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...

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.