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

I just got back from the shooting range, a bit disappointed with their poor performance.

Gun is a Blaser K95 single shot in 7x65R that shoots mostly everything quite accurately.
Bullet was their 168gr and I shot it with two different loads: 61.5gr of Norma MRP and 66.5gr of Vectan Sp12 (Ramshot Magnum).
I tried each of the two loads with both F215 and WLRM primers.
Speed was a bit high but acceptable, given todays high temperatures.

The best the rifle did was 1.25" at 110yards. Except for a couple of 2+1 groups, I have been getting almost equilateral triangles. I shot two three-shot groups with A-Maxes for control, and they printed two nice cloverleaves, so I believe the scope and mounts are not the problem.

The chamber in this gun is cut with a looong throat and the limiting factor when trying to seat them close to the lands is the amount of shank inside the neck. These were seated at a C.O.L of 3.54" which provides with only 0.216" of shank/neck contact. I do not know how far or close they are from touching the lands but they are as far out as I want to seat them...

The dies I am using are RCBS and I have noticed diferences in the C.O.L of 0.009" in cartidges loaded consecutively and withouth changing any settings.

Could this consistency in the seating depth be responsible for the lack of accuracy?

Ideas and suggestions welcome!

BBerg

Your seating depth variances are certainly not helping the accuracy situation.
Love RCBS as a company but their seaters just don't impress me.

Alvaro,

Bergers tend to shoot best when seated as near the lands as possible, even touching. This doesn't mean they won't shoot when seated off the lands, but the throat of the rifle had better be very close to bullet diameter. The bullets have very thin jackets and soft cores, so can deform in the throat if there's any extra room around the shanks.

In other words, even though there's a hunting version, they're essentially match bullets and so shoot best in match-quality rifles.

nsaqam:
I am not measuring from the case head to a point in the bullet's ogive, but to the bullet's tip so part of the inconsistencies I get may be due to imperfections in the very tip of the bullet, I don't know...
I use the same RCBS die to put together loads fro the same gun that consistently group below 1" @ 110yds...
BBerg



Hola John!
I don't think I should move them any further out, and risk them moving or bending while handling them, so I think I will have to pass.
In any case, my gun must have a tight throat diameter because some short, stubby, soft bullets like 120gr V-Max or RWS 123gr Kegel Spitz shoot quite accurately...
Will use 162gr AMaxes instead.
Alvaro

The 7mm WSM made a 1" two shot group a week ago at 200 yds on a check of its zero with VLD 140 gr Hunting bullets. This rifle like some others I have are now using the Bergers.

The groups I get with other rifles are about like that with Nosler Ballistic Tips and Sierra bullets.

I took the seating stem out of the RCBS seating die and examined it. I wanted to see if the seating stem's blind hole would make the tip of a VLD bottom out on it. It cannot in the RCBS die as they drilled a deep hole just over .125" in diameter at the bottom of the seating stem hole.

Then I spun a Berger 140 VLD Hunting in the seating stem with my fingers so as to made scratches on it to see where it contacts the bullet. The marks were about .3 to .4" back from the bullets tip on its ogive. That seating stem is not bottoming out on the bullets tip!

I wondered about that. That is your source of error.

Redding sent me a special seating stem for VLD bullets at no cost for their dies in 6.5 Rem. It helped a lot to seat them properly in a 6.5 MM Rem.

In two 30-06's they were very accurate but were seated to the lands.
I just did notice last night , that the bullets were seating with slightly different OAL's, with RCBS dies.

I've noticed the same thing Sendero, loading the 168 gr VLD's with the regular RCBS seating die.....inconsistent OAL's. I may try a Forster die.

Measured on the ogive?

No, just OAL.

Measuring to bullet tips and dealing in thousandths won't tell the real story.

Hornady has a little kit to allow you to measure to the ogive, I got one can recommend it.

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/23...llet-comparator-basic-set-with-6-inserts

Claybreaker

Ogive measurement is the way to go.

Here's the "nut" from Sinclair:

Please elaborate for a dummy! What is the most consistent or best was to get consistent measurements? So far I've only done OAL and jacked with the seating depth some. I'm not crazy about the accuracy yet at about 1.5 MOA. Velocity is good with 71.5gr of Retumbo, but want accuracy. Any help would be appreciated.

Tip lengths vary enough bullet to bullet to show many thousandths OAL variation round to round, even with a perfectly operating seating die. Measuring on the ogive (see pics above) gives a better result.

And here's the Hornady LnL Claybreaker linked to.

What I do is set a steel caliper to .004" under bore diameter, then use the caliper jaws to lightly scribe a line around the bullet after finding the right seating depth. That results in a reference line for any other bullets.

OK.....I was measuring OAL to the tips also, with the 168's. Varied a few thousands...