Who uses Berger bullets for elk? Results/experiences please.
No personal experience with the Berger bullets but I don�t find any reason to try them, either, based on both Berger�s own claims as well as reports of those that have used them.
Mule Deer states the following:
The three big draws for Bergers are:
1) Extreme accuracy.
2) Very high ballistic coefficient.
3) Most conventional expanding bullets, whether the SST, Nosler Partition or Barnes TSX, start to expand as soon as they hit skin. Berger VLD's don't start to expand for 2-3 inches, so the big damage is inside the animal, where the vital organs are. They can tear up meat around the exit hole, but the entrance hole is essentially like a poke with a knitting needle.
They also do more INTERIOR damage than any other bullet I've used, and I've used a bunch. The damage you saw from the SST's is nothing compared to what a Berger Hunting VLD does to the innards of a big game animal. Consequently animals die very quickly. I doubt your elk would have stayed on its feet long enough to be shot again if the first bullet had been a Berger.
Here are my thoughts on the matter.
1. Extreme accuracy. While I haven�t hunted as much as many on this forum, I�ve been hunting Colorado�s elk since 1982, missing only one or two years. Don�t know how many elk I�ve taken in total but since the year 2000 I�ve taken 10. �Extreme accuracy� has never been required but my longest shot was last year at 400 yards +/- a yard or so (and resulted in a downed elk, 300WM and 180g Barnes MRX). If my rifles are doing MOA (~1� at 100 yards), I�m good with that. I practice regularly out to 600 yards using steel plates and clay pigeons as targets. In 2010 I took a .300WM and a .30-06 to the range for a final check-out before going elk hunting. With a total of 5 shots fired I hit a clay pigeon with both rifles. I don�t recall what bullet I was using in the .300 but it was either a North Fork SS or Barnes MRX. I do remember the bullet in the .30-06 � a Nosler 150g AccuBond. A few days that rifle and bullet combo dropped a cow so fast she was on the ground before I recovered from the recoil, range a lasered 262 yards. The next day my son-in-law dropped one with a 180g Winchester Powerpoint using his .300WM, range a lasered 363 yards. Same results, on the ground instantly. Extreme accuracy is a bonus but not a reason for me to choose a bullet when other bullets are way more than accurate enough for my needs.
2. Very high ballistic coefficient. Yawn. With a laser range finder, adjusting for drop is no big deal. Wind is the bigger factor and a very high ballistic coefficient will help there, especially at very long ranges. The difference at 600 yards between a .30 caliber Barnes 165g TTSX (BC .442) and a Berger 168g VLD (BC .492) (2900fps, 7000ft altitude, 50 degrees, 250 yard zero, 10mph crosswind) calculates to be about 2.5� vertical and 3� horizontal.
3. Berger claims 2-3� of penetration before the VLDs start to shed �40-85� of their weight as shrapnel, resulting in �a massive wound cavity within the vital area (internal organs) that will be 13� to 15� long�. This more than any other is the reason I won�t use them. One made it all of 40 yards, another made it about 25 yards and all the others have gone down either where they stood or within a few steps. More than once I�ve joked that the only way they would go down faster is if they dropped before the shot, the point being that terminal performance isn�t exactly lacking in the bullets I use.
Almost any bullet will work when things go according to plan. I figure most of the elk I�ve taken would have succumbed quickly to my .22-250 with a varmint bullet given the same placement, which is usually behind the front leg. What concerns me is what happens when things DON�T go as planned. A few year back I took an easy �can�t miss� behind-the-leg quartering away shot at a standing mulie buck. The buck stepped forward and turned just as the trigger broke and placement ended up being in the lower right ham. The 140g North Fork I was using held together and was recovered from up against the sternum. The buck was on the ground before I recovered from the recoil. So what if the buck had been an elk (I had a bull tag in my pocket) and I had been using a Berger bullet? Would the bull have gone down with a �13-15� of penetration or would it have been like the bull I saw running away from a kid that shot it in the right rear quarter with a .243, never to be recovered? With the bullets I use I don�t worry about penetration or adequate wound cavities. Well, that isn�t exactly true � I do worry about penetration as in over-penetration. My hunting buddies and I have taken elk, deer and antelope with Barnes TTSX and MRX and we�ve yet to recover one.
Everyone has to make their own decisions as to what bullets to use, based on whatever criteria is important to them. For me, Berger VLDs and most cup-and-core bullets, simply don�t provide what I�m looking for - high weight retention with reliable but controlled and limited expansion, deep penetration and good accuracy, with a high BC is a plus but not a requirement. The bullets I use most are North Fork SS and FP; Barnes TTSX and MRX; and Nosler AccuBond. So far they have all worked with no complaints on my part.
