Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa 168gr Berger VLD

Im a newbie, have a 30.06 with 22" barrel and 1:10 twist rate. Wanna try Berger 168gr vld hunting bullets and suggestions or data will be helpfull.
Tx

I'm not sure how much of a response you'll get here in the African hunting forum, but here's a link to a great article on loading the .30-06 for hunting:

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/newsletters/May_2009.html

Like Barsness recommends, I've been using H4350 in my .30-06 when shooting 165-168 grain bullets. It works very well for both accuracy and velocity.

Regards, Guy

I no longer use unbonded cup and core bullets for big game. Too much at stake, especially in Africa. And with so many GOOD hunting bullets out there, WHY? One does not need the extra BC or perhaps accuracy potential of the Berger bullets in Afircan hunting scenarios, but he DOES need deep penetration and to make TWO holes in everything he shoots at. Load the Barnes 168TTSX and don't look back, even if it does not shoot quite as accurately as other bullets, though usually it does.

Safariman,

Agree 100%

Bergers perform excellent! I used 155gr VLD's for my Plains game.

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/5344992/1

I suspect our new member Nellie is just asking for load data, not about using the VLD on African game, since he's posted in several other Campfire forums asking the same question.

But it is, once again, interesting to hear various opinions on using Berger VLD's from hunters who have and haven't hunted with them.

John,

Not very hard to figure out who has used the VLDs and who has not in this thread.

Yeah, on this thread it isn't hard.

On some other threads, someone may start to sound like they've used VLD's--but then they'll start comparing their performance to a Ballistic Tip. Now, Ballistic Tips are good bullets, but they don't expand exactly like a VLD!

+10 to safariman.

Once you've seen a match or pseudo match bullet blow to pieces when it hits a big bone in a big animal, and realize the animal would have been lost (or worse if agressive) and was only recovered because the guide put a quick fu shot in with a hunting bullet, you reach the conclusion that bullet construction and performance counts a lot more than BC or inches of drop @ 1000 yards (where nobody has any business shooting at live animals anyway).

Find me a PH who suggests his clients bring match/pseudo match bullets to take down serious big game.
The story of Major (?) Grey and the Lion tells what happens when thin jackets. lead cores and high velocity come together against a medium size animal that fights back.

"The case of a refined English gent named Grey will provide an excellent example. Grey and two companions were hunting driven lion from horse back in the African Savannas, early in the last century. Grey was armed with a .280 Ross rifle. The agreement was that if the beaters put up a lion, the riders were to merge together before an attempt was made to take it. The beaters did put up two lions, and Grey's companions were a considerable distance away.

Grey foolishly decided to take the male lion himself with his .280. He rode close and fired a shot into it, wounding but not disabling the beast. Understandably, the lion took exception to this unprovoked assault and charged, knocking Grey to the ground and biting and clawing him to teach him some manners, before bounding off into the long grass.
Although terribly mutilated, Grey did not die straight away. He managed to communicate to his companions that his fate was entirely due to his own stupid actions and not the fault of the beaters. He died several days later in a hospital. The wounded lion was tracked and dispatched by Grey's companions."

Section any Berger, SMK, AMax and a high spitzer soft point velocity bullet of the 1930s. May look different on the outside but construction is the same.

Even the puff piece written on hunting in NZ with Bergers admitted there was ONE hole, that the elastic skin closed right up. In other words no tracking possible.

There is just no rational reason NOT to use a proven hunting bullet when hunting. Had Grey used a 140 gr TSX in his 280 (about like a 7mm remmeg) he probably would have died in bed as an old man, not of Septicemia in great discomfort in a colonial hospital.

Sound advice.

VLDs have proven to me to be an awesome hunting bullet.

Of course I have the advantage of actually have used the VLD.

You have anecdotal evidence, from a 2nd hand story over 50 years in the past, with a completely different and unknown bullet, and in which the hapless hunter never blamed the bullet but instead �his own stupid actions�.

Well done.

The 168gr .308 Berger is the only Berger I have tinkered with so far, but I have been very impressed. I am loading them in my .300 Wby. with data provided by Berger using Re-22. If you email Berger they will provide you with some excellent load data.
So far I have dumped a few 'yotes with this setup, but I am hoping to tip over some antelope later this year. Likley some feral hogs in the next couple of months too.

OK, I"ll be the dumbazz and ask a dumbazz question......What are the characteristics of the VLD bullet as far as performance on deer sized game. Not talking about BC's, velocities, etc......how do they act on impact? I've obviously never used them.

JB brought up the ballistic tip. What advantage/disadvantage to they have over the btips?

In my experience, which is only three mule deer, the VLD typically penetrates with a very small entrance wound. The bullet doesn't start to expand initially, instead it penetrates - that alone makes it quite different from most other bullets.

Once it's in a few inches, into the chest cavity, then it expands violently. Heart, lungs, big blood vessels shredded.

In the case of each of my mule deer, it was an instant drop. Typically there's no exit with the small 115 gr .257" VLD, I've recovered the bullet just under the off-side hide.

I thought it was pretty much perfect deer bullet performance. Squeeze the trigger. Deer drops dead. Very little damage to meat.

FWIW, Guy

Thanks for the feedback. What distances were the deer shot?

175, 230 and 400 yards with my .25-06

Bullet performance exactly as described in the puff piece on Bergers in NZ, SMKs or AMax. Reminds me of the usual performance of a good varmint bullet.
Of course woodchucks dont have big heavy shoulder bones, massive pelvis or thick hard skulls.
Any of the Mulies Guy shot could have been killed just as dead by a real premium hunting bullet and if, just if the wind had shifted, the deer moved, Guy flinched a bit and the hit not been in the soft tissue area, there would have been two holes and a blood trail, not a lost animal. I am still witing for the first report of some "hunter" stopping a Buff, Brown Bear or even a Lion charge with a Berger ot any other match bullet. I love Bergers for their intended use, and in fact am having a 2000 yard gong ringer in 338 RUM being bult around the new Berger 300 gr 338.
But hunting is not target shooting and my 25-06 shooting an 80 gr TTSX at 3900 fps (28" bbl) would have killed any of those deer just as dead with my favorite shot through both shoulders. Drops em' on the spot with maybe 4 pounds of meat lost and no worries about eating lead with my dinner.
Had they been 1/4ing away, I still would have killed them where a match bullet would never make it through the big, full paunch.
IMHO the four worse things to "go afield" in the last decade are "Tactical" anything, match bullets for hunting, "Long Range" hunting and silly huge variable scopes.
As for Grey's bullets, for many years I owned a Ross Model 10 that had been a Scottish Red Stag stalking rifle. Also had a lot of factory Kynoch ammo for it loaded with the same 140 gr SP Grey used. After first running across his mishap, I sectioned a bullet. It was a virtual twin to current match bullet constuction, thin jacket, no bonding, in fact a large varmint bullet. Actually shot a few chucks with it at about 50 yards (no scope). It just blew em to pieces.
But I DNS as I only shot my first deer in 1958.

interthem,
Do you have pictures of any of the deer that you killed with the 80 gr TTSX?

Well, it's better than most of his posts......

I see Larry is yakkin again

You had some varmint bullets that penetrated several inches before expanding?