Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Interesting article on the Berger VLD and the John Burns connection

Dober,

I had sighted the 300RUM in for dead on at 300....it dropped about 12 inches or so at 450.

Re. the STW, I had just cleaned the bbl, and had oil in it. Yes, the first shot in all my clean, oiled rifles is always off a bit.

That particular rifle only takes one shot to settle in after cleaning. After that, it is always on with the first shot.

Also, about the Bergers "story" of melted lead core causing the problem....ain't buying it. First of all, it is the expanding gas that creates most of the heat in a bbl and in the millisecond or so the bullet travel down the bbl, the heat due to friction is an order of magnitude less than the heat from the expanding gases.

I would guess that most of the target crowd was molly coating them anyway, which would further reduce the heat due to friction. I shoot with the bench rest crowd all the time at my gun club....they all run molly. Actually, the truth be known, the guru of bench rest at our club, who wins most of the matches, makes his own rifles and his own bullets....mollied of course.

I also believe that the problems were simply due to the jackets being too thin and the bullets self destructed due to centrifical force. Simple fix...make the jackets thicker.

Tony

While there's a bunch of stuff that seems counterintuitive about a Berger VLD for hunting use, I can only say from experience, that they kill quicker for me than any other bullet I have used.

In the end, it really doesn't matter what the bullet was originally designed for. It's the result that counts. A baseball bat wasn't designed to be a club, but it makes a pretty darn good one...

John

hicountry,
I am not in either court here. Have you tried shooting the Berger VLDs?
I have shot Bergers in my .300 Wby quite a bit now, and have run them pretty darn fast. I have never had one not reach the target.

Would I shoot them at game?... I would likely use them for deer or 'lope without reservation, but that would be about my limit.

Hard to argue about a bullet that JB has had so much success with, he along with others keep saying they kill quicker than any other bullets they have used, sounds like JB had if figured out along time ago!!

Both JB's here, Burns and Barsness have reported very good results with the VLD's.

Burns gets no respect but most folks here hold Barsness in high regard.

I have yet to try VLD's but reading about both JB's experiences with them I'm going to give them a try!

Me too!

I'll only add that yes, the BARREL causes cores to melt WHEN the barrel gets hot--as it does sometimes when shooting several shots rapidly. I have seen this myself with some varmint bullets when shooting prairie dogs.

That was the problem with the thinner-jacket VLD's. But I have shot thousands of them through cool barrels and have yet to see one come apart before it punched a hole in paper or a big game animal.

Good luck. I still haven't gotten consistantly good groups with VLDs, and tried them in 6.5, 7mm, and .308. No doubt they will kill, but you got to hit the target first! I love Berger varmint and match bullets though.

I don't shoot VLD's, dear as poison this side of the sea. What I would say is that I would never know if one came apart on me in the field or not if I shot one. I would be more likely to blame myself for a poor trigger squeeze, not reading the wind or distance correctly, a misaligned scope or something. But for every shot I have ever missed, blaming a bullet coming apart would be the lowest percentage in my analysis.

My point being, how many people may have missed a shot when/if a vld came apart and blamed it on something else, hence the no reporting of such. Very different in the field compared to over the bench.

Isn't it common for VLD's to exceed magazine length once you get them to the lands as Berger recommends? That's not a minor problem in a hunting rifle.

........At one time Berger did reco seating their bullets up to and into the lands. They changed that because they found and determined that many rifles like bullet jump using the VLDs.

With my rifle for hunting use, I started VLD loadings using the max OAL the magazine would allow for, and then backed down 15/1000ths at a time for best accuracys, while at the same time adjusting the powder for best accuracys too.

OK. Hadn't heard that. I've had great luck with .22 Berger's in 22-250 and 223 but haven't shot VLD's in anything yet.

I ran the 140 in 6.5 last year with great on game performance. Spinning on a 9 twist Rock on my son's 7mm in an effort to run 180s in it. If not, 168s out to fly well. I was very pleased with how they worked last year and my rig liked them well off the lands as well.

The fray of a match bullet. The most definitive article that I have ever read is here:

(http://www.ballisticstudies.com/Knowledge+Base/7mm+Remington+Magnum.html)

Although it talks specifically about the 7MM I would guess the information would be the same for most caliber offerings.

interesting read... thanks.

OUTSTANDING article ssineden!!

Thanks, I've bookmarked it.

That was my thought as well. I guess a guy shouldn't use the hunting VLD unless they plan on getting the job done within the first 10 shots before the barrel heats up...