Berger 300 Hybrid - My 1st terminal performance test.

[royinidaho]

It took awhile but I finally have a Terminal Performance Media Holder (TPMH) that will hold up to a beating. The 270 AM with 160 gr IWKs flat tore up my previous attempts.

A 338 projectile would have caused a major explosion with no chance of retrieving a bullet.

I set the Media Holder in front of the backstop and set up @ 300 yds which is right beside the garage.

Rather than shoot several I carefully selected a representative round from the 10 I have left of the original box of 50.

The shot was to serve two purposes, confirm 300 yd zero and check the terminal performance.

The media has been sitting idle for a month or so which means that it more dense the deeper you check. I wanted to put the bullet into the most dense area.

Soon I will have a method to measure media density other than by feel to ensure consistent test conditions.

I held half way between the red bull and bottom of the sticky target. 300 yd zero confirmed. (Mirage was running heavily to the left)

Results:

• Penetration was 21.5 inches. There was some violence happening inside the thing as I didn't have media in the rear 6" but it was full after the shot. (The only comparison I have so far is that the SMK penetrated 16" in the same media, different setup, and at 1K velocity.)
• Penetration was straight.

• Media container is rock solid. Lid lifted a bit and spewed a bit of media.
• The bullet could only have left one heck of a wound channel. I think the bullet functioned as intended for 'my' needs at least.
• Another comparison with the SMK is that it usually maintains its entire jacket and the remains cannot be bent with my fingers at all. The Hybrid's jacket seems much softer as I can bend the remains with a severe amount of pain in the fingers but no blood and the jacket isn't all there.

This shot shows me that the concept is correct.
Improvements will include:

• Media density was 80% for my set up. Spent some time developing methods to determine density of the media (Lb/FT^3).
• Figure out how to simulate penetrating a rib upon bullet entrance. Any suggestions would be appreciated. (I'll check the local butcher Monday)

When that stuff is worked out, I can then start @ 300 then move out to 1K. I know I can hit the thing @ 700 but beyond that the shots will be included in drop chart confirmation.

 

[winmag]

Cool pics Roy. Sounds like you got good penetration. I always enjoy reading about personal testing of bullets.
I always get nervous when I see jacket/core seperation tho. Guess its a personal preferance thing.
As for the Ribs, Bear season and bow season is in August. Maybe you could salvage a few. Hey maybe you could design a media holder out of deer hyde too.

 

[britz]

shooting through ribs may be a little hard to hit in testing conditions.... could shooting through 1" oak plank or 1.5" oak plank do the trick too??

 

[royinidaho]

I always get nervous when I see jacket/core seperation tho. Guess its a personal preferance thing.
.

I feel that this is a feature instead of a bug. (Software talk) The partition and some bonded type bullets do the typical mushroom thing which effectively enlarges their frontal area and more often than not give complete penetration. Thus breaking bones and/or leaving a good blood trail.

Who want's a good blood trail? DRT is much better. I'm suggesting that performance of this Berger offering may well be much better that the mushrooming type for a consistently quicker kill when shooting for vitals allowing a larger target than if purposefully going for a broken shoulder. But as I read and watch, the Bergers appear to do quite well with the high shoulder shot which is a much smaller target.

Britz,

Nah, hitting a single rib is not a problem! Yeah, right!

I'm gonna check with the butcher and see what they do with shoulder blades. Maybe they are available. I have purchased boxes of bones for the dogs at a good price.lightbulb

 

[Chas1]

Nice writeup Roy. I enjoyed reading about your test. The pics are appreciated and made it alot easier to envision results. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Pdvdh]

I was hoping for another huge cull hog! But this is good too.

First I've seen on terminal testing of this new Berger bullet. Thanks for sharing. Be checking in for any additional, future photos.

 

[Oliveralan]

Great right up and testing.

A few questions:
What cartridge did you use and what muzzle velocity?
What are 160gr IWKs? Those your mutilated 150 B-tips?
Did you find any lead fragments? Of what size/weight?

 

[royinidaho]

great right up and testing.

A few questions:
What cartridge did you use and what muzzle velocity?
338 rum - 2700 mv
what are 160gr iwks? - idaho wolf killer - :d those your mutilated 150 b-tips? yep

did you find any lead fragments? Of what size/weight? no lead frags discovered as of yet.

12345

 

[Oliveralan]

Idaho wolf killer, I like it!

Ok I'd be curious about the lead drags, idealy they would be 00 buck shot sized and spread out through the vital zone. I have shot animals with bergers but sifting through meat for drags is more complicated than dirt. I'm thinking a small metal detector would be a good investment...

 

[royinidaho]

Updated media details.

Media was 80% for this shot.

Spent the morning developing methods to measure density.

It will now be much easier to maintain conditions much more constant from shot to shot.

80% of 100% is pretty light for this media. I'm impressed that the bullet acted so violently. 100% is fully saturated in water (100% water holding capacity with no drainage)

Numbers will get more accurate as the process continues.

Getting to be fun. Cold Barrel zero/drop check, velocity check and terminal performance all in one shot.

 

[bigngreen]

The testing I have done in my water barrel contraption with 30 cal Bergers has shown that the lead in the Berger tends to look like small droplets of lead in a cloud of shrapnel right in the boiler room I have yet to collect Berger lead out of game because you kinda just pour it out and find the jacket!
I can't imagine what 300 gr of Berger going of like a bomb inside an elk will do, I think it will be a fairly rapid smack down!!

 

[royinidaho]

Oliveralan,

I use a metal detector to find pieces of jacket. I've never located any lead other than that that remained in the base of the jacket. This is with any 270 cal Nosler, Hornady 140 BTSP .

The lead must evaporate???

Also, while looking at an uncropped pic of the bullet hole that the media holder is not sitting straight on the ISMH (Idaho Shooting Media Holder) (Saw Horse )

If I didn't neglect to set it on properly, and I believe I didn't, that shot moved the about 80#s back nearly 3 inches. I'll be more attentive from this point on.

 

[bigngreen]

ISMH (Idaho Shooting Media Holder) (Saw Horse )

Roy, your killing me

 

[Topshot]

With your media testing device. I can see from the photo that the media is not under pressure buy the way that the lid opened up and the media spilt out the top. The quantity and quality of material is variable depending on conditions.

I think it would be better if the media was under some pressure.

Maybe a better device would be more square in shape with an open top.
Fill the box with media and place a neat fitting wooden plate on top of the media.

Then place 25kg to 100kg or so on top of the wooden plate depending on the size of the plate. The plate would press down on top of the media and supply a level of internal pressure. This could then be calculated in in/lb3, kg.m3 or whatever.

You could adjust the weight on top of the box until the desired internal pressure was obtained.

As the internal pressure can now be controlled, a more consistent comparison can be made between bullets.

Simply remove the weight and top wooden plate to access the material and retrieve the spent bullets. When you replace the lid and weight, conditions should be back to original and ready for the next test shot.

Just a thought.