Pushing Berger 7mm Berger 168s or 180s??

[ODAVID]

Originally Posted by TMR

Roy,

I am using a 1-9 twist broughton on my STW. Earlier this year, Berger retired their original 7mm 180 die. The old die made the bullets a little oversize compared to the 168's and other 7mm bullets. I haven't tried any of the thick jackets yet.

Travis

Say Travis,

Can you share your 7STW load with me. I am getting close to working up some 168 gr berger and would really like to know kind and amount of powder you are using. I will use Fed 215 M primers and remington cases. Obviously I will work up but it is nice to know what others have got in my quest. I have a 29 inch barrel with 9.5 twist on my 7STW.

thanks
ODAVID

[Magnumpeanut]

I am very interested to hear if anyone uses the 180VLD in a 7mm RM and what kind of speeds they are getting.

Has anyone fired this round at deer with good, clean kills?

[gamedog]

Originally Posted by Magnumpeanut

Has anyone fired this round at deer with good, clean kills?

This is my Mulie from last month. 180gr Bergers @3007 fps. Was a good kill, but not very clean

[Magnumpeanut]

By clean kill, I mean did it suffer and run another mile before it died, obviously it did not.

I don't care how much I mess up its ribs, I don't eat them anyways.

[7mmRHB]

Roy, I've been fireforming my brass for my 7mmRHB with 168 bergers @ 3280fps in a 28" 1 in 8.2" twist 5R Rock bbl with no apparent jacket problems. It's not a top end load by any means,( 77.2 grs RL 25 ) but the accuracy is good enough to whack our 1145yd gong consistantly even though the bbl twist is way to fast for the 168s.

I did shoot some 189 Cauterucios that showed real promise accuracy wise but I haven't shot them into anything to see how they'll perform. The BC was up there ( .825 ) at our elevation, 5000ft so I'm hoping they will perform on Game !!

The 180 JLKs are built on J4 jackets from Berger. They are a higher BC and are very accurate in the guns I have dealt with.

I guess I better get out and do some more shooting and testing so ol' GG can relax a little. I seem to test his patience at times !! LOL ----- RHB

[royinidaho]

7mmRHB,

Good information.

Sounds like you rig is working well. That 5R seems to be pretty easy on jackets. About the opposite of my Lilja fast twist 3 groover.

It looks as if I'll have plenty of 7mm boolets to pick from for my project.

Now to pick the correct one, the first try.

If I can get Corbin to do some kind of a reasonable delivery time I'll know fairly quickly. I sure hope so. I'm not getting any younger.

Tell GG there are pills for that impatience condition.

[JeffVN]

Another alternative is the Cauterucio 189s (used to be 176s but he puts more filler in them now). I spoke to Bob when I bought mine a few months ago and he said the achieved BCs were considerably above the Berger 180s (.725 at 2,700 fps and above .800 for speeds above 3,100 fps).

According to my calipers, the 189s are considerably longer than the 180 Bergers in length (1.560" vs 1.533"), bearing surface (0.643" vs 0.622") and base to ogive (.845 vs .822) as compared to my most recent lot of Berger 180s). My calipers show the 189s to be MUCH more consistent in the above dimensions compared to the Berger's which varied up to 0.006 in Base to Ogive length in my most recent lot of 1,000 bullets.

Here is a picture comparing the bullets side-by-side, together with the Sierra 175 and the JLK 180s (midway down the thread):

7mm Cartridge Guide

JeffVN