Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada Anyone use Berger match grade VLD's for hunting???

Dunnooo about that don....So lets say you are hunting the wiiiidde open spaces like maybe some Milk River river breaks....You bounce up a big 'ol whitetail....A really nice 170class deer....YOU'RE going to let him run for 300 or 400 yards to make sure your bullet choice is applicable? And then wait for him to present a good broadside shot to ensure adequate penetration before violent expansion?

Oh that one is easy. Just shout MAW and they stop and turn back to look. Gotta run now but those Milk River river breaks sound beautiful.

We ain't talking about a doe in a food plot.........

Why not learn how to "hunt" and get closer, and use a bullet that has been designed for the job?.

Dave,

We visited friends in GB back in the 90's and I made a point of stopping in all of the gun shops I could get to. I was in Crudgingtons in Bath getting the tour and making a pest of myself.

After spouting off on how hard hunting is in Vermont, USA, that I might get only one running shot and that if I am lucky so I use the .358 Winchester. Nothing else will do. That I have blasted maybe a hundred deer with it and I know.

A customer speaks up. He had been listening and mentions that he uses the 7-57.

So I asked him. "How many deer have you shot?. He answers "maybe 750".

I say, "Don't they run sometimes?" and he answers "Oh thats ok the dog always finds them".

To each his own.

99 sorry,not sure what you mean with the "deer running" and the dog bit

I know that the .358 Win using the 180 gr Speer is more effective, in particular with marginal hits, that any 7-57 for the woods hunting that I am familiar with.

The game keeper at Crudgingtons meant deer that got away at the shot. That the dog would find them. In other words he was not overly concerned as the dog always found them he said.

Ok.
For those that dont know,it is considered VERY poor practice to shoot running game over here,infact where i am a contract stalker who guides, if anybody shoots a deer on the run they are BANNED.I think what the chap is refureing to is that we do not expect the deer to drop at the shot, if it does then caution is taken to ensure that it has not been spined,part of the certification process is how the animal reacts to the shot eg. if it is gut shot the animal will hunch up and run off were as a heart/lung shot the animal will leap forward.We dont head shoot very rarely neck shoot and never shoot them up the ass.If were shooting on the edge of woodland and the animal runs into the woods it will normaly be within 20/30yards if that.If after 5 /10 mins and we still havn`t found it then the dogs go in.

All right, since apparently many of those posting here are theorizing on what a Berger VLD will do, and have never seen one at work or read my article, I will summarize:

Berger VLD's do have very thin jackets and soft lead cores. But they also have an extremely long ogive and tiny hollowpoint. This apparently prevents the bullets from expanding at all until it gets 1.5-2 inches inside an animal.

This was discovered slowly--and not by Berger. Some people tried shooting animals with the VLD's, and the bullets worked. Berger got many favorable reports, so started their own investigation. Initial tests in "media" revealed the lack of expansion in the first couple of inches--when every other expansing bullet on the market starts to expand immediately on impact with either media or animal tissue. (Or at least it does when it expands at all. On rare occasions expanding bullets don't.)

Eventually it was decided to test them on a LOT of game animals. This was done in two ways: by distributing VLD's free to volunteer deer hunters who handloaded, and by having some gun/hunting writers go to New Zealand and shoot the heck out of the super-abundant "exotic" game down there.

There were about 160 volunteer hunters who handloaded. They all reported favorable results, and no bullet failures.

I was one of the gun/hunting writers who went to New Zealand. We shot a pile of animals, mostly feral goats but also red stags up to 400 pounds or so live weight. The feral goats are about the size of Southern whitetails, but are also one of the toughest animals alive (which can be attested to by anybody who has shot them on control).

At the start of the shoot, the NZ outfitter told us (after merely looking at a loaded round) that we had absolutely the wrong bullet for shooting goats, that we needed a round-nose with lots of lead showing. By the end of the first 24 hours, the NZ boys said the VLD the best goat bullet they had ever seen.

We not only shot the heck out of things, but we autopsied many animals. The lack of expansion for 2" or so was consistent--EVEN WHEN THE BULLET HIT BONE. I finally propped up a dead bily goat that had been killed with a lung shot, and deliberately shot it through the heaviest part of the shoulder bone at 10 yards. The bullet broke both shoulders and exited. This was with a 185 from a .30-06, started at over 2800 fps. My wife eventually shot a fallow deer female for meat, at 50 yards, putting a 115 from a .257 Roberts (MV 3000 or so) into the skull below the ear. Again, the bullet went almost through the head before expanding.

In fact, the entrance holes were so small that sometimes we had a hard time finding them. But the insides would be a mess, by far the most damage I've ever seen with an expanding bullet. This is the reason goats were killed so quickly. Broadside lung shots usualy dropped goats right there, or they went at most 10 yards.

The rifles and loads used were a pair of .257 Bobs (115 at 3000), a .264 Winchester Magnum (140 at 3000+), two .30-06's (168 and 185 at 2800-2900), and a couple of .300 Winchester Magnums (168 abd 185 at 3100-3200). Bullet action was remarkably similar regardless of range, and we shot goats from 20 to 530 yards. The bullet would go in 2" or so, then expand violently.

On goats it usually exited, but on the big red stags it exited about half the time. The most convincing kill I saw was a huge red stag shot in the liver and rear of one lung at 200 yards with one of the .257's. He humped up and started to walk off, but only made it about 15 feet before keeling over. The liver was liver-burger.

We NEVER saw any surface wounds, at any range with any load. Apparently there is something in the very long ogive that prevents expansion before the bullet gets inside.

As I said in the article, 400 pounds is kind of pushing the envelope, and VLD's do not penetrate far enough for rear-end shots. But put them in the chest and they knock the snot out of stuff. They are the quickest-killing bullets of deer-sized game I have ever used.

I not sure why anyone would take the chance on using a target bullet on game when we are in the golden age of hunting bullets.It's just irresponsible.(Unless your a writer doing some research?)

Two reasons seem to have emerged from this and other information.

1. Berger VLD's have superior ballistic properties.

2. "They are the quickest-killing bullets of deer-sized game I have ever used."
Quote from Mule Deer.

If Mr Johnny B. says it, you can take it to the bank... A couple hundred animals cant be wrong...

SawDoctor,

I often get asked to test new stuff, and generally accept if possible, because there is always something to learn. When Berger asked me to test the VLD's I was skeptical, but I am also a journalist who long ago decided to try as much of possible for myself before coming to conclusions. I have done this with a lot of things that many people have firm opinions about (whether they have tried them or not) including fenced hunting and iron sights at over 150 yards. I have always learned something from these experiences, often something not included in "common wisdom."

One of the reasons I do this is that early in my career I often tried stuff on the word of other gun writers, who wrote more on theory than fact. An example was the first version of the Speer Grand Slam. This was written up by many gun writers as the latest premiumn bullet in the mid-1970's, and so I tried some for elk hunting, partly because they cost a little less than Nosler Partitions. I found out the hard way that the original Grand Slam was a perfect example of a "premium" hunting bullet designed without any field testing, as it came apart pretty easily. (GS's did get pretty good after a while.)

So since then I have made it my policy to test any new bullet myself, first in various test media and then on game. In the process I have found that not all of the great new bullets of our golden age aren't quite what they are claimed to be.

I have also found that today's common wisdom that a bullet has to retain over 90% of its weight and penetrate elk endwise, or it won't kill well, is also BS. Among other things I have found that 90% weight retention does not guarantee adequate penetration, and that an exit hole does not guarantee an animal will drop quickly.

Conversely, I have also found that some bullets not designed for particular tasks work great there. Such was the case with the Bergers. For whatever reason they work, and I know they do because I tried them, not once but a bunch. They do come apart, but only after penetrating--and coming apart is not the evil believed by common wisdom these days. It makes a much bigger hole in the animal, and the size of the hole is what kills, not 90% weighr retention or an exit.

So what I've found is that a lot of bullet design theory is just that, whether we are talking bullets designed for hunting that don't work so well for that purpose, or bullets designed for target shooting that DO work very well for some hunting. If we insist on depending on labels applied to anything, we will always be in for some surprises.

Are you crazy? Valuing personal experience over "internet ballistic geniuses" who have never actually shot the bullet at game just can't be right. Maybe you got some defective goats.

That's it! Probably the New Zealanders heard about us coming and herded all their "bad goats" over to where we were shooting. Oh, those wascally Kiwis!

I've some 6.5 140 VLD's loaded in a 6.5x284 that will go with me
this spring bear hunt.

Hopefully I'll use them.

So, MD, are you saying that there are no longer reasons other then Africa for hardend BT's, Partitions, Grand Slams, Trophy Bonded's, etc.? And, the only reason for non-lead mono's in CONUS is the condor area in CA? Sounds like it to me. Heck, seems like Nosler, etc. will be out of business soon.

Elmer Keith is rolling in his grave.

Just a quick question while you guys are on the berger discussion.....and Im tired of trying to find the info.

What are the bullet lengths for the .284 168 and 180 VLD's? Thanks

Shot two buck Antelope in Wyoming last Fall with my NULA 257AI, using 115gr VLDs.

The first antelope, was lying down and broadside, at a lasered 233 yds. At the bullet hit , the Antelope jumped up, and ran about 15 yds, and then its head went down, and the the rear end flipped over the head. The antelope then jumped up again, back in the direction from which it had come, and ran about 10 yds, and again the head dropped down and the rear end flipped over the head. It did not move after that.

When I examined the animal, the bullet had entered the lower chest cavity, and blew out the chest that resulted in a gaping wound about 3" wide there. The heart was completely destroyed.

Heart shot animals can do some strange things, but I had never seen anything like this before. Fortunately, the whole kill was captured on video by a friend.

The second Antelope was shot at a lasered 273 yds, was standing broadside, and dropped on the shot. It was a high lung shot that destroyed both lungs(think soup), along with the arteries and veins above the heart.

So I have a database of 2 with the 25 caliber, 115gr VLDs, that would appear to be consistent with JB's experience.

Hope this helps some in the compilation of VLD hunting data.

Steve

Nope, just saying there is no single answer to the bullet question, as some people seem to think.

Actually Elmer Keith didn't use many premium bullets. He really didn't quite grasp the idea of Nosler Partitions, always insisting they should be heavier--like the cup-and-core bullets he was used to. I have also heard that one reason he was so fond of the 275 Speer in various .338's is that he could get them in bulk for free from Vernon Speer. Of course when they had the heavy jacket and were started at moderate velocity (as they pretty much had to be, even in the .340 Weatherby) they worked pretty well.