Alaskan Dall Sheep - 210 Berger VLD

[Pdvdh]

Thanks Michael. It required a 2nd trip and some additional time to find a legal ram this year.

And thanks for including your advice/experience on the use of the 208 Amax. I have been considering that bullet for LR engagements, but have no personal experience with it. The 162 Amax in my .280 RCBS shoot really well. A bit better than the 168 Berger VLDs. So I have little doubt but what the Amax is a target quality bullet, with respect to accuracy. Everything I read about them supports your experiences - a fragile jacketed bullet. But that can be a good thing when the velocity has been reduced at longer ranges.

 

[Long Time Long Ranger]

phorwath, I shoot the 162 Amax in my 7mm's and the 208 Amax in my 300 ultramag. They are as accurate as anything I have ever shot. The jackets are fragile and I have seen complete blow up on animals. I have seen some that worked great like the big caribou a buddy shot last year with my rifle at long range. I would not recomend them for anything other than deer, antelope, sheep, caribou type animals. Bull caribou can be big but are fragile animals with no will to live so don't see a problem there. Plus where is he going to get away on the tundra for a long range shooter. Matter of fact I am hunting deer right now with the 300 ultramag and the 208 amax at 3210 fps. Passed up a beautiful long range shot this morning on a 26" buck at 900 yards. No wind, perfect setting and I wanted to shoot bad. But it is the first day and I want to hunt some more so I let him go.

 

[Pdvdh]

LTLR,
Thanks for adding your insights on the Amax. I now know what to expect for on-game performance. They could be just the ticket for LR shots. I carry and use Accubonds and/or Barnes TSXs for closer shots anyhow, so the 208 Amax could be a really good fit for extended range shots on the deer, sheep, Mt. goat, black bear, caribou sized animals that I commonly hunt.

I only began shooting the 162 Amax in my .280 RCBS in the past 9 months. Haven't harvested a game animal with them yet, but they are very accurate bullets out of my .280.

 

[huntokanogan]

Beautiful ram! good job.
I also use berger bullets. I had one do the same thing on a mule deer buck I shot last year. The shot killed him as it passed through both lungs. It did take him an unusual amount of time to go down after what I knew was a good shot. Upon quartering him I realized that the exit hole was no bigger than the entrence hole.
I was a little peeved at it's performence to say the least. A buddy of mine that reloads a lot of bergers told me that he (carefuly) files the tip of the HP to make it even then cleans up the sides. The berger hp bullets seem to always be a little cockeyed out of the box.
I haven't killed anything deer sized with the filed version yet but they seem to shoot the same. Just a thought. When I kill something I'll let you know how it works.

 

[Eaglet]

A buddy of mine that reloads a lot of bergers told me that he (carefuly) files the tip of the HP to make it even then cleans up the sides. The berger hp bullets seem to always be a little cockeyed out of the box.
I haven't killed anything deer sized with the filed version yet but they seem to shoot the same. Just a thought. When I kill something I'll let you know how it works.

The file work would be alright for short range work, otherwise, a hunter would be doing more harm than good unless the proper tool is used. A "Meplat Uniformer" would make all the bullets exactly the same length and same BC, and you have to figure out the new BC since it will change based on how much is cut. The bigger the cut the lesser the BC will be.

 

[Pdvdh]

Hi guys. Thanks for sharing your experience with the 210 VLD on the mule deer.

I want to add to this Thread that I did purchase the "MCR Meplat Uniforming Tool" from Kevin at Montour County Rifles and uniformed the meplat on several hundred Berger .308 210gr VLDs. I also uniformed the meplats on a couple hundred Berger 168gr VLDs in 7mm. But, I haven't shot any of them yet. I'll learn how much the BC has been reduced when I fire some at 1000 yds over my chronographs. But Kevin and others have already been through this exercise, and I think it's been established that meplat uniforming could be expected to reduce the bullet BC by approximately 1% - 2%.

By the way, the MCR tool does a very nice job. It will even ream out the hollow center of the meplat into a uniform V shaped 'hollowpoint' type tip. The tips on these meplat uniformed bullets are now very consistent and precise. So my VLD tips look pretty, and they're ready to be shot. Now I just need to allocate some time and get back to shoot'in and chronographing.

I'll need to harvest some game before I'll be able to tell if the VLD expansion is any more reliable due to the meplat uniforming. So whether these tricked out meplats improve expansion consistency or not remains to be learned. I believe it could only help the cause, but if I get another failure to expand on a meplat-uniformed bullet, this Forum will be the first to learn about it!

 

[RH300UM]

Anyone on this thread ever tried the 30cal SMK's?

 

[RH300UM]

What no one has tried the SMK's?

How bout this. Has anybody tried GS Custom bullets or Cutting edge bullets for the 30 cal. ?

 

[houston]

Awesome animal Congradulations.I also shoot the bergers in my 300 win mag 185's with 74 gr h4350 at 2900 fps. I was in sw texas 3 weeks ago aoudad hunting on the 4 day I finally found a shooter ram the shot was at a mere 250 yards and my spotter called my first two shots misses when in fact they were both tight behind the shoulder with no signs of a hit i noticed blood out the mouth so i waited on him [60 yards ] to tip over. There was no expansion on either side with broken ribs. So im looking again had the same thing happen with a barnes last year on a aoudad with a 180 gr. Dead is dead however i expect more than pencil holes. Again awesom Dall.
Jeff~

 

[jmden]

Anyone on this thread ever tried the 30cal SMK's?

240 SMK's - 2 elk (450 and 60 yds) and 1 deer at about 100. Tremendous big bone breaking and soft tissue damage on closer elk and deer. Not as much expansion as I'd like to see on the two shots on the 450 yd elk, but drt pretty fast. It's still the goto lrh bullet for many that shoot 30 cal.

Berger needs to make a 220ish grain .308 for us! --Eric???

 

[Dalebow]

I am no expert but Dall Sheep are thin skinned and light boned. Why would you expect a 210 grain bullet and think it should have opened up. 2 years ago I got to hunt doe antelope before I started my elk hunt. I used my 300 wsm with 180gr TSX and knew it would just poke thru. When it came to my 12 year old 6x6 bull my first shot was low and back and he still bedded within sight allowing me to follow up with a better shot. My 500# black bear was on a dead run when I shot him thru both shoulders 138 yards, he flipped head over butt dead.
I think a lot of people are not following Barne's directions to hunt with a lighter grain to let the copper open up.
Used the 80gr TTSX on my buck antelope this past fall and at 284 yards it destroyed the lungs and hear, shredded mess. This year Ive dropped down to the 165 gr TTSX for my Elk/Bear 1st season hunt and 2nd season mule deer.gun)

 

[bigngreen]

I am no expert but Dall Sheep are thin skinned and light boned. Why would you expect a 210 grain bullet and think it should have opened up. 2 years ago I got to hunt doe antelope before I started my elk hunt. I used my 300 wsm with 180gr TSX and knew it would just poke thru. When it came to my 12 year old 6x6 bull my first shot was low and back and he still bedded within sight allowing me to follow up with a better shot. My 500# black bear was on a dead run when I shot him thru both shoulders 138 yards, he flipped head over butt dead.
I think a lot of people are not following Barne's directions to hunt with a lighter grain to let the copper open up.
Used the 80gr TTSX on my buck antelope this past fall and at 284 yards it destroyed the lungs and hear, shredded mess. This year Ive dropped down to the 165 gr TTSX for my Elk/Bear 1st season hunt and 2nd season mule deer.gun)

Dropping down in grain weight and using a harder bullet ups the percentage of shots that will deflect. I've shot a pile of elk and shooting 168gr Barnes TSX caught up to me twice with deflections on shoulder shots before dropping them for a bullet that works better.
A lot of guys don't take Barnes advice cause it bits you in the butt!

 

[Pdvdh]

I am no expert but Dall Sheep are thin skinned and light boned. Why would you expect a 210 grain bullet and think it should have opened up.

Because the Berger Hunting VLDs have a paper thin copper jacket, and the bullet impacted this ram at about 2480 fps, based on the 355 yd distance. Berger says their bullets will expand down to around 1800 fps. This bullet impacted this ram at a velocity approximately 700 fps faster than Berger's recommended minimum expansion velocity. And the width of this ram would be a good 15". Plenty of width for bullet expansion.

Berger says their bullets penetrate 3-4" and then all hell breaks loose. I say - most of the time.

 

[Mountain Hunter]

I have enjoyed this thread and congratulation on an awesome trophy and hunt. I just joined a few days ago. This thread interest me a lot as I have a 300 mag and am considering a build or purchase of an all weather .300 WM as a "carry-into-the-mountains" hunting rifle and would love to hunt sheep one day. On top of this I have been seriously considering the Berger 185 gr hunting VLD bullet. I have so far been using Hornady SSTs and SPBT (180 grs) but thought the step up to the VLDs (with its higher BC) would give flatter trajectory and higher RE out at 400-500 yards.

However, I am an ethical hunter and do not like the experiences with the VLDs that have been related here. I notice on another thread on this forum (see http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/f19/hornady-max-bullets-any-good-hunting-76455/) that there are generally positive reports that the A-Max performs well as a hunting bullet.

So I am now considering instead:

• the 178 gr A-Max, my ballistics software tells me that this bullet is not far behind the 185 VLD in performance out to 500 yds (but a 300 WM should have performance to spare on this type of game)
• the 208 gr A-Max, performance on paper is equal (or slightly better) in most respects to the 210 gr VLD to 500 yds and beyond