Berger Bullets Announces Launch of a New Ammo Company

[Barrelnut]

This is a tough call. The new info from Bryan seems to indicate you'll lose some BC in the higher BC bullet if you run a 1 in 10" barrel, but that you'll still get to 0.718 BC in the OTM bullet. The faster twist will also likely increase bore resistance and pressure, slightly reducing your velocity at a given pressure. If you really have your sights set on a BC of 0.743, the best available advice from Berger is to increase your rate of twist.

But I wouldn't go to a higher twist just for one bullet's slight advantage in BC. The advantage is less than 5% and gets smaller with altitude, velocity, and temperature. I'd call 0.7 good enough and work for consistent velocity and accuracy. If I couldn't get 0.7 to shoot I'd drop down to an AMAX or a 220 SMK.

When all is said and done, I'd be surprised if the 230 grain Bergers have much ballistic advantage at all over the 208 AMAX and the 220 SMK, so I do not think it would be worthwhile to spec a faster twist barrel for the one claiming a BC of .743.

Thanks, sir.

 

[Eric Stecker]

To All,

Bryan is currently shooting in an international high power competition in Canada. He is aware of this thread and he will respond when he returns and is able to commit some time to the effort.

I expect that Bryan will be able to respond to Michael with a cooler head than I can. Michael is in my opinion one of the worst types of offenders on the forums. He is smart enough that what he says sounds reasonable.

It is the truth however that his conclusions are twisted facts. Much of his published work and posted opinions are either based on or are copied directly from Bryan's work.

The things that frankly ****es me off is that he uses this data, Bryan's data, in the same breathe when he is critical of Bryan's work.

Anyone who has poured their heart and soul into a long labor for the benefit of others in a deliberate effort to get it right can understand how frustrating it is to hear someone use that work to then question it.

I enjoy constructive criticism and we've made many advancements when someone with genuine data and intent provides us with clear evidence that we've got something wrong. What Michael does is different and his using a set of data to question the very data he is using is so hard for me to justify that I can only think of it as deliberately destructive. Why else would someone do this?

Regards,
Eric

 

[Michael Courtney]

I expect that Bryan will be able to respond to Michael with a cooler head than I can. Michael is in my opinion one of the worst types of offenders on the forums. He is smart enough that what he says sounds reasonable.

Eric seems to keep trying to frame this discussion in terms of scientists who disagree with each other, when I think it is more about a bullet company that cannot consistently produce bullets consistent with their product specifications.

I don't really doubt that in the design and early production phases, Bryan can pull some bullets and properly measure the ballistic coefficients that he publishes. But some many thousands of bullets later, we order a few boxes from a vendor, measure the BCs and get very different numbers from the published specs. I think the product is likely changing over time.

There are some subtleties with BC measurements, and Bryan and I have both learned a lot in the past decade about effects of stability, twist rates, velocity, tip off angle, damping of pitch and yaw, etc.

But bullet weight is a much simpler idea. Certain vendors also have a hard time keeping their bullet weights within their published spec, as we documented a couple years ago in a paper with some Air Force colleagues that was published at DTIC. See: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a555976.pdf

I have attached one figure from that paper which shows that the 52 grain flat base varmint bullet is well out of the manufacturer's specification of +/- 0.05 grains. The measurements were performed on a very accurate laboratory scale that the Air Force purchased for this project.

This really seems like more of a manufacturing problem than a scientific debate.

 

[Pdvdh]

To All,
It is the truth however that his conclusions are twisted facts. Much of his published work and posted opinions are either based on or are copied directly from Bryan's work.

The things that frankly ****es me off is that he uses this data, Bryan's data, in the same breathe when he is critical of Bryan's work.

Anyone who has poured their heart and soul into a long labor for the benefit of others in a deliberate effort to get it right can understand how frustrating it is to hear someone use that work to then question it.

What Michael does is different and his using a set of data to question the very data he is using is so hard for me to justify that I can only think of it as deliberately destructive. Why else would someone do this?

Regards,
Eric

If Michael's conclusions are based on twisted facts, then it should be fairly straightforward to refute, because those facts should exist in print, credited to Michael.

You asked Michael to clarify his expressed position with facts in an earlier post and he did. That's what I would suggest. Follow through and show us where his conclusions are built upon twisted facts - fuzzy math - and misrepresent the truth as you know it to exist. That seems a straightforward way to clear up and clean up any twisted facts.

Otherwise your comments can be interpreted as a generalized complaint about Micheal - perhaps because his research, findings, interpretations, and posts are less than the positive message desired.

 

[gohring3006]

Hey I'm late to this party it kinda looks like this is turning into another W3P thread. Lol.
Anyway Eric every time me and my buddies use the calculator it seems to be spot on with the advertised BC so I don't have any complaints so good luck with your new endeavor its the obvious next step for a company such as yours. You guys have great products that are very accurate and absolutely devastating on game so I don't know what more you could ask for in a long range hunting bullet...I have one question do you have any news on the .308 cal elite hunter what weight are they going to be offered ?

 

[MMERSS]

Holy smokes, is this the making of an engineer internet bar fight? If so I'll take the one with the four pen pocket protector and HP-41CX.

Seriously though, I thoroughly enjoy reading both authors works! Thanks to all in the industry for the research, design, testing, and publishing of information. Research and development help us all.

I'm dating myself with the HP-41CX comment….I still use this first scientific calculator purchase even today during tax season. By the way, can anyone tell me where the = sign is located on this calculator? Three decades later I'm still looking!

 

[Michael Courtney]

Holy smokes, is this the making of an engineer internet bar fight? If so I'll take the one with the four pen pocket protector and HP-41CX.

Seriously though, I thoroughly enjoy reading both authors works! Thanks to all in the industry for the research, design, testing, and publishing of information. Research and development help us all.

I'm dating myself with the HP-41CX comment….I still use this first scientific calculator purchase even today during tax season. By the way, can anyone tell me where the = sign is located on this calculator? Three decades later I'm still looking!

LOL! We should inform our audience that the Hewlett Packard calculators use a syntax known as reverse Polish notation, so that an equals sign is not required.

My wife still has the HP-15C we shared in graduate school. One of the grad students in our group at MIT wrote a program called HPC which put the functionality on any desktop, and the other students quickly ported it to all the Unix boxes and home PCs.

I must say I haven't done much useful with an HP in a looooong time, relying on the usual assortment of computer and internet tools.

 

[BryanLitz]

Hi guys,

Just had a great time shooting in the Canadian FULLBORE championships. You may be happy to hear that the USA won the bi-annual 8-man America Team Match against the world championships from Great Britain and also Candada and Japan. Our score was the highest ever fired in the history of the match. I was honored to represent the USA as a firing member of this fine team.

Now on to the reason for my posting.

We all agree that manufacturers should represent their products accurately. As a Ballistician for 3 companies (Berger Bullets, ABM, and Applied Ballistics), it's my job to determine and publish performance data for bullets and ammunition. As those who know me are aware, I take my job very seriously. It used to frustrate me (as it frustrates Eric) when people in forums would question my work. Eventually I came to understand that most of the time it's people with agendas who get their feelings hurt by the truth and those aren't problems that will be worked out successfully on internet forums. So although it's still discouraging to see people trying to tear down my hard work, I've come to accept it as something that comes with the job.

The library of BC's that I've published is widely known to be the most accurate body of independently tested information available on modern bullets. That's part of what makes Applied Ballistics software applications (smartphone, Kestrel, and PC tools) so accurate. Furthermore, competing programs also use my library of BC's and use it as a selling point because it makes their programs more accurate too. I'm happy to have made such a useful contribution to the shooting sports and to know that people are able to hit targets at longer range because these tools and information exist.

There will always be the HATS, WP3's, and other companies who will argue my results because they don't agree with their extraordinary claims and I understand that. But Michael Courtney represents a different kind of opposition. He's not promoting a particular brand of bullets, he's promoting himself as an independent, unbiased source of scientific analysis. In principal, I welcome this kind of peer review. A lot of the measurements I'm making are difficult and because I care about getting it right, I would love to have my results checked out by an authoritative source. Unfortunately, Michael Courtney is not an authoritative source for ballistic analysis. He's demonstrated his lack of understanding in ballistics too many times to count, but I'll take some examples just from this thread to show you what I mean.

Michael enters this thread talking about the accuracy of ABM's published performance data and throws around statements about the scientific method and independent verification, etc. But then in post #73 when Eric called Micheals credibility into question, he points to a specific result about Berger bullets being out of weight spec and changes his tune to:

This really seems like more of a manufacturing problem than a scientific debate.

So he wants to criticize one company's manufacturing tolerances without allowing his methods to be called into question? Can't have it both ways. I read the paper on bullet weight and here is some of the context that was left out.
The paper states that:

Careful review of the data in the appendix shows that Berger is one of the better manufacturers, and that in every case, the standard deviation is less than a part in 1000 (one tenth of one percent), and in many cases Berger bullets have a standard deviation from the mean of less than 1 part in 2000.

I copied and pasted the raw measurement data from the appendix of the paper into excel and did some analysis of my own on the weight variance of the brands. What Michael's own data shows is that Berger has the least variation in weight (% ES and SD) of any of the 8 brands tested. But rather than say that, for this particular debate, Michael chose to cherry pick a statement about a particular Berger bullet being out of the advertised specs (Berger is the only brand tested that publishes specs, so even though Bergers tested better than any other brand, according to Michael, they're the only ones that are 'out of spec').
This is one example of deliberately telling part of the story to shift the focus from broad scientific truth, to a direct critisizm using anecdotal evidence. That is the kind of destructive behavior that Eric is referring to. There's a clear path to understanding, but those with an agenda can find ways to muddy the waters to benefit themselves. The benefit to Michael is that he gets money from the government to perform these studies.
As an aside, is anyone else curious to know why the Air Force is paying Michael Courtney to study Varmint bullets? When I worked for the Air Force (Technical Intelligence), I wanted to develop more accurate models of threat air-to-air cannons. I was told that weapon was not relevant enough to air combat and that I should stay focused on the long range RF and highly maneuverable IR guided missiles. What I do know is that Michaels wife Amy, and someone else named Joshua Courtney have co-authored several of these papers, so maybe it's a case of knowing the right people to get your hobby funded with government money. But this is pure speculation on my part.

Moving on…
In post #56, Michael mentions two Berger Bullets and states that the advertised G1 BC's are less than what he measured. This is a red flag. Anyone who makes comparative statements about G1 BC's and doesn't specify a velocity either: A) doesn't understand how velocity affects G1 BC's for modern bullets, or B) knows, and is making deliberate, misleading statements.
Since we're on BC's, we can see an excellent example of Michaels practices at work in his paper: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a554683.pdf In this paper, Michael uses my measured BC's as an 'independent source' to compare with advertised BC's and then rack's and stacks the various brands based on accuracy. Well, something like that. What he really does is use my BC's in the free online JBM calculator to calculate retained velocity (or tof) at 200 yards (with some MV he entered). Then, used JBM to determine the BC of a bullet with that retained velocity at 200 yards. Why would he do that instead of simply use my actual published numbers? One reason I can think of is that by 'laundering' the numbers as he did, he's not technically stealing my work directly. But he is attributing the altered BC's to me, and I strongly disagree with how he changed my numbers. The reason I disagree with his approach is because it skews the BC's to the high velocity end of the spectrum. All of my published BC's are averages from 3000 to 1500 fps. This may not be exactly the window everyone shoots, but it is more representative of typical long range shots than the 200 yard velocity window that Michael skewed the data to in his paper. Again, working with G1 BC's and modern bullets, anything is possible. Who cares about the BC of a bullet at 200 yards? It's long range where the bullet slows down that BC starts to become important to trajectory prediction, retained velocity, etc.
As if this bastardization of my work isn't bad enough, he states that since I work for Berger Bullets, my data on them cannot be considered 'independent', and so Berger was not included in the study. I use the same methods to test Berger bullets as every other brand! The first thing I did when I started working for Berger was to reassess all the advertised BC's (which were based on computer predictions) to the actual measurements I took from live fire and averaged over long range. This resulted in an average 3% to 5% reduction in Bergers advertised numbers. I also introduced the idea of using G7 BC's to minimize velocity effects. After all this, it is frustrating to see someone like Michael publish a paper like that which un-does so much of my hard work in a paper titled: "Comparing advertised BC's with independent measurements" in which he didn't fire a single shot, and in which his only original contribution was to alter the 'independent measurements' before comparing, and call Berger's published data into question while doing it.
But in the grand scheme, the damage isn't so bad. Other than readers of Varmint Hunter Magazine, most of the shooting community isn't exposed to much of Michaels work. It could be worse.
I have a lot more to say but this post is already long. You probably get the point, and see the pattern that Michael is not a fair contributor to our sport, but someone who is trying to personally profit from it by trying to make themselves relevant to those in the government who will pay them money and expand their list of 'publications'.
I'll try to make the following points briefly.

Michael Courtney:

It turns out all the data Bob McCoy used to establish the independence of drag coefficients on air density was taken at Aberdeen Proving Ground, near sea level. No one had ever empirically tested whether drag coefficients or BCs measured at sea level would give accurate predictions at higher elevations.

Are you kidding me? This is like doing a study to determine if the earth is round or flat. Altitude effects are well known and understood properties of the atmosphere. Aberdeen Proving Grounds may be located near sea level, but I think the 100's of artillery shots that were fired there and tracked with Doppler radar and telemetry to altitudes of many 1000's of feet altitude did a good job of exploring high altitude effects. If you manage to get a paper funded to study altitude effects of small arms at different altitude based on the premise that: "No-one's ever done it", it will be outright fraud.

In post #65, Michael claims that:

One may further consider that our independent measurements of Berger ballistic coefficients has consistently yielded BCs 8% to 15% below Berger's published values.

However, you fail do describe your testing protocols, even stating that your findings are "not approved for release". Furthermore, Berger's BC's are tested with the same methods that produced the results Michael used as 'independant verification data' in another work. This is consistent with his pattern of cherry picking statements without providing context (or in this case, any results at all). If you're still measuring G1 BC's at 100 yards for large caliber (High BC) bullets with CED chronographs, then I think the 8% to 15% error is more measurement error rather than error in the published values.

BC and stability
It's known that the BC of a bullet can be affected by stability. I've reported this result on this forum in the discussion about the Nosler LR Accubonds, and is thoroughly fleshed out over several chapters of my latest book. The knowledge has been encapsulated into a tool which shooters can use to calculate the effects for themselves (Twist Rate Stability Calculator | Berger Bullets ). What has Michael done? He's used this information and tool to warn people that the BC of the 230 grain Hybrid might be compromised if you don't shoot it out of a fast enough twist barrel as if it's somehow him finding fault with my analysis of the 220 SMK vs. the 230 Berger Hybrid.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Barrelnut
Michael,

Simpleton question: I want to replace my worn (1 in 10 twist) 300 RUM 28" barrel and start running the 230 Bergers. Most shooting will be sea level to 3000 Feet. Does this me I should go 9.5 or 9.25 twist?

Thanks much. Appreciate the info here.
This is a tough call. The new info from Bryan seems to indicate you'll lose some BC in the higher BC bullet if you run a 1 in 10" barrel, but that you'll still get to 0.718 BC in the OTM bullet. The faster twist will also likely increase bore resistance and pressure, slightly reducing your velocity at a given pressure. If you really have your sights set on a BC of 0.743, the best available advice from Berger is to increase your rate of twist.

But I wouldn't go to a higher twist just for one bullet's slight advantage in BC. The advantage is less than 5% and gets smaller with altitude, velocity, and temperature. I'd call 0.7 good enough and work for consistent velocity and accuracy. If I couldn't get 0.7 to shoot I'd drop down to an AMAX or a 220 SMK.

When all is said and done, I'd be surprised if the 230 grain Bergers have much ballistic advantage at all over the 208 AMAX and the 220 SMK, so I do not think it would be worthwhile to spec a faster twist barrel for the one claiming a BC of .743.

So Michael's saying that according to my analysis, you need a faster twist to get the full potential BC out of the 230 Target Hybrid, but that he doesn't recommend it because the advantage is less than 5% (?) He cites velocity reduction from a faster twist barrel as one reason. Either Michael didn't read the first chapter of the same book he's getting his other facts from, or this is another example of him cherry picking specific facts (generated by myself) out of context to attack a full analysis (230's in a 300 Win Mag are better than 190 or 220 SMK's) while ignoring the parts of my analysis which show that twist rate has a negligible effect on velocity.
If you're going to get a new barrel, why not spec its twist fast enough to get all the BC out of a bullet now that we know that's what it takes?

Michael has taken my work, mis-represented it, then turned around and advised something inconsistent with higher performance shooting.

We can't stop people from posting on public forums, even when their participation is corrosive and counterproductive to the group. I can only respond and do my best to point out where I disagree and each reader will come to their own conclusions.
I promise to continue to do my best to put out the most accurate and relevant ballistic performance data that I can, and I'm sure that Michael will continue to do what he does.

-Bryan

 

[Michael Courtney]

Many manufacturers have taken issue with our approach to testing whether or not their products meet their marketing specifications. Our view is that even very good products could be even better if tested and pressed to actually meet their specifications rather than considering "close" good enough. For example, consider our testing of velocity variations from different lots of Hodgdon H4831 powder, shown in the attached graph and discussed more thoroughly in this paper:

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a572333.pdf

The magnitude of velocity variations resulting from different lots of powder are much different from that suggested from Hodgdon's marketing literature. Is it detrimental to the shooting community to point this out and encourage Hodgdon to do better?

 

[Michael Courtney]

Another area where we have been active in testing products is lead free primers. California has already required lead free bullets for hunting, and may soon also require lead free primers. Our work shows that lead free primers still have some serious performance disadvantages. The attached graphs were presented a couple weeks ago at an invited talk at the Army Research Lab and have been approved for publication. They show that ATK's lead free primers have some serious performance issues compared with lead styphnate based primers. One big performance issue is the significant ignition delay (> 50 ms) compared with the mil spec and performance of lead styphnate primers of 3.5 ms. Another big performance issue is the larger variation in muzzle velocity.

Is doing this research and published results really detrimental to the shooting community? Our motives are pure: good science and the best possible products for the shooting community.

 

[SidecarFlip]

My comment (that may or may not apply to others on this site and other sites) is, while I handload the majority of my rounds, I always like to take at least one box of commercially prepared cartridges along on a hunt, just in case something gets lost or misplaced.

I'll be getting a couple boxes of Bergers in 308 hunting loads and 338 hunting loads as backup.

Just my thoughts and opinion.

 

[Michael Courtney]

We see our work in external ballistics similarly. Even the best bullets can be improved by testing and comparing careful measurements with the manufacturer's specifications. Is having the most consistent bullet weights good enough if 4 out of 6 bullet models have more than 10 bullets in the boxes tested outside the advertised specification? Is having the highest BCs available good enough if most independent tests determine BCs to be 8-15% lower than advertised? Certainly each shooter needs to answer these questions for themselves, but we can't see how providing independent test results and informing the community of our findings is detrimental to the shooting public.

Lots of issues have been raised, and I prefer not to go down every rabbit trail. But I will point out that we have taken care to publish the near velocity for all our BC measurements and also to measure the BCs of many bullets at several velocities. Our paper reporting the BC of the 62 grain Berger Flat Base Varmint (.224) reports the BC of 0.245 at velocities of 2950 fps and 2230 fps. This is sufficient to say with confidence that the difference between our BC and Berger's claimed BC of 0.291 is probably not due to Berger's measurement being at a significantly different near velocity. Our BC results for the 52 grain Flat Base Varmint (.224) and the 155.5 grain Fullbore (.308) also represent testing at multiple velocities.

Questions for Bryan: Do Berger's published BC specs on the 62 and 52 grain Flat Based Varmint bullets (and other bullets in this series) actually represent your test results? What method was used to determine these published specifications? You seem to be trying to denigrate our carefully measured BCs of these specific bullets by claiming to be an independent testing authority. Have you really measured them and what were your findings? You were critical of my post above for not reporting the velocities. Yet the Berger site does not give the velocities at which these bullet BCs were determined, and most (or all) of the Flat Base Varmint series are absent from your book (at least in our 1st edition of Applied Ballistics ...)

 

[cohunter14]

Is having the highest BCs available good enough if most independent tests determine BCs to be 8-15% lower than advertised?

I don't know what other independent tests you are referring to, but I will say that the majority of shooters on this forum, including some very experienced long range shooters, tend to agree that Berger's BC's are spot on. At least that has been my experience. Just throwing it out there...

 

[Jluck]

I don't know what other independent tests you are referring to, but I will say that the majority of shooters on this forum, including some very experienced long range shooters, tend to agree that Berger's BC's are spot on. At least that has been my experience. Just throwing it out there...

Easy now... you mean real world proven experience not just number crunching and keyboard racing?.that's plain crazy talk.

This thread makes me want to buy more Berger bullets. ... A lot of them.