Berger Meplats - Improved Uniformity

[Pdvdh]

An even more telling example of the lack of lethality of pointed, non-expanding .338 caliber bullet performance was documented on a man that lived ~15 miles south of me. This incident occurred ~10 years ago, and was documented in the local press.

Two neighbors are squabbling over something. One guy in his 70s walks away and returns from his house with a .338 Win Mag rifle. He shoots his neighbor point blank range thru the ribs. The victim falls to the ground, but in surprisingly good shape. Thankfully, no more bullets were fired. Central Emergency Services responds. Transports the shooting victim to the Central Peninsula Hospital.

The doctors and paramedics are all dumbfounded. After through analysis in the hospital, the doctors report that the bullet passed within a couple inches of the man's heart. Clearly, this hunting bullet did not expand. Other than messing his britches, the victim was no worse for the wear after a night or two in the hospital. I don't even think they had to open him up to stop the bleeding.

You're going to think I'm telling tall tales now, but I'm sure I could find an article verifying that this is a true story. You can bet that the doctors analyzed this guy until they were blue in the face, confirming the entrance, exit, and lack of internal damage. They concluded and reported this man was exceptionally lucky, in that the hunting bullet, designed for thicker and tougher skinned game animals, didn't expand and fragment inside the chest cavity.

The shooter was convicted of attempted murder and spent time in prison. He may still be in prison - I don't know. The shooter used to frequent my brother's gun shop. When my brother heard about what happened, he was surprised. Told me the shooter was always well behaved and polite when in his gun shop.

 

[sp6x6]

With my 338 NM's they have taken around ten animals from speed goats ,bear,deer.elk ,moose.Been shooting hybrid 300 OTM.Found zero bullet,pieces some times,shot threw most game with devistating results.Nothing over 850 to date and blew big holes in game at 50 yrd range,but not sure if I contacted light screen of brush directly in front of animal

 

[Pdvdh]

Good to hear. Thanks for sharing those terminal bullet performance results. I'll may be in a position to begin hunting with the 300gr OTMs this fall.

 

[sp6x6]

I would think a great bullet for where you live.Im jealous of course

 

[Timber338]

Great thread. I might look in to uniforming the meplats on my .308 215 grain Berger hybrids.

I shot an elk last year with the 215 Hybrid and had disappointing results. 380 yards and an impact velocity of about 2475 fps. After the shot the elk turned and I could see a bullet hole with some blood on literally the exact opposite side where I was aiming. The elk then piled up into a large oak bush and all I could see was a small patch of hide. I watched it for about 20 minutes, no movement. I had to hike across to the other side of the canyon which took about 2 hours. Within about 10 feet, the elk jumped up and ran away as if nothing happened. Very small amount of blood in the bed where it was laying. Tracked for several hours with nothing more than small pin drops of blood until it just dried up. gone. First elk I've ever shot and not recovered.

To this day no clue what happened. It appeared to be a perfect lung shot just behind the front shoulders verified when the elk turned and I could see the opposite side bullet hole.

I have no proof to back up any theory, I want to be clear on that. But my thoughts are that the bullet nose was either closed to start with or got pinched by skimming a rib on entry. With the shot placement there is no way anything could live through that shot with an expanding bullet.

Just my single experience with the 215 Hybrid. I'm not trying to bash them, I think they are great bullets and will continue to shoot them, but if at game I'll make sure to verify the hole in the front is not shut. Uniforming the meplat might be the best way to go.

 

[IAHNTR]

What size/number drill bit can be used to verify they are open? I am shooting the 180 and 140 hybrids and will be using them on antelope this fall.

 

[jrock]

I'm sure you all have read the .338 article on ballisticstudies.com. It talks about the elite hunter VLDs and says they should be annealed and meplat trimmed and only used on large bodied deer to 1800 fps. The article mainly focuses on the fact that the .338 drives bullets too slow to be effective but I think there are enough examples of pros and cons that individual testing is required. Seems like meplat trimming and loosing 2% BC isn't too bad for better terminal performance.
How much do you trim them down?

 

[boscodog]

Good thread!
I'm hoping that more will join in and share the evidence they have on the performance with game using the L/R 338s, I'm hoping that mine wasn't just a fluke.

Here's mine; this year I got to see what my "EDGE" would do hitting a moose in close using a 300grn otm, something I was apprehensive about because of the high speed. I got the edge because we continually see moose on distant ridges to far for the 300 win mag.

The moose was quarting slightly looking almost straight at my son at about 250yrds. When he pulled the trigger the moose dropped like a rock! We have killed a lot of moose in the the 30+ years living here in Alaska and never seen one go down like that, even with a perfect neck shot using a 300 win.

The bullet hit the heaviest part of the rib cage bone between the neck and shoulder and made a cleane golf ball size hole all the way back to the far side kidney. When we found the bullet 80% of the lead was gone and about 90% of the jacket was shredded into three even parts still in one piece.
Tom

 

[Pdvdh]

What size/number drill bit can be used to verify they are open? I am shooting the 180 and 140 hybrids and will be using them on antelope this fall.

'elkaholic' makes bullets for his own use, and has tested a lot of different bullets for expansion at reduced velocity. He's told me that he runs a 0.040" drill bit down into the tips of the VLD/Hybrid/OTM style bullets he uses, to ensure the hole is opened to a uniform diameter. Also told me that a guy could use a 0.050" drill bit if he wanted to thin down the jacket a little more to help weaken the jacket at its leading edge. I've never done this, because I already own $200 worth of Montour County Rifles' meplat uniforming tools to trick up the tips on .338, .308, and .284 diameter bullets. The additional benefit of these tools is the precise manner of the hollow-pointing feature. The leading edge of the jacket can be trimmed in a precise and repeatable shape to a sharp edge, or to any degree one desires, leaving a V-shaped hole in the tip of the bullet to catch and drive meat/flesh/water into the void. Now I don't know that is exactly what happens when these bullets expand properly, but that's the physical concept initiating expansion in my mind, and that's why I think the wider and weakened leading edge at the tip of the bullet jacket improves the odds of the bullet expanding.

If I didn't have the Kevin Cram tool, I would run the small drill bit into the tips using a drill press, as elkaholic recommends. I don't know what size/number drill bit that equates to, but a 1/16" drill is 0.0625". I've going to take my dial/digital calipers to the local hardware store and purchase a 0.050" diameter drill bit. I tried to drill out the jacket tip on the 300gr .338 OTM I encountered with the sealed tip. That bullet tip was so tightly sealed that my 1/16" drill bit wouldn't track and center down the tip of the bullet jacket. The drill bit squirreled off to the side and exited the side of the bullet. That's is to say, the jacket was a solid mass of copper with no remaining pilot hole to center and pilot the drill bit. So the drill bit won't work on every single bullet, as I experienced failure in trying to open up this bullet tip with a drill bit. But the drill bit should work on the vast majority of bullets with even the tiniest pilot hole remaining in the jacket.

A small diameter drill bit will at least ensure the jacket tips have a similar sized open cavity (hollow-point). That might be enough. Dunno. I don't have vast, extensive first hand experience. I don't kill enough large game animals to report extensively from first hand experiences. I've only harvested 3 large game animals with the meplat uniformed and hollow-pointed tips, over the past four hunting seasons. Two 210gr .308 VLDs and one 168gr .284 VLD. These were all ribs shots, and all bullets expanded on these animals.

Why all the fuss, is what some readers must be thinking by now? I have first-hand experiences with three expanding bullets that failed to expand on game animals - over the past 43 years. These three animals were eventually recovered for inspection and confirmation of zero bullet expansion. I had one additional negative experience that caused suspicion, but that bear wasn't recovered to I don't absolutely know. Two bullet failures were experienced with Nosler Ballistic Tips. One at 12yds and one at 200yds. The third bullet was a 210gr Berger VLD at ~325yds. With all the time I invest in preparation trying to make sure my equipment is in good working order and ready to go prior to each hunting season, it's a bitter disappointment when my expanding style bullet doesn't expand. And the experience justs gets worse if a wounded animal escapes with a hole punched thru its torso. Thus my quest to eliminate FMJ performance from my 'expanding' hunting bullets. And why I state I'll take my chances with overly agressive bullet expansion, compared to no bullet expansion at all. The readers should understand that I target the lungs with broadside profiles 100% of the time. I don't aim for the front shoulders. My LRH bullet only needs to be tough enough to perform on rib cage hits. For LRH use on game, I seek a bullet that will enter the rib cage behind the front shoulders, expand internally, and exit the other side of the rib cage - or not. The exit isn't critical to me. If the bullet expands in the boiler room, I'm content either way.

I should also inform that I carry and use tougher controlled expansion bullets for closer range encounters with bear/moose/game. I've never encountered a controlled expansion bullet that wasn't accurate enough to cleanly harvest large game animals at closer ranges, after sighting my rifle in with my LRH bullets. This is to say, I don't require my long range hunting bullets also perform at close range. So I carry controlled expansion bullets in my magazine and use them should I choose to kill an animal at close range. That's just the way I choose to operate. We have large bears and large moose where I live and hunt, and I want confidence my short range use bullets will penetrate deeply into these huge animals, under any exposure profile presented - such as a head-on charge.

 

[Pdvdh]

I'm sure you all have read the .338 article on ballisticstudies.com. It talks about the elite hunter VLDs and says they should be annealed and meplat trimmed and only used on large bodied deer to 1800 fps. The article mainly focuses on the fact that the .338 drives bullets too slow to be effective but I think there are enough examples of pros and cons that individual testing is required. Seems like meplat trimming and loosing 2% BC isn't too bad for better terminal performance.
How much do you trim them down?

I'm trimming my meplats to about 0.065" diameter. I've read others recommend 0.070" in order to enhance the certainty of expansion at lower impact velocity.

Here's some articles that may be of interest:
Berger VLD annealing tutorial

The Effects Of The Meplat On Terminal Ballistics

SST and Interbond annealing tutorial

 

[jrock]

Thanks, I had read about the 0.07" and was wondering if you did the same.

Makes me wonder about switching to the 285 grain A-max. Don't have to meplat trim or anneal to get expansion on that one. Probably not a good close range bullet but 285 grains of exploding copper and lead will do some serious damage to a target with a well placed shot.

A friend of a friend shot a moose at 1300+ yards and pulled the 300 grain VLD bullet out of the heart. Didn't say much about expansion but got the impression that it didn't expand much. This created my curiosity in the "need" to modify the "larger" VLDs to get the most terminal performance out of them.

Losing 5% on the BC of the 300 gr VLD takes it from 0.818 to 0.771 which is still higher than the A-max (0.720).

 

[IAHNTR]

phorwath - Thank you for that. I have been searching on and off for that info. I do not necessarily want to enlarge the meplat, but to make sure it is unobstructed. I read somewhere where a simple staple can be used to poke down inside, but I feel like a proper sized drill bit turned by hand would work better.

 

[Pdvdh]

Makes me wonder about switching to the 285 grain A-max. Don't have to meplat trim or anneal to get expansion on that one. Probably not a good close range bullet but 285 grains of exploding copper and lead will do some serious damage to a target with a well placed shot.

The 285gr Hornady Amax has some proponents on MidwayUSA. They seem to be priced slightly less too, for those that shoot a lot of rocks.

Hornady A-Max Bullets 338 Cal (338 Diameter) 285 Grain Boat Tail Box

Hornady's web site is advertising a G1 BC value of 0.778

Dunno if that's an accurate BC value for their bullet or not. Is the 0.721 BC value you reference coming from Bryan Litz testing?

 

[jrock]

The 0.72 was the BC that Midway gives. Hornady's website gives the 0.778.
Didn't notice the difference until you pointed it out. Maybe the 0.72 is old. Was seeing that number on some forums dated 2 years ago. I guess I'll have to look at that a bit closer if I buy a box.

I thought I read on this site that the Bergers are more accurate which wouldn't surprise me. They have better bullet tolerances than other brands I've used.