and hunting.

I was just curious if you thought the "repeatability" factor, could be partially pinned to the meplat not being uniform from bullet to bullet? They were not hit in the exact same spot. The first one was a mid-height lung shot, directly behind the shoulder, and the 2nd one (the one that penciled-through) was a low-center shoulder heart shot directly through both shoulders (apparently didn't hit any bones), but still seemed to exert enough energy to drop her where she stood, which I was happy with.

I am not sure what those other people are referring to when they say they "didn't perform" which is why I put it in "". I have seen numerous threads on here over the years of people complaining about it, but the stories seem to either follow the pattern of poor shot placement, or operator error.

However, a few of the stories I see similar results as to what happened with my bullet, but they weren't quite as lucky as me, when it came to the animal expiring instantly. I would guess they were complaining they had to track the animal (which I've always known was part of hunting).

Thanks for your reply, I was just curious as to your thoughts as to the uniformity of the meplats, if you think this would help or not. I can buy a MCR meplat uniforming tool for about $150, so I was just curious as to your thoughts.

Thanks
 
MudRunner,
The meplat comment was just put out there as a " something that may but we don't know" factor. Dont take it as fact! If you want to test it for your own curiosity please do! The more information the better ! Now , what do you test? just a bullet that the meplat is uniformed on ? Be advised you will need to sort all the bullets in the box by base to ojive length into groups so you can adjust the tool so it takes the same amount off each bullet and making the meplat larger does affect BC. Or do you both meplat uniform and then point the bullet back up? This will get back some of the BC lost BUT it really closes the hole in the end of the nose up ! How will that impact "bullet performance"? Coming from a long-range target (Palm) background the only reason to do one or both is to make the BC from bullet to bullet closer to reduce vertical dispersion on the target at ranges of 600 yards or more. Under 600 it was questionable as to its affect on vertical dispersion. Now you have to ask "is this a can of worms I want to open" and spent the 150 bucks on the meplat uniformer and then another 250 on a Whidden bullet pointing die? The x-ring on a 600 yard target is 6 inches across. How big is the x-ring on a deer, Elk etc at that range? Now what about wind reading skills ? And so it goes. Mid Tomkins reloading steps are different from Bryan Litz and Bryans reloading steps and Mids are different from mine. They are High Masters . I am a Master. Is it the loading or the equipment, components, talent, or time put in on practice? Ask 10 shooter and you will probably get 10 different answers. I doubt practice would be first on every list. just my 2 cents. Let us know if you do decide to experiment and let us know! Merry Christmas and thanks for using our bullets MudRunner2005 !
Take care,
Phil Hoham
Berger Bullet Tech
 
Just a quick question, how are Bergers designed to expand? Is the hollow point designed to collapse in on itself or is the cavity inside the bullet designed to be filled with tissue from the animal to expand?
 
Jerry,
Our bullets are designed to penetrate 2-5 inches before the nose starts to "slump" over and fragment shredding the vitals causing tremendous hydro static shock to the animal resulting in a quick, humane
kill.
Take care!& Merry Christmas!
Phil Hoham
Berger Bullet Tech
 
Warning! This thread is more than 10 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Similar threads

R
7mm rem mag H1000 vs reloader 26, higher MV???
Replies
0
Views
2K
rockwind
R
D
7mm Rem Mag.
2
Replies
15
Views
2K
DoneNOut
DoneNOut
D
7mm rem mag
Replies
10
Views
3K
SCshooter
S
R
7mm Rem Mag.
Replies
7
Views
3K
1 mile
1
N
7mm rem mag
Replies
5
Views
2K
kc
K

Recent Posts

Top