In response to your bullet question it depends on what you want to do with the rifle. I just bought a box of the 168 gr berger bullets for a few reasons. I first started with the 140 bergers becasue I wanted a comfortable recoiling round with good ballistics. I was testing these bergers out of my 7 mag and was getting pretty good groupings. My buddy was testing his 270 with 140 gr bullets and after his testing I was less satisfied with my berger result. He was getting the same velocity out of his 270 with less powder and I was starting to flatten primers and just having a slight edge with more recoil. This is when I decided that the 7 mag is better off with 150+ gr bullets to utilize the higher powder capacity. I then tried the 150gr scirocco II they seemed to group ok but after sorting I lost like 40% of the bullets, mostly due to bearing surface. I tried another box and this made me completely through the swifts away. The first groups acceptable bearing surface was .514-.516 I believe. The second box group was .531-.533 and this disparity between boxes was unacceptable. I have had really good luck with nosler bullets (using them in .308) and they have sorted fairly well but never really compared box to box as I wasn't that well up to date on reloading as I am now, so I bought a box of thier 160 gr accubond. Before testing though I had really been considering the 160 cutting edge bullets becasue they market that their box to box consistancy is the best on the market. These bullets however are expensive. So after much more research I found out that berger labels all bullets with lot numbers, which nosler, swift and hornady do not. With berger all bullets with the same lot number are made from the same machine and from the same materials. Also you can buy the bullets in a sleeve from berger so that you have all bullets from the same lot. Meaning all your bullets will be consistant throught all 500 or 5 boxes. So with the 140 bergers sorting and shooting so well and with me being able to purchace a large quantity of consistant bullet the berger wins. At least if they shoot well enough and I can get the ES to an acceptable spread If they do then Ill put in the order for a sleeve of the 168 if not then on to the cutting edge. I need all the practice I can get which means shooting high volume and that put the cutting edge bullets a second choice. I however feel that the berger bullet isnt the best all around hunting bullet. But for my needs it ends up being the best choice. If you are not looking for lot to lot consistancy or to be shooting longrange consistanly I think the accubond is a better (stronger or all around)bullet. The berger has its advantages for the reason I explained (hopefully clearly).
