Pics of Berger Bullets NOT Performing????

[barnesuser28]

We were probably both just put on an anti hunting organization's "watch list". LOL

 

[500mag_guy]

Probably not the only list were on! Lol we both have been awarded a drone. Hahah

 

[Pdvdh]

Re: Meplat-Uniformed and Hollow-Pointed Berger 210 VLD Bullet Performance

The meplat-trimmed and hollow-pointed VLD bullets I shot the caribou with produced a result in the direction I was looking for. I was surprised at how that relatively minor tip modification produced such rapid expansion upon impact on the entry side of the animal. This demonstrated that the size and shape of the tips of the VLDs bears heavily on terminal performance. It also infers that a slight deviation in tips during manufacture of the bullets, such as tips that may be pinched closed during production, could heavily impact terminal performance. I do believe that the very small percentage of closed tips that are produced and shipped from the factory play a role in the small percentage of incidents where the VLDs fail to expand on game. But I also have learned that any bullet designed to expand can also, unexpectedly fail to expand on game. I say this because of my experience with a 150gr Nosler Ballistic Tip on a Dall sheep at 12-13 yards from a .280 RCBS Improved. Bullet entered the middle of the ribs and exited the middle of the ribs on a completely broadside shot. No expansion. The animal was still alive, ill and bedded down 20 minutes later, at which time I killed it with another shot. I then confirmed everything I'm relating here during field dressing and examination. Some are incredulous when they hear of this experience. They can't fathom that a Ballistic Tip could fail to expand at that high velocity impact on an animal the size of a mature deer.

My Ballistic Tip experience is not meant to dismiss 'elkaholic's comment. I do agree that a tipped bullet is the expanding bullet design most apt to ensure terminal expansion on game. These tips (quite a bit larger in diameter than the hollow core in the tip of a VLD) being forced back into a lead core bullet upon impact with game is a reliable initiator of expansion.

Here are a couple links I recently came across and found interesting, from a fellow in New Zealand. One discusses annealing the tips of Berger VLDs to help promote expansion at lower impact velocity than might otherwise occur with the factory bullets. It includes an annealing video tutorial. The author states: "Annealing (softening) is one method of encouraging fragmentation of the VLD, meplat trimming to 70 thou and sacrificing BC for fast clean killing is another method."

Berger VLD annealing tutorial

And here's another video tutorial and discussion on annealing the Hornady SST and Interbond bullets:

SST and Interbond annealing tutorial

Nosler's recent production of their AccuBond Long Range line of bullets is an interesting blend of a tipped, bonded core bullet, with pretty good aerodynamics (BC). Initial reports on performance are sounding pretty good. Certainly an attractive option for those preferring tipped, bonded core bullets for long range hunting.

Resurrecting an old Thread. Observed a sheep shot with one of my Berger 210 VLD meplat-uniformed and hollow pointed bullets this past week. The bullet performed very well at 350 yards. Impact side damage was about normal and bullet expanded and performed very well. Much different bullet performance on the entrance side than was observed on the caribou from 2013. Don't have any pictures, but I was skinning and field dressing the ram, so I saw the bullet performance first hand. I have no verdict yet on these meplat-uniformed VLDs. This bullet expanded pretty typical of a Berger 210 VLD, and the sheep dropped in about 2-3 seconds after the shot. Bullet struck toward the back of the ribs - broadside - with several exit holes through the hide out the ribs on the far side. Rifle was 300 Win Mag with muzzle velocity of 2940 fps. I have a couple hundred of these meplat-uniformed bullets and will use them again, based on this experience.

 

[Pdvdh]

Several more large game animals have been killed with the meplat uniformed and hollow-pointed Berger bullets. Very satisfactory terminal performance. I haven't had any meplat uniformed and hollow-pointed bullets fail to expand so far. Between my hunting buddy and I, we've only fired maybe 8-10 of these prepared bullets into large game animals. But the track record is good so far - better than my experiences without meplat uniforming and hollow-pointing the bullets.

 

[Pdvdh]

All,

I am still following this thread to respond when I believe I can be helpful. Our testing will take time but we will continue to work on this situation until we can sort out why these things occur even if they occur infrequently.

Regards,
Eric

Eric,
Is there any information to be shared for the benefit of the membership? Thanks,
Paul

 

[HunterGreen]

I and the same issue in 2013 on big whitetail, 168gr Berger hunting vld. Bullet pencilled in and out, took over 3 hours to find buck. After detailed inspection of wound. All vital organs were intact and had little hole.

What's ****es me off, when I posted my concerns with Berger, I was vilified and ridiculed. They're people in this forum that believe their shooting God's, smh.

 

[RockyMtnMT]

I and the same issue in 2013 on big whitetail, 168gr Berger hunting vld. Bullet pencilled in and out, took over 3 hours to find buck. After detailed inspection of wound. All vital organs were intact and had little hole.

What's ****es me off, when I posted my concerns with Berger, I was vilified and ridiculed. They're people in this forum that believe their shooting God's, smh.

I am curious how far this buck traveled before expiring? I am not looking to confront you. I have no allegiance to Berger, never used them. I have seen this before on a few occasions and want to know more about yours.

Steve

 

[HunterGreen]

I remember land owner truck crossed the field towards a small wooded island past neighbor property where that same neighbor saw a buck collapse in adjacent field. Roughly 1 freaking mile.

 

[RockyMtnMT]

I remember land owner truck crossed the field towards a small wooded island past neighbor property where that same neighbor saw a buck collapse in adjacent field. Roughly 1 freaking mile.

Had that kind of thing years ago when my buddy shot a 20yard shot on a buck that we rattled in with a 300wm factory ammo. I don't remember the bullet I think it was a lead tip of some sort. We never recovered the buck so don't know for sure how it was hit. We chalked it up to too close too high vel for the bullet to open up. I had one years ago that I felt failed to do internal damage it was not a Berger. It penciled both lungs, no blood, finally found the dead deer. Had one the other day that traveled 50 yards with very little blood trail in wet leaves and rain. Vitals were as expected but the deer just did not bleed outside. Inside was a mess.

Steve

 

[feawgresg]

I've seen Bergers look like that but only after flying to the 2000 yard mark, tips will look started to open the they go sideways and turn into bananas.

 

[Eric Stecker]

Eric,
Is there any information to be shared for the benefit of the membership? Thanks,
Paul

We have no new information but we are still working the solution. Our greatest challenge continues to be that our tests have have been unable to reproduce the results being reported.

This is a frustrating result which compels us to consider things from every possible angle. One consideration is that in our testing, we can duplicate many things but we lack the rifle used and more importantly we suspect, the animal shot.

To clarify, we are puzzled by how the bullets perform as expected in the different media we've used (wax and gelatin) and the animals we've shot. We consider how these results can be different between our tests and the conditions associated with the report.

A test we are considering is to use the rifle associated with the report and the actual animal shot as the media. Needless to say this type of testing presents significant challenges but we are sorting out how we can make this real because of how important it is to us to have answers to these questions.

Reports of hunting bullets not doing what is expected when it comes to terminal performance is consistent among all brands. It compels us to consider what are some common characterstics of such reports. Could it be that the makeup of a given animal can play role in how the bullet performs.

I wouldn't have thought so before we started exploring this situation but as we go through this process we are eliminating things we suspected to be the cause. The list of possibilities that remain is getting shorter and shorter, leaving us with possibilities we wouldn't have considered initially.

We are working on this situation from two different directions. We have a material engineer going over how we make our bullets to see if we can identify something that will produce the reported results.

We are also working on a new testing lab that will allow us to expand our volume of testing. The objective here is to increase our testing to produce more refined terminal performance data. We expect that increased testing will not only clarify our bullets performance but we will also be observing these tests to see if we can reproduce the results in some unexpected way.

This situation continues to be a high priority. I apologize to anyone who believes we haven't taken their report seriously. I am a hunter and I know how extremely frustrating it is when after all the time, money and energy spent on your hunt you watch an animal run off after you pull the trigger.

As far as I am concerned, anything other than an animal quickly on the ground is a failure. The challenge we are faced with now is discovering and understanding the root cause of that failure. We will continune to pursue the root cause until we get as close as is possible to 100% performance.

Regards,
Eric Stecker
President
Berger Bullets

 

[Pdvdh]

Thank you for this update Eric. I'm sure you have multiple priorities, and I'm glad to hear that this issue remains one of them.

 

[feawgresg]

I've seen Bergers look like that but only after flying to the 2000 yard mark, tips casesam.co.uk will look started to open the they go sideways and turn into ourcase.co.uk bananas.

just can not edit the post

 

[Swamplord]

This situation continues to be a high priority. I apologize to anyone who believes we haven't taken their report seriously. I am a hunter and I know how extremely frustrating it is when after all the time, money and energy spent on your hunt you watch an animal run off after you pull the trigger.

As far as I am concerned, anything other than an animal quickly on the ground is a failure. The challenge we are faced with now is discovering and understanding the root cause of that failure. We will continune to pursue the root cause until we get as close as is possible to 100% performance.

Regards,
Eric Stecker
President
Berger Bullets

Most awesome response ever !