My experience with Bergers has been fantastic. 115/.257 Weatherby and 210/300 Weatherby have performed flawlessly from 100 to 650 yds. Shot a mature whitetail buck yesterday, 300Wby/210 high shoulder,200yds. pencil in softball size exit.
Berger HUNTING Bullets
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HuntFarther
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- Dec 13, 2012
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- 809
I stand with the group on this. I am really uncertain that the berger is the bullet for hunting. I say this because I have seen a lot of kills. Some tremendous and plenty of *** moments. I could get into them and listen to how did it perform from the guys that stick up for the bergers. Here is my though. I have seen it all good and some really bad. But this year I have seen far more marginal kills on well shot game that has me scratching my head. I was just on the phone with a buddy of mine discussing all of this. So anybody that wants to ask how the lungs look to me or say I did this or that. Or that I didn't stick a staple in the tips or so on. Don't even need to go there. I seen what happened and that is all I can say. The one that tops all of them for me is a 300 grain berger elite hunter on a bull elk at 880 yards. Was a square hit in the shoulder and the bullet deflected off the shoulder blade and ran straight up out the top of his back. He was flat out drt........... for a few minutes. Then he stands up and runs off. When then were close and stuck one behind the ear. I could go on and on. I am not bashing bergers but being fully reliable they are not. But here is where my hope is. That is all the new bullets that are coming out will change something. I only charmed in because I know of all the kills out there. And how there is no perfect hunting bullet.. But I will stand with the guys that had the failures and it was not their fault. So here is my words of advice after seeing this happen yearly and you getting bashed on. Just hold your head high and the guys that love the bergers are going to love them. You cannot change that and who cares to. All you are wanting to do is discuss your side of the story for everyone else to see. You don't need to get into how was this or that was. Simply stated what happened happened. I also am not saying this to start fight, just things are happening that are not user faults. And I personally could careless of the millions of kills, its the growing failures that I am seeing that I would worry about.
jgal72
Well-Known Member
Well Said! Thank You!
alf
Well-Known Member
Last buck shot with my 6.5-284 with 130 hunting VLD's at 3150.
Shot was a hard quartering away at 350. Impact was dead center behind the last rib, centering the vitals picture perfect. Heavy damage to both lungs, and taking off the top of the heart. As expected, no sign of an exit.
Shot was a hard quartering away at 350. Impact was dead center behind the last rib, centering the vitals picture perfect. Heavy damage to both lungs, and taking off the top of the heart. As expected, no sign of an exit.
MOA Chaser
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- Oct 5, 2014
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- 105
I've been shooting Bergers in a 30-378 (210 VLD) and they are very accurate. Yesterday was my first time hunting with them. Kind of a test. I watched a buck (just a spike) cross a field and stop right by my old target at 300 yards so I thought why not. 
Put the crosshair on his shoulder, pulled the trigger and watched him flop right there. When I opened him up the top of the heart and front half of the lungs were red jello. Exit wound was about the same as the entrance wound (30 cal) but there was a 3 inch hole in the far shoulder blade (exit side) under the hide. I'm not sure what happened there? Kind of weird. Personally I have always had excellent results with Partitions and Ballistic Tips but I've gotten on the Berger accuracy bandwagon as well. I have a box of VLD and a box of "target" bullets. The bullets (and the box!!) look identical so be careful when you handload. What concerns me is the small exit wound. If shot placement had been off by a few inches and the animal ran off there would not have been a blood trail and the coyotes would have had a free supper.
Put the crosshair on his shoulder, pulled the trigger and watched him flop right there. When I opened him up the top of the heart and front half of the lungs were red jello. Exit wound was about the same as the entrance wound (30 cal) but there was a 3 inch hole in the far shoulder blade (exit side) under the hide. I'm not sure what happened there? Kind of weird. Personally I have always had excellent results with Partitions and Ballistic Tips but I've gotten on the Berger accuracy bandwagon as well. I have a box of VLD and a box of "target" bullets. The bullets (and the box!!) look identical so be careful when you handload. What concerns me is the small exit wound. If shot placement had been off by a few inches and the animal ran off there would not have been a blood trail and the coyotes would have had a free supper.
The problem with vld hunting is risk of fmj effect on greater distances. It provides great BC and thats what you want, problem is that the shape of the bullet makes the bullet unpredictable. Maybe not on bone but between ribs. My wish is that Berger would make the jacket even thinner or use a bigger hole at front (just shorten the bullet). That would make the BC less good but it shouldnt effect too much on the bc. A g1 0.545 bullet might get down too 0.515 with a little larger hole.
bigngreen
Well-Known Member
Caliber size exits are very easy to explain, the bullet has expended nearly all of it's energy inside the animal and it has just enough to get through the hide, I actually found one last year that the bullet had made it out side but the jacket hung up on the hide and hair and we found it outside in the fur of a very, very dead elk.
338edge
Well-Known Member
Huntfarther its absolutely the persons fault. The person pulling the trigger needs to be held accountable for the results they receive. Folks are wanting to blame something for their complete failures. In this case their blaming the bullet. It's not the bullets fault. Shot placement is king. Bergers are also king.
If you say so, it must be so.
338edge
Well-Known Member
Me and many others!!
Petersen
Well-Known Member
Probably been said a bunch already; always inspect every bullet. I loaded 35 .284 180 grain vld hunters and several needed the hole to be cleaned out. Three I could not get opened with the small needle I use. I set those aside to be used on paper or rocks.
WildRose
Well-Known Member
Bumper Pool?
WildRose
Well-Known Member
No, I'm sorry but when a bullet is properly placed and fails to perform as intended and advertised it's absolutely not the fault of the shooter.
We pay a premium price for premium bullets and they should perform as advertised.
I don't care what brand/type of bullet you use sometimes they will fail as will anything made by human hands or human engineering.
