Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Berger VLD Hunting Bullets

That nut is slick!! I need to get one of those. I think I'd like it better than the Hornady gizmo with the bushings (which I already have).

To the OP, I'd seat some deeper before I gave up. One rig I am running bergers in likes them back from the lands a bit. But it likes them really well there:)

I'm shooting 150gr. VLD's seated 20 thou off the lands with 58gr. of RL22 in my Vanguard Sub MOA in 270 and consistently get 1/2" groups or better. Love the accuracy, but they seem a litle destructive on deer.

Maybe it's my rifles or maybe it's my loads, but I have had GREAT like with Berger's VLDs! I have two rifles that do wonders with the, the first being a Winchester M70 Featherweight (early 1980's) in 7x57 Mauser. This gun would shoot patterns with the mild mannered 140 grain loads, but when I tried some of the S&B 173gr Cutting Edge Soft Points, they tightened up. This gun left the factory with a 1-9" twist so naturally needed something a bit longer than the little 140 grain bullets. I tried handloading various 175gr bullets with some success, usually grouping around 1.5 to 2 inches at 100 yards. While this IS good enough for my applications, I wanted to see if I could do better. I picked up a box of the Berger 168 VLD Hunting bullets and loaded them over a prescribed amount of powder and seated the bullet long so that it would fit in the long action magazine, yet wasn't touching the lands. Damned if this thng does consistently shoot under an inch with my pet load and drops everything it hits with a single shot. I have killed four deer with this load and have had them drop to the ground at 75 out to 300 yards with one shot. Is it a "magic" bullet? No, but it IS devastating when it hits, and the hydraulic shock to the tissue is amazing.

I also have a Remington 700 VTR in 308 Win that I placed into a B&C stock (the factory stock is junk). I just got this rifle within the past year and am still playing with it, and just started to work up some test loads. Saturday at the range I had a very promising group with Berger's .30 cal 168gr VLD Hunting bullets in this gun. Three rounds in a tight clover leaf that would fit under a dime, shots four and five I screwed up pulling the group out to 1.25". Had I not screwed up they would have likely fallen into around .5", which is good enough that I am going to forgo further testing with other loads and bullets for the time being and try to tweak what I have with this one. Like the 7mm, I seat these so that they use the entire magazine, but are off the lands. I imagine I can seat farther out, but I want a repeater, not a single shot.
Berger makes an excellent product, and I am not afraid to recommend them to anyone.

If the bullet tip would bottom against the stem's blind hole then the bullet tip would be determing the over all length of the loaded cartridge and all of them, measured from case head to tip of the bullet would measure the same.

If they measure different is because they are topping against some point in the ogive up to which they should all measure the same. Whatever difference there is, then, when you measure them to the tip of the bullets is due to the tips' irregularities.

If I explain myself.

I will try once more, seating them .05" deeper. Would you say that is enough or should I try .1" deeper instead?

Try both.

Berger has a COAL protocol on their web site. IIRC, they have four general jump values to use and recommend fine tuning up and down from the one that performs best.

I have a 6.5-284 hunting rifle with Krieger bbl. that's really accurate. I found two optimal COAL's with this process. I talked to the tech folks at Berger and was told they had seen that, too. They couldn't explain it and, don't you know, I can't explain it either...

In this instance, I chose the longer COAL, as it resulted in less bullet intrusion into the case. Besides, the longer round just looked better...

DF

Dirtfarmer has provided good info. I stumbled on the same article, and when I get ready to load the VLD I'll use it for reference. Here it is.........

http://www.longrangehunting.com/articles/vld-bullets-accuracy-2.php

This IS the deal here, get BOTH of the nuts from Sinclair!

Cool. Got tight groups at 58gr of RL 22 as well, but also a pierced primer and 3000 fps... Backed off and tried a few other things and frankly decided to give up and cut my losses. Funny thing, my sweet wife suggested I just go buy some accurate ammo!

Had a fair amount of variation on the VLD tips, easily visible from one to the next. Can't see that helping matters. Best wishes to all with the Bergers.

John,
I had already loaded three cartridges.05 shorter when I read your reply... I shot them this morning after my stalking and, at 275 yds, grouped them into a lousy 5" triangle.
I shot two three-shot groups with A-Maxes and both went into 2 inches.
These AMaxes were from a new box, and their plastic tips are much smaller than those in the older white boxes I had been shooting until now... Their meplat is quite small and they look like they won't be too explosive so I might end up taking them on my next hunt for Blue Sheep in October.
In any case, I will give the Bergers another opportunity seating them another .05" shorter and will post the results.
Alvaro

I have had the same OAL problems with Berger VLDs. I use Forster and Redding dies with the same result.
I believe the problem is between the ogive and the tip.
Just pulled some 6.5mm 140gr Hunting VLDs out of the box and measured the length of the bullet only, and the first two I picked varied 0.008".
I can't see how this would be acceptable loading precision ammo.
I guess a guy could sort the bullets by length, but why should you have to. Hornady SSTs are darn near all the same, with a plastic tip.
I separate those rounds with wild variations and use them for fouling shots.

That's why tip uniformers are used by many long-range target shooters.

The overall length has nothing to do with the basic uniformity of the bullet. I shoot 140 6.5 VLD's in my custom 6.5-06 and it puts three into about 1/2 MOA out to 700 yards. And no, I don't uniform the tips.

Alvaro,

The Hornadys have secant ogives, which typically are less sensitive to seating depth than the tangential ogives on Berger VLD's. The disadvantage of secant ogives is a slightly lower ballistic coefficient.

The recent Berger Hybrids use a compromise between secant and tangential ogives in order to be less sensitive to seating depth.

That said, some rifles will still prefer one bullet over another, probably due to the precise dimensions of the throat and bore. Even with some experimentation with seating depth with the Bergers, your rifle may still end up shooting better with A-Maxes.

I've done considerable experimenting with various 140-grain (and other weight) bullets in the 6.5-06 mentioned above. The A-Maxes don't shoot nearly as well as the Bergers in that rifle, but that doesn't mean they won't shoot great in another 6.5 rifle.

The second-most accurate 140 in my 6.5-06 is the Nosler Partition! It shoots almost as well as the Berger VLD's.

To the OP- Maybe try a couple other powders and some other OAL before giving up on the VLD. My experience with the VLD has been great. They are a bit finicky but can produce amazing groups and are devestating on game.

I seat 140gr Bergers to .005" off the lands in my 6.5x257AI. There's about .1" of case neck grabbing the bullet, and they seem to hold up well under handling and recoil. I'm happy with 1.5" three shot groups at 200yds, and the couple of deer on the receiving end were duly impressed.

For the group that I shot yesterday I had selected three bullets of identical lengths. Before that I chose two with a .012" length difference and looked them carefully under a magnifying glass and in my opinion the overall length difference is due to differences in the termination of the tip, and the two bullets -boat tails, shanks, and ogives- were otherwise identical, so it seemed to me. My conclusion is that the inaccuracy does not come from different C.O.Ls, just look at Mule Deer experience with 140 6.5 VLD's in his custom 6.5-06, but maybe for the fact that the bullet diameter might not match the throat diameter properly, as Mule Deer says. I believe that European 7m/m are not exactly .284" so it could be this.

I should probably quit by now as it is my experience that when something does not work in an otherwise accurate gun, then it will not work, no matter what you do.

But being curious and stubborn as I am, I will try two more settings: one, introducing the bullet an additional .04" and, two, trying to reach out for the lands as long as the bullet does not fall off the case, it may not be practical for hunting but maybe just for the fun of it.

It will take a few days but I will post the results.

In the meantime I would like to thank everybody for their advise and specially to John, whom I feel is a real luxury having him here, always willing to help.

So, thank you, and best regards,

Alvaro

Alvaro,

My best friend recently received a very nice custom rifle built by Jon Beanland in 6.5x284. He played around quite a bit with his seating depth but only from .02" off to .01" in to the lands. It just wasn't playing. I showed him the same link above about seating out .04", .08" and .120" off the lands. Between .04" and .08" he hit the sweet spot; and a wide one it is. He did try and fine tune in .005" increments but it didn't matter; .04" to .08"! With Berger's you just never know. His rifle will shoot dime sized groups @ 300.

Alan

On a recent custom 6.5-06 I tried SMK's first, then Berger's, the A-Max's.
The barrel liked A-Max's much better than the other two.
Sometimes a barrel just prefers one bullet weight or brand over the other.
4-shots at 100 yards shooting off of a bipod with a small pillow bag on the pistol grip.