Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting Gunwerks VLD or Hybrid?

Does anyone know if Gunwerks uses the Berger VLD or hybrid's for the 180's? I'm very interested in running the 180 hybrids for hunting and have read every bit of info I can find on them.

If I'm not mistaken, there is a Berger VLD and there's the Berger Hybrid, two different bullets.
I'm confident that what you are interested in is the Berger VLD

I am sure Gunwerks is using the VLD and the Berger Hunting VLD is the one specified for hunting.

That being said I have read that the Hybrids are more forgiving about seating depths and there are reports that they work well for hunting as well.

Use the Hybrids for killing at your own risk as the are not advertised as a hunting bullet.

Sorry I changed the post, I brain farted about the hybrid not being titled VLD. I know the Hybrids aren't designed for hunting but I did a lot of reading on them and no one has anything bad to say about them for hunting. Some people contacted Berger regarding hunting with them and i saw a email from Berger where they stated they just hadn't done enough research yet to classify them as hunting. Here's a great read with a guy who hunts with the Berger crew.
http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/f19/berger-hybrid-bullets-92181/

I also read somewhere that gunwerks was using the 180 hybrids in there 7mm's. I'm thinking I'm going to give them a try this year.

They do have a Classic hunter, which is a hybrid.

Depending on who lists them, they could "classic hunter hybrid" or simply "classic hunter" as berger labels them.

The 7LRM i've seen from gunwerks are VLD's.

If you want a 180 hybrid it will be the match target version. I have also read of some good results with the target bullets on game.

The only hybrid hunting bullet at this point is the 168 classic hybrid. A friend killed a cow last year with this bullet from his 7 rem mag. His remark was that it was the fastest elk kill he had ever seen.

I use the 180 hybrids in a 7 rem mag and a 7mm/375. Haven't shot any game with them. Did use a 230 match target hybrid with my 300 RUM on a cow elk this year. Very impressed with the results. My friend also shot his cow with the 230 hybrid from a 300 WSM with a similar fast death.

I killed a small coues wt with the 105 berger match target hybrid from my 6mm-284. This target bullet performed just fine too.

There are many threads, mostly on LRH, regarding folks having excellent results on big game with the target hybrids.

I've seen the 168 hunters, but I'm in the process of building a STW and the main goal of the build is to run the 180's. I currently have a mark V STW and a KS STW and I shoot the 168 vld out of both them and have been happy with the results, but the goal of my first build is to extend the range in the wind and the 180's are the route I'm taking. I figure I will load up with the 180 hybrid's and try them on antelope first. Its the first season to open (Aug 15th) and I can shoot 4-5 does with them. If they perform on the antelope then they'll open on just about anything. I think its funny that even the Berger staff is using the Hybrids on there big hunting trip and they reported great performance. I'm going to give gunwerks a call and get there two cents on the matter. I had read somewhere that with there 7 lrm they were using the 180 hybrids on there hunts, which is the reason I was inquiring on the matter.

I would think 180 Hybrids would knock most any ungulates dick in the dirt pretty quickly, especially started at 3150.

Are you shooting 168s at mag length in your KS STW?

PS- the irony of your signature line is killing me!

Tanner

This past fall my buddy and myself used both bullets on mule deer and elk. We have almost identical guns (7 LRM's) mine is built on a Stiller action and his is built on a Winchester action. We shoot identical powder and powder weights in our handloads. I was shooting the 7mm 180 g VLD Hunting Bullets and he was shooting the 180 g Hybrids.

I shot my mule deer at 348 yards and it never took a step and was a complete pass through. My buddy shot his mule deer at 302 yards, was a complete pass through and the deer went 1 step before falling dead.

Both deer suffered massive internal damage.

We both shot cow elk out of the same herd at the same time. (the old shoot on 3, is that on 3 or 3 shoot?) Distances were almost identical, apx. 100 yards. Both cows went down instantly. Both bullets were lodged agaist the hide on the off side with MASSIVE interal damage. The VLD Hunting bullet weighed 48 grains and the Hybrid weighed 42 grains.

From our results this year, they appear to almost be identical in performace on animals.

Great info right here. Thanks for sharing your experiences c_ne_elk.

Aaron Davidson told me they run the 180 Hybrid which is a match bullet but evidently it works on game. I tried both vld's and hybrids in my lrm and the hybrids shot better.

Bb

Bd: I knew that's what I had heard. Haven't heard a single thing bad about hunting with the Hybrid's, plus from what I've heard getting them to shoot is a lot easier. I'm going to be running the 3.99 Wyatt box so I'm planning on stretching the STW out as far as possible. I had heard the Gunwerks guys said they had switched to the Hybrids from the VLD's and didn't notice any expansion issues at all.

C Ne Elk: Thanks for the info, what your saying is pretty much exactly what I have heard from everyone. The rounds are very very similar. I look at it as Bergers are made to go in and EXPAND, a slightly thicker jacket isn't going to keep the hollow point round from still opening up.

Tanner: Yeah I'm running the 168's in the factory mag box. Its a factory stainless KS STW (my unicorn). I was using the factory double tap 160 accubonds to get some brass stacked up and the gun loved them, but I wasn't very impressed with the accubonds at all. I was given two boxes of HSM 168 bergers and they shot amazing in the KS so I grabbed a bunch of the HSM ammo and figured I'd shoot that up and use the brass. I don't think HSM ammo is very consistent from batch to batch so I gave them up, but there ammo sold me on the bergers.

Now its looking like I'm going to be on the wait list for the 180 Hybrids for a couple months. I have 6 more weeks till the barrel arrives and RW Snyder is going to work his magic and throw the whole thing together so I have a little time to hunt them down. I'll be sure to post up pictures of my first full build and come August I'll be letting everyone know my thoughts on the Hybrids vs antelope.