Originally Posted by T_Inman
I don't know if it is just a coincidence or what, but I just have not had the same experience as some of you all with bergers and elk shoulders.

Here's typical 6.5mm 140 grain berger performance for me on non-shoulder shot elk. Extra cow at 438 yards away, IIRC. Two shots tight behind the shoulder. She then trotted 20 yards and fell over. Perfectly adequate lethality, but not the exit and instant death performance some of you all seem to have time and time again. They're supposed to expand violently once inside the critter (which these did) but I sure am not seeing exits or instant death like others are. I dug both of these out of the rib meat on the far side, and they were not resting up against the hide like other bullets usually are. I think I have recovered six (6) 140 grain bergers like this now out of lung shot elk, and I can think of four (4) other lung shot elk I shot in which I didn't fish around in the soupy lung cavity to find the expanded berger(s).
[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]

Hitting elk on the shoulder with these has produced nothing but misery for me. Not ruined meat mind you, but rodeos in getting another bullet in them. I'm glad others have found elk bullets that they're confident with in the berger, but I've come to different conclusions with regards to their shoulders.




Odd that you’ve had issues on shoulders with them.

I don’t see exits very often with scenars or Berger’s either (I actually prefer them to not exit) so we have the same experience there. but I’ve never had to track an animal very far that’s been hit with one. Overall they’re the fastest killing bullets I’ve used.

Many years ago I had one splatter on a shoulder without much penetration but have not seen it since. I did recover that elk and wish I would’ve investigated a little better, I’ve wondered since then if the bullet hit something first or was tumbling slightly on impact, shoulder was mangled on the entrance side. It was a one time deal and I personally don’t worry about it happening again, [bleep] happens.

A friend did have some fail to expands with hybrids on a mountain goat a few years ago, the Goat was recovered but caused some grief with the recovery. I’ve been cleaning out the tips since then with a tiny PCB drill bit to ease my mind, so far so good.