Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting VLDS or NBT love um or hate um

Coyote... .have you placed a Berger into an elk?

No. I quit using standard cup and cores for elk in the early 1980's when I switched to Grand Slams.

Edited to add:

Nor do I intend to try them. I'm quite happy with what I currently use. In the event that I need to put down a fleeing and possibly wounded elk or end up with a shot like the aforementioned buck where a quartering away shot turned into a ham shot, I have confidence my choice will provide better penetration than the Bergers on bad angles, based on my experience with my choices and reports from both Berger users and Berger themselves.

I'm not trying to sway VLD lovers from their choice, just explaining mine.

I have no dog in this hunt. I've never shot a Berger at a game animal, but I've put several hundred downrange.

This is a ridiculous comparison though. Pretty much everyone agrees that driving drunk is a bad idea. It can kill innocent people, plus it'll get you thrown in jail.

But not everyone agrees on the use of any bullet, much less one specific brand, on big game animals especially big ones like elk. There are a lot of different opinions on Bergers, some based on experience, others not.

Personally, when I sift through the chaff on this or any internet site, trying to stick to the wheat, I like to hear what a poster's personal experience is with the product under discussion.

So the question "have you done it" is a good one in my opinion.

going straight down is STILL and always will be a matter much more so of shot placement, than bullet choice.

Jeff,

I know you firmly believe that, and of course to a certain extent it's true. On average, a spine hit will drop them faster than a lung hit!

But it's not what the forensic guys who study bullet wounds say, about chest cavity hits. They say that, on average, drop-time is related to the amount of vital tissue damage. And that's what I've seen as well.

I think...speed/shock/tissue damage and placement all come into play.

If I could get the bergers to shoot I'd love to do some serious testing for a couple years. Problemo is, they've been a curse to me aside from one gun (788/Carbine in 7/08 which is a jelly bean gun, meaning it'll shoot jelley beans into sub moa...grin).

And, I've kind of reached an age where I just wanna go hunt and don't feel the desire to dick around with other bullets like I once did.

Now my question to my elders (Bob,Ingwe, JB...grin) is that maturity or older age creaping in?

Dober

Mark,

One of the side-effects of maturity is not having as much time as we did when we were young and, ah, irresponsible (that is, until we retire and can theoreticaly do anything we want). Plus, we have more experience. Between the two, we feel less need to dick around with new stuff, since experimenting is by definition almost always something of a waste of time.

I feel the same thing, quite often, even though I'm paid to experiment!

By the way, I've also found Berger VLD's take more effort to get to shoot than, say, Ballistic Tips. But when the rioght combo of powder and seating depth can be found, they REALLY SHOOT.

Of course, the very first rifle I tried them in was my NULA .30-06, and the 185's started shooting sub-half-inch consistently, right off the bat, with 58.0 grains of Ramshot Hunter. That ommediate gratification helped in continuing the experimentation. By this point I'm reasonably certain the the right throat has a lot to do with whether they'll shoot or not as well.

Put a few of those into some elk as well. Good bullet.

Dober:I think it's a lack of desire to mess around once you have a combination or two that works over a long period of time and enough animals....and you stop worrying that something else might work "better" because the truth is very few North American hunters will ever shoot enough BG with a great enough cross section of available bullets to get a clear indication of what they all do....at some point you decide ..."am I gonna go hunting or am I gonna test bullets.."?

Those that run around shooting a few animals with "this" or "that",and drawing fast conclusions about whether it's better than something else have not gathered any real data.....they have only gathered an insignificant sampling.....
gun writers who hunt,cull hunters in Africa or Australia,guides who specialize in certain species,and professional hunters are better positioned to shoot a lot of game or see a lot shot and evaluate bullets......the rest of us are better served, I think to pick a couple of well proven designs and stick with them.....that's the only way a guy learns anything about his choices,if he gets to hunt enough.

Jumping from this and that to something else is a time consuming and expensive path to nowhere.One eventually figures out that range time (precious) is better spent practicing your own shooting skills than worrying about tiny groups and fractional differences in killing performance between bullets having similar design characteristics.

One bull elk with a Berger or a Swift Aframe is not a valid "test" IMHO.

Once again Bob the voice of reason and sound advice.

Sam: BTDT....

yep me too. I'll keep shootin Partitions & Accubonds.

Once again I'm a little late to the topic, lots of good stuff. I identify with Bob and Dober when they say they are just about through dick'n around with new bullets. I gave up dick'n around some years ago looking for a serious BG bullet. My choice suits me, I make no claims that my choice somehow makes your choice second rate. So don't waste your time trying to straightening me out. I'm often wrong but I'm seldom in doubt. My choice when I'm serious..Nosler Partitions. Big or little, near or far, good angle or bad. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

And a fine one it is!

I started using Ballistic Tips in the 1980's... have never recovered one and have always liked the results. My 308 would have been stoked with 168 NBT's this year could I have found even one box for sale. I used my supply up shooting fascinating little groups from the bench!

I settled for 165 Accubonds which don't shoot nearly as well as the 168 NBT's in my rifle. I doubt the results would have been different with the Ballistic Tips.

Have no need to try VLD's.

M.D. Are you out there? I don't want to hijack this topic but I have a question for you. I just counted the Nosler Partitions I've recovered or the past twenty years or so, there are 15, .270cal. through 180gr 30cal. Antelope to bull elk. I honestly don't know how exactly many animals I've killed with various Nosler Partitions in that twenty year period, but it would be 60 head or so. You do the math. My question goes to why others find so few NBT when I seem to be finding so many Partitions. Seems like it should be the other way around. I also have a lot of recovered Hornadys, but that's another story. Thoughts?

My guess would be that many hunters use Ballistic Tips on smaller animals like deer, or are so concerned about whether or not they'll penetrate that they don't take shots that require much penetration.

I have recovered some Ballistic Tips, because I've used them on some tougher-angle shots and also on some pretty sizeable animals. Most of the ones I've recovered have been in the rear halves of animals I shot in the front end, like the 120-grain 6.5 I found under the hide of the rump of a pronghorn doe taken with a front-angling shot last fall. I also have the mushroomed remains of a 200-grain .338 that did the same thing on a bull gemsbok--after smashing both the near shoulder and the spine between the bull's shoulders. But I have also shot lengthwise through some deer-sized animals with Ballistic Tips.

A lot more Partitions have been recovered, probably because I've shot so many animals with them in calibers from .224 to .416. But the percentage recovered is pretty small, probably 15-20% of the animals shot, and most of those were also on angling or full-length shots.

Thanks, Mule deer. Another thought, because I like to examine bullet performance I maybe put out more effort to fine them than others do. Anyway I thought it interesting.

I try hard to find them as well, and can only recall maybe 2-3 times when a bullet inside an animal couldn't be found.