Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Another Berger VLD failure !

Heck, I shot a buck at 30 yards, through the center of the ribs just behind the shoulder with a 350 grain .50 caliber bullet a few years back. Approximate MV only about 1,600. Two holes, blood and lung tissue all over the sage brush 25 yards behind the deer. He ran over a hundred. Crashed into a 2' Ponderosa, and he was DRT.

How about the shooter failed to shoot low enough on the deer to kill it faster?

How about no blood trail ? I have never lost a single deer shot with a centerfire rifle......0 ! Always had plenty of blood to follow. What good would a dead deer be if you cant find it?

KLM

Not unusual for that shot.

Not unusual, and sounds like he knows what he's doing.

Where did he shoot that deer again and what angle?

Again, not unusual, and it sounds like the bullet hit something to kill it.


I don't use VLD's but these threads about failed bullets in dead deer make me shake my head.

Like I said before, you can shoot them all you want, but I have seen 2 bad reactions and performances. I have never not had a good blood trail. Both guy's that I saw shoot these were unimpressed, even though one of the guys has killed plenty of deer with VLD, he even questioned the performance after what he found. I dont have a dog in the fight I'm just saying I wont shoot them and I know one of these guys wont ever again either.

KLM

Just finished an Ontario WT hunt and put a 168VLD from my 300WM into the boiler room at 80 yards. Worked as advertised. I was impressed. The fragments busted the opposite shoulder, no exit.

I was geared up for some LR shots and as expected he came out from under me. I was concerned with the close shot pushing the VLD shy of 3200 but the bullet did the job. The innards were mush.

Walt Bergers email to me stated weight selection is important for terminal performance. He didn't recommend the 168 but the 155 VLD for WT's. I think some hunters are experiencing pencil throughs by not reasearching.

Wade

Not a big VLD fan here, but 70 yards after a lung shot sounds like what I'd expect out of any bullet.

Hate to clue you in Dude, but eventually your vaunted Corelokts are gonna fail to leave you a bloodtrail, too. You can't dictate bullet performance prior to the shot. You can't dictate how a deer is going to react to a bullet either. Some die right there, others run and run. If you are hunting tight cover, then you should probably be taking shots that will take out the CNS so they drop quick. Lung shot deer "can" cover significant distances - with any bullet. If you don't want them to run - then maybe you shouldn't be shooting them in the lungs - period.

I've used many bullets in my 31 years of deer hunting - Corelokts, Sierras, Noslers, Hornady's, Barnes and yes, Berger VLDs. Most of them have worked very well, while still having the odd "performance flaw". I'd use most of them again, based on the past performance if I felt the desire. I just like trying different things. The Bergers are some of the most accurate bullets I've tried, though.

Kaiser Norton

Kaiser,

I dont shoot corelokt's anymore except to get on paper, but in 30 years I never had one fail to leave a blood trail. I've shot them all different places: high shoulder, high back,lungs,heart, neck, and head. The heart can beat on average of 13.5 seconds when pierced, how far can a deer go in 13.5 seconds? A long ways ! Too many people on this site try to pick through things that aren't there.

I said the 2 guys that I have witnessed using them the last 2 years had bad experiences with them. One of these guys is an X-marine sniper and I dont question his shooting. He shoots 400+ on kill permits on our farm. The 2 does he shot last year were right where I would have shot with any of the bulets I hunt with. They didnt do the job ! This year a friend shoots a deer and doesn't get a blood trail or what we consider proper performance. Good Luck shooting them !

KLM

Target bullets are for targets
Hunting bullets are for hunting

Write this 100 times on the blackboard, erase and repeat until you get it.

NO problem with bullet failure with this one:
He went 20 yards with a broomsick size hole through both lungs.
There was a "bit o blood" on the ground (LOL)

MM,

Just curious, how many animals have you killed with VLDs that you are basing your opinion on?

John

John,

Just so your curiosity doesn't get the best of you, I've never killed a single animal of any type with a VLD, nor do I have any intention of doing so, but I have killed a fair number with Partitions, TSX's & AB's............as well as Hornady Interlocks & Interbonds, Nosler SB's & BT's, Win PP's, even a few with Speer Grand Slams & TBBC's.

I also understand a bit about bullet construction as well and also understand that the VLD's were, & still are, designed as target bullets.............then the marketers decided to sell the merits of the VLD profile to BG hunters.

Use them if you like, but I'll stick to bullets designed for hunting that may, coincidentally, have high BC's, not a high BC target bullet that's now being promoted as a "hunting" bullet in order to hype sales to "LR hunters".

Have a really nice day & I wish you good luck with the VLD's.....if that's what you choose to use, I sincerely hope they work for you.

MM

MM doesn't guess about bullets....

I'd suspect a lot of wildeyed VLD shooters are guessing....

Any bullet can have a bad day,but"knowing" what a BG bullet will "do"should not be a guessing game,since predictable bullet performance is the essence of what you look for in a hunting bullet.Ask an African pro about this.....And if I have to call Walt Berger to find out that a 155 gr "works",while a 168 gr "doesn't",then I write off the whole line of bullets,entirely.Similarly, I won't hunt with BT's because some are reputed to be "tough",while others are "bombs".Others can figure out which is which.Good luck...nobody pays me to experiment with bullets....I won't "guess"...And I can read;I don't like what I hear about VLD's at all.

I never had to call Nosler to find out how a 165 Partition performs, versus a 180; I know that both will do, predictably,what a BG bullet is supposed to do;Penetrate, and expand,reliably, every time. No guessing.

Regardless of the bullet, a high lung shot is asking for a weaker blood trail and a good death run. Better to be low than high, anytime....

Jpro: That seems to be true now that I think back on it....

Besides Bob, do you remember how hard it was for you to move to the newfangled Partition from the flint tipped spear you already knew all about?

mathman: Tough transition.... Actually I view the VLD as a solid step back! I might take the spear again myself

"Shot high in the lungs, no blood trail. He had to make circles in the woods to find the deer. Pencil sized exit with shrapnel in the neck, spine, and very little lung damage."

Well, I just feel compelled to make a few more comments. First, this is 6.5whitetail's quote, about the story from the guy who actually shot the deer. So we have a second-hand story about a supposed bullet failure.

It sounds to me like the shot was too high, the reason for the "shrapnel in the neck, spine and very little lung damage." Evidently, though, the deer still died, and in about the distance deer often die when shot solidly through the lungs with various other bullets.

A second comment: No, the people at Berger did NOT suddenly decide to start promoting the VLD as a hunting bullet, with no other reason than to sell bullets.

Instead, a LOT of hunters starting reporting to Berger that their bullets worked very well, especially on deer. Berger decided to inventigate, and after more than a year of research decided they would start marketing VLD's as hunting bullets. The research included both shooting VLD's into various kinds of test media, AND shooting lots of animals. I know about this because I was one of the people who shot a lot of animals, and also observed a lot of animals being shot.

As a result, I regularly use VLD's for some hunting myself now. This fall I used one on a pronghorn hunt that cost $2000. I paid for the hunt, and chose to use a VLD rather than one of the many other bullets in my loading room. It worked perfectly, by the way, because I shot the buck through the middle of the lungs, not around the edges.

There is indeed a difference between the hunting VLD's and the target VLD's. The target VLD's are actually tougher, because it was found that the thin jackets of what used to be the only VLD's made sometimes wouldn't hold up when shot in some cut-rifled barrels, such as the ones used by many target shooters. So today's target VLD actually have a tougher jacket. Once in a while somebody makes the mistake of shooting a deer with one, and the bullet doesn't open up. This does not happen with the hunting VLD's. Or at least I have never seen it happen, or heard from anybody who's seen it happen.

I would question Walt's advise about using a 155 instead of a 168 for deer, since I have seen a pile of deer-sized animals shot with 168-grain VLD's (and even 185's) from a .30-06, at ranges from 20 yards to around 400, and they all expanded.

Apparently a number of people still don't understand the way VLD's work, which isn't surprising since most of the people who've posted against them here have never even seen them used on game.

A VLD typically penetrates about 2 inches before it even starts to expand. Contrary to what many believe, this is unique among expanding bullets (at least those that do expand). The others all begin expanding as soon as the tip enters an animal, the reason there's normally lots of damage around the entrance wound. After a VLD gets a couple inches inside, it expands violently, doing massive damage to the lungs--of you shoot the animal in the lungs.

I have seen VLD's shot into a bunch of animals now, ranging in size from 50-400 pounds at ranges from 20 to 550 yards, and have yet to see one fail to make a mess of the lung cavity--unless the lung cavity was missed. One thing VLD's do NOT do is make up for poor shot placement.

After re-reading this thread more than once, I am pretty well convinced that the bullet "failure" was a shot that hit the upper fringe of the lungs, partly from the description of the wound and partly because the deer took 70 yards to die. I have yet to see an animal of any sort well-shot with a VLD go that far, though anything is possible.

MM,

I appreciate you satisfying my curiosity. I haven't killed a whole bunch of stuff with VLDs either. Only two feral hogs, a bobcat, and one whitetail. They all died pretty darn quick. The farthest, the whitetail, was 165 yards, so I haven't really had an opportunity to try them at what might be considered long range. They seem fine when properly placed at shorter ranges though.

I don't use them exclusively. Too much interest in seeing how different stuff works. Currently using the 80gr TTSX from my .257 Wby. It has worked well so far, too. Hornady interlocks have never failed me. Some of the very early 95gr Ballistic tips didn't behave as well as I thought they should for me, but I still killed the whitetail I shot with them. I did lose a pig I shot with a 75gr X once. He went down hard and while I was attending to others in the herd, he took off.

I don't think I would personally try VLDs on anythng other than favorable shots here I could put one in the heart lung region. I suspect too fragile for hard quartering shots etc., but I don't usually take those anyway. (Pigs would be the exception. I don't really care where I hit them. ).

Anyway, give them a try some time. A baseball bat was designed to hit baseballs, but it's probably as effective a club as there ever was...

John

Mule Deer,

Excellent response to the VLD. I have shot plenty of WT's with a 7STW and 300WM with TTSX's and Accubonds and understand some hits in the vitals don't always drop game and they may struggle a hundred yards +/-. My deer kills with the VLD are limited but from what I have experienced I am a true believer. I also get a box of 100 for less than a box of 50 TTSX.

I still may have the email Walt sent me along with load information were he recommended the 155's for the reason I stated. The 155's didn't fly well for me but the 168's are shooting under an inch at 200 yards. I see plenty of people on the web doing well with the 180 and 190's and up on WT's so I felt the 168's would not be a problem.

VLD's work.