Pics of Berger Bullets NOT Performing????

[WildRose]

Originally Posted by bullridety

This is a great topic on why the bullet didnt exit or expand thats why i posted this pic! Obviously my velocities and point of aim ect..had to be dead on to hit this animal at 626 yards. so i think that i did my part on placing the shot ect. BUT exactly that is my Question why didnt this bullet expand at 3,025 fps?? Also here is a great question to you as well: why is Best of the West all of a sudden promoting the 300 win mag after all these years they said the 7mm mag was the best??....Maybe Broz is right on this one by shooting the 300 win 215VLDs

The inconsistency must be a problem in the design or MFG process.

If the hollow points are not consistent in depth and diameter you would get inconsistencies in expansion. Since there are no petal cuts to aid in beginning expansion that's about all that's left to consider unless it's a metallurgical problem with some of the bullet shells being harder than others.

I've never seen a cutaway section of the Berger bullets so this is just speculation.

[WildRose]

Originally Posted by bowhuntwhities

I am with everyone. I love berger bullets but just for the first time after this hunting season have every doubted what I am doing. I am not braggin about shooting great but I am ok with a shooting a gun single shot. Until this year. Found myself digging for more bullets. So that is where I get on here. I like the info about how bullets can vary. If I can account for this some how I will try. I don't like two shots one kill. Zero or 1500. Could a guy take a small piece of something and try to measure the distance to the lead core then????

Call the guys at Berger and tell them your story.

My bet is they'll want you to mail them the bullets too so they can see just what is going on.

[bigngreen]

On the cow elk, what exactly did the bullet hit going it, shoulder, ribs, between ribs? Sure looks like it started to open then went dramatically sideways. I've seen Bergers look like that but only after flying to the 2000 yard mark, tips will look started to open the they go sideways and turn into bananas.

[midnightmalloy]

Maybe your seating stem is crimping the tips of the bullets. That would essentially make it a fmj. I noticed I needed to get a vld seating stem to load these effectively. You may check that.

[bullridety]

The cow was quartering to me face on, i shot her on the tip of her front left shoulder and found the bullet lying under the hide behind the right front shoulder! There was plenty of vitals/muscle/bone to hit on the way through for this bullet to expand! The entrance hole was a perfect circular hole, so it was definitely apparent the bullet did not tumble. This was a very embarassing moment for me because I had a guy with me and i was bragging about the Berger bullets and long distance shooting. And as we were skinning the animal out in the garage, HE found the bullet and said "this is what your talking up a Berger Bullet for??" I was dumbfounded and didnt know what to say!

[bullridety]

No crimping involved, i checked that one as well! And as stated before, i shoot year round at long distances, whether it may be hunting, targets, coyotes, filming, or dialing in multiple long range setups and calibers, so i think maybe it has to be something with manufacturing the bullet or basically cutting the bullet open to see if there is an inconsistency? this bullet is cracked near the tip in a couple places but nowhere near expansion.

[WildRose]

Originally Posted by bullridety

No crimping involved, i checked that one as well! And as stated before, i shoot year round at long distances, whether it may be hunting, targets, coyotes, filming, or dialing in multiple long range setups and calibers, so i think maybe it has to be something with manufacturing the bullet or basically cutting the bullet open to see if there is an inconsistency? this bullet is cracked near the tip in a couple places but nowhere near expansion.

Take it to a jeweler and ask them to spit it down the center (best they can) from tip to tail. That will tell you a lot about the jacket thickness. If the jacket was overly thick that would prevent expansion.

Whether it tumbled or not on the way to the target there's no way that kind of deformation happened without it tumbling either befor it got there or more likely INSIDE the cow.

The more I think about it the more I'd think the metallurgy is the likely issue with the jacket being too hard.

Keeping those alloys consistent for literally millions of jackets I should think would be quite the task as it's impossible to mix things where there's an exactly even distribution throughout.