Berger VLD marketed as a hunting bullet?

[sambo3006]

I just read an add today in one of my hunting magazines--I think it was Peterson's Hunting. It was for the Berger VLD bullet. It claimed superior terminal performance on game or something like that. I have seen the Berger foldout bullet chart at the gun shop and it says that the VLD is a match bullet. What gives?

[goodgrouper]

I sincerely hope they mentioned something about "long range performance" only and not tried to advertise it as an all-around hunting bullet for all distances. I would hate to see the look on the first poor guy's face who tries the 155 grain VLD on a whitetail at 200 yards from his 300 ultra mag. Roadkill anyone? We got one here that was just hit by an 18 wheeler carrying a couple tons of dynamite.

Now back up about 1000 yards from the whitetail and it will work great!

[sambo3006]

This ad was on page 80 of the October issue of Petersen's Hunting. It shows a picture of a buck with crosshairs on him. The ad says in part:
"The Berger VLD uses a sleek profile that is designed to hit harder, penetrate deep enough and expend all of its energy inside the animal producing wound channels that effectively and consistently put the animal down fast."
"Superior terminal performance produces humane, one-shot kills. If you are tired of watching your game run off after the bullet pokes through try the Berger VLD."

[waha]

With a thin jacketed bullet like the Berger you would have drastic kills when the bullet goes to pieces in the boiler room. The problem is if you hit bone up close on deer and especially elk the bullet could disinegrate on the shoulder blade and the animal may get away on you and suffer a horrible death. As G.G. mentioned it would be great at 1000 yards. By the way wonderul shooting G.G.! You have inspired a lot of folks.

[reed mosser]

When I used 7mm 180 VLDs in my 7 wsm I had the exact opposite results. If you didn't hit a bone they bored a .308 hole right through them.

[waha]

Reed were you shooting a deer or wapiti? Did they seem to open up at all and expand or just shoot through like a solid unless bone was hit? I've always found the J4 jackets to be quite fragile on big game like elk especially up close but they may have improved. I've never tried them on deer just elk so I'm no expert on deer performance.

[reed mosser]

I only shot deer with them. They did not expand at all. I too thought they would explode with the thin jacket but that wasn't the case. I like fast one shot kills and the vld's make it tough. They are a target bullet.