Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 210 Berger for elk??

210 Berger by the way

I wouldn’t hesitate to take a quartering away shot with a Berger bullet. A frontal chest shot I normally pass on so probably wouldn’t with any bullet.

son and i have shot plenty elk mostly bulls with a bow and arrow a see no reason why Berger bullets of any type would not work. i personally like Berger bullets too they do seem to shoot accurately with most loads as do Nosler partitions.

Perfect performance for me with one deer and one elk. Fast killers. 180 grain 7mm VLD Hunter at 2950 FPS. I’d use them again. Ranges 100 - 650 yards.

On the whitetail, I purposely waited until he was at a cedar tree and shot him through the neck into the tree. Bullet exited and went way into the cedar. 110 yds

I've guided, hunting, shot, literally 100+ head of game with Berger. 7mm and bigger they are outstanding. I've killed elk with 140 VLD from my 6.5-284 but now use 143 ELD-X. I've used or seen used 210s and 200s on bears, deer and elk. Excellent killers. Most 7mm were the 180s. Amazing bullet. Nothing wrong with 210s for many years this was the biggest bullet Berger made.
When hunting in timber I'll throw in a tough, hard bullet for a close shot. Berger in reserve for the long shots.

Seen 210’s bidness via 300 rum, antelope, elk and deer. Wasn’t impressed, neither was Tyler. Antelope never even flinched, walked a fair amount, tipped over. Deer/elk same way… from what some dummy’s say, I guess you gotta drill out the tips??? 😂😂

I’ll take something that “works”… 👍😎

Yeah, if they won’t open at RUM speeds, something isn’t right.

Greg is an outfitter, and a great one at that.

Buddy is deer hunting right now. Has a new rifle in 300PRC. Very accurate
Uses 210 VLDs. Shoot a few this week. Told me that bullet is " nasty". No problem with expansion at 600 yards

Oh, the carnage! I am 70 years old and never tried to shoot deer or elk with target boolits. Maybe they work just fine, but the last 3 bulls I killed, including the one last week, were one-shot drops with 168 gr TTSX and the ones before that fell to Trophy Bonded Bear Claws.

Not disputing any of the Berger claims on here, just my opinion that there are better big game boolits out there. I just keep on using what works well for me and never lose sleep over lost critters.

Happy Trails

I've never had a bang- flop with a Barnes bullet. Seems to take them a while to bleed. Lots of bang- flops with Berger. That said, they have their place.

The second part is obviously false, or he would recommend quality bullets to his clients.

Bergers have an exceptionally high failure rate on large game. And they offer nothing in compensation for that failure - their BCs are really no better than say the Terminal Ascent line. But the TAs have the best terminal performance in the business.

Bergers blow up - that's what they do. If you get lucky, they blow up in such a way the animal goes down fast. If you get unlucky, they blow up in such a way you never see the animal again.

Is your hunting plan to depend on luck?

I’ve seen a whole pile of bang-flops with Barnes, but as usual, shot placement matters.

Hey Jordan,

Did I already ask the 175 VLD in a 308 for elk question? I have a gazillion 155 SCENARS, but this load is almost one hole in both of my 308 Tikkas.

And I figure, once you develop the dope and commit to dialing, there isn't much difference. It's all about groups at distance and terminal performance.

last year 2020 i killed a huge whitetail buck and a normal nice buck also found both bucks easy using Berger bullets , these Berger bullets did blow up but went thru both northern Minnesota bucks. 2021 opener weekend my son shot another Minnesota huge buck " dressed 225 lbs. " but bullet blew up on the back of the front shoulder blade facing my son bullet fragments did kill the buck quickly ,no blood trail because bullet parts did not exit ,buck fell over about 75 yards away in thick tamarack swamp ,took us awhile to find him. we use 257 Weatherby mags. 115 gr. Berger VLD hunting bullets all 3 of these bucks the last buck was shot around 100 yards away. I do kinda wonder about Berger bullet some now , never had a problem with exit with Nosler partitions with my 257 Weatherby mags. with bullet exit and blood trails in the past on deer , i always used Nosler partitions for elk so i don`t have any experience shooting elk with a Berger bullet . > would i elk hunt with Berger bullets if i go elk hunting again nope not me going back to old reliable Nosler partition for deer and even elk, but that`s just me . good luck to all no matter what bullet you use or like ,Pete53

Me.............. I wouldn't! I'd agree with pete53.

Will they kill? Sure. All rifles will. Getting shot would never be confused with a blessing. A few elephants have died after being shot with 22 LRs. I guess that is proof the little 22 is OK for elephant, in the minds of those that did it.

But for the prescribed use, the Burger is on the bottom of my list of bullets I'd CHOOSE to hunt with. Just because they kill doesn't mean they do it better than other bullets.

Any good bonded bullet or partition would be far above any Burger on my list of bullets to choose from. In fact many cup and core bullets I have used did a lot better too. Plane white box Winchester Power points for one.

That’s my take also. Obviously the vast majority of the time any bullet stuck in the rib cage will work but Burger made its name making pinpoint accurate high BC precision long range bullets. I’d personally rather use a bullet that made its name as hunting/terminal performance bullet such as a Partition or TTSX.

Use whatever you want, I could care less.

Keep using the wrong bullet at wrong impact velocities and keep bitching about it, I could care less.

I don't think so, but you're absolutely right. Precision, wind drift, and terminal performance are what matter. There is a slight difference in MPBR between the two loads before you need to start dialing, but not enough to matter to me.