Thread: Projectile performance

A mate sent me this today. A 140 Berger vld hunting out of a 708 and recovered from a fallow shot and 60m.
Any ideas what may have caused this? Have already asked the obvious and if it had a full powder charge when he is sure it did.

yip,it tumbled instead of opening...seen it quite a few times with HP in 223.

That's got the Covid

Sent from my Nokia 7 plus using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by NRT

That's got the Covid

Sent from my Nokia 7 plus using Tapatalk

Yes. Probably had a blocked nose.

The Meplat hole in the tip was less than 20 thou in diameter

The tiny meplat caused the jacket to stay intact and the projectile acts like a FMJ often resulting in a lost animal

Seen it plenty with bergers and their J4 jackets

It pays to sort new packets and anything with a meplat hole less than 20 thou just use it on gongs/targets

I've had that happen on a large hind at 20-30 mtr with a 243 105gr vld hunting. A little further out and they are dynamite on everything.
Mate had something similar in 7m08 with an sst up close as well. Hind got up and bolted.
My experience in the 243 is that the 87gr vld and 105gr vld hunters are different. The 105's seem to take longer to open up. Ie side on with a goat the 87gr looks to be fully opened up from just inside the ribs on the entry side and leaves a fist size exit wound, the 105 apears to be half way through before it starts to open and only leaves a 50mm exit hole. So definitely more suited to a larger/tougher animal.
Z

I had a 215 hybrid pencil through a large Red spiker at 100yds with a double lung shot which resulted in an extended tracking mission.
After a bit of googling I found that during the manufacturing process sometimes the copper jacket folds over blocking or partially blocking the nose cavity effectively making it a FMJ and they perform as such with pencilling or tumbling.
The remedy is to run a needle drill into the tip to clear the nose cavity back to the lead core....since doing this, I get consistant terminal performance with massive internal damage and often a 2-3 inch exit hole.
I also do this with my SMK's and get the same results.

That was my experience with Bergers in my 270, either penciled through like that or massive expansion, they were accurate but inconsistent and unpredictable. My guess would be the very fine hollowpoint metplat/hardness of the lead.

@wsm junkie
Out of interest what diameter drill do you use?

Originally Posted by winaa

@wsm junkie
Out of interest what diameter drill do you use?

I use 0.80mm on 7mm and 30 cal.

Couple of other throughts as well. I have recovered a berger like that, but it was only started at 1000 fps hit a goat front on at 50 mtr and was recovered at the back of the rump. Can't blame the bullet for that one.
A few years back Berger changed the target bullets which could solve this problem. They identified that with the very fine tip they where not getting a clean perfectly square cut tip. To avoid this they are putting a slightly larger opening on the target bullets. This has reduced the BC slightly but made for a more regular tip.
Also need to add that there is no perfect bullet. An ideal long range bullet is different to a short range bullet.
I've never had an issue with the 87 gr VLD hunter even nailed tougher NZ game with it but the 105 gr would definitely be better on the larger stuff.
Z

The Sierra smk was accepted as being a fmj under the Hague convention and therefore suitable for military use. Extensively used in us marine and special forces sniper ammunition I believe.
I can't see the point of using vld type projectiles at the typically short ranges 400 m or less that most game is shot at. Simple cup and core bullets perform in that region and further out if truth be known.

I'm interested in @TARGEX's thoughts on this thread, as I believe he uses the same jacket for the projectiles I run in my .243. All the reports I've heard on the terminal performance of his projectiles are good, so he obviously knows how to get this sort of construction to work on game.

If he's only shooting deer at 60m then he needs a decent meplat like the bullet in the right in his image

But seriously that's amazing that a Berger does that

And then not seriously it's a good thing he wasn't using a 308 !