Berger close range impact

[FIGJAM]

Help me out here please. So what you are saying is if you get a pass through you either had to much energy for the given animal OR your bullet did not expand enough to put all the energy into the animal?

I think what he is saying is if the bullet passes through the animal, some of that energy is wasted because it was not all left inside. Interesting to think about this way, and not entirely sure I agree...theoretically a smaller caliber with a berger or any other frangible bullet that blows up inside the animal (leaving all the energy inside the animal) could compensate for a larger bullet that passes through from an energy standpoint.

 

[NEMTHunter]

Some look at the bullet the goes to pieces part way in or through a animal as wasted energy. The Bergers I shoot do not do that. I do not like a exploding bullet. With that being said they have there place. I am switching from one kind to another because of surface splash. Depending on the game being hunted you need all the penetration you can get. With all that said. I prefer a bullet that expands good and sheds weight but still goes clean through. Bullets like that tend to leave the insides in a puddle and even take some of the lung clean out with the bullet. So far a golf ball sized hole is all I get on the exits. To me that ideal. BUT I do not shoot for bone. I would rather kill rib meat then shoulder meat.

 

[FIGJAM]

Some look at the bullet the goes to pieces part way in or through a animal as wasted energy. The Bergers I shoot do not do that. I do not like a exploding bullet. With that being said they have there place. I am switching from one kind to another because of surface splash. Depending on the game being hunted you need all the penetration you can get. With all that said. I prefer a bullet that expands good and sheds weight but still goes clean through. Bullets like that tend to leave the insides in a puddle and even take some of the lung clean out with the bullet. So far a golf ball sized hole is all I get on the exits. To me that ideal. BUT I do not shoot for bone. I would rather kill rib meat then shoulder meat.

I personally have never felt the need for a passthrough - good penetration yes, passthrough no. I also don't need a blood trail to follow because of the open country I hunt in too. Bergers have been pretty good to me - never lost an animal with one. Lots of good bullets out there though, its just good to have all these choices!

 

[FIGJAM]

Some look at the bullet the goes to pieces part way in or through a animal as wasted energy. The Bergers I shoot do not do that. I do not like a exploding bullet. With that being said they have there place. I am switching from one kind to another because of surface splash. Depending on the game being hunted you need all the penetration you can get. With all that said. I prefer a bullet that expands good and sheds weight but still goes clean through. Bullets like that tend to leave the insides in a puddle and even take some of the lung clean out with the bullet. So far a golf ball sized hole is all I get on the exits. To me that ideal. BUT I do not shoot for bone. I would rather kill rib meat then shoulder meat.

I think the key is that the bullet reaches the vitals before blowing up - that has been my experience with berger - they penetrate a few inches (even through the shoulder) and then shed a lot of its weight in all sorts of directions into the animals vitals - that kind of performance has equated to a couple steps if any and then dead.

 

[Harvey Durham]

I have been shooting Berger bullets for
Some time now . I have never had one fail me ,although most of my shots have been in the 300 to 650 yard range . That changed yesterday on a Whitetail meat hunt when I shot a doe at 40 yards . Shooting a 270 wsm
Berger 130 gr Hunter Classic
Muzzle velocity of 3250 my ballistic program will not give me 40 yard results but at 75 it's still moving at 3102 FPS. I have heard horrible stories
Of the Berger bullets blowing up on impact with no pass through. I know this is just a whitetail deer and not a Moose but come on 3102 at 40 yards .
I've had bullets thrown from lesser velocity and destroyed everything.
Here are the results of the Berger Bullet I'm sticking with them .

I've been shooting Berger for many years. On blowing up, I shot a 3,000 water buffaloe at 70 yards last spring in Argentina and it went through its shoulder and out his lungs and I could put my fist in the hole where it came out!! I'm not going to believe anything on that. I was shooting a 195 grain bullet in a 300 Norma mag .284. In the same rile, I shot 180 grain Berger Bullets until the 195 grain Bullets came out and on my 1,508 yard target the 180 explode and hit like a bunch of bb's at that target about half of the time. This gun, and I have two of them pushes the 180 to fast with to much energy for a 180 grain bullet. I have a 1,038 yard target and they hold together well out to there.

Hope this helps w,

Harvey

 

[Shootin4fun]

I think the key is that the bullet reaches the vitals before blowing up - that has been my experience with berger - they penetrate a few inches (even through the shoulder) and then shed a lot of its weight in all sorts of directions into the animals vitals - that kind of performance has equated to a couple steps if any and then dead.

This is what they are advertised to do. Penetrate 3" and start expanding. This thread is centered on the VLDs for hunting but aren't they actually target bullets? Anyway, gaping holes and lead scattered throughout the meat isn't a great thing in my book. I have not taken game with Bergers yet but have done a lot of load development and target shooting with them and they are crazy accurate and consistent.
I am going on a hunt soon using 6.5 135 Classic Hunters and I will keep in mind shot placement and meat destruction / contamination. Barnes TTSX are my choice for penetrating anything and decent expansion down to 2K fps. Everything I've shot with them ends DRT with a nickle sized exit hole, minimal meat loss and NO led contamination.

 

[FIGJAM]

This is what they are advertised to do. Penetrate 3" and start expanding. This thread is centered on the VLDs for hunting but aren't they actually target bullets? Anyway, gaping holes and lead scattered throughout the meat isn't a great thing in my book. I have not taken game with Bergers yet but have done a lot of load development and target shooting with them and they are crazy accurate and consistent.
I am going on a hunt soon using 6.5 135 Classic Hunters and I will keep in mind shot placement and meat destruction / contamination. Barnes TTSX are my choice for penetrating anything and decent expansion down to 2K fps. Everything I've shot with them ends DRT with a nickle sized exit hole, minimal meat loss and NO led contamination.

I haven't had to pick schrapnel out of my meat yet - I am not into eating any of the vital organs it blows up into.

 

[FIGJAM]

I've been shooting Berger for many years. On blowing up, I shot a 3,000 water buffaloe at 70 yards last spring in Argentina and it went through its shoulder and out his lungs and I could put my fist in the hole where it came out!! I'm not going to believe anything on that. I was shooting a 195 grain bullet in a 300 Norma mag .284. In the same rile, I shot 180 grain Berger Bullets until the 195 grain Bullets came out and on my 1,508 yard target the 180 explode and hit like a bunch of bb's at that target about half of the time. This gun, and I have two of them pushes the 180 to fast with to much energy for a 180 grain bullet. I have a 1,038 yard target and they hold together well out to there.

Hope this helps w,

Harvey

Are you saying that the bullet exploaded right before it hit the 1508 yd target? There is no way it exploaded sooner and held a tight shotgun like pattern out to 1500 yds...

 

[stx]

I haven't had to pick schrapnel out of my meat yet - I am not into eating any of the vital organs it blows up into.

I haven't either!

 

[coop2564]

This thread is comical, it's amazing at the difference people can have or think they have had. I've shot at least 40 whitetails with my 270 using 150 gr VLDs bergers. Most right around 100 yds a few around 400 yd. Ive hit them in shoulders, behind shoulders, frontal and a few shots to far back! But never had one not kill the animal. Ive shot many hogs too right in shoulders all dead. Most passed thru a few did not but still dead! I must be just lucky sounds like I should of only found about half of what I shot based on some of you. To be honest Ive taken well over 300 big game animals with bullets of all kinds, i have never felt like the bullet itself was a cause of non recovery it was always me not making the right shot. Heck everyone is a crack shot right! So it has to be the bullet! No I have seen so many animals recovered later but the hunter swore he saw perfect hit and hit not be anywhere close to where they said. One guy at elk camp said he had frontal hit on nice bull square in middle of chest. Said he saw hair fly. They trailed half a mile lost him. Two days later another guy shot him. 1st guy hit about 4" under his jaw in neck, blew big chunk out back of his neck. For 2 days straight everyone in camp was blaming his 7RM and to light 140gr bullet! Had bull not been killed, to this day 30 plus people would of been convinced that gun or bullet was to blame!

 

[FIGJAM]

This thread is comical, it's amazing at the difference people can have or think they have had. I've shot at least 40 whitetails with my 270 using 150 gr VLDs bergers. Most right around 100 yds a few around 400 yd. Ive hit them in shoulders, behind shoulders, frontal and a few shots to far back! But never had one not kill the animal. Ive shot many hogs too right in shoulders all dead. Most passed thru a few did not but still dead! I must be just lucky sounds like I should of only found about half of what I shot based on some of you. To be honest Ive taken well over 300 big game animals with bullets of all kinds, i have never felt like the bullet itself was a cause of non recovery it was always me not making the right shot. Heck everyone is a crack shot right! So it has to be the bullet! No I have seen so many animals recovered later but the hunter swore he saw perfect hit and hit not be anywhere close to where they said. One guy at elk camp said he had frontal hit on nice bull square in middle of chest. Said he saw hair fly. They trailed half a mile lost him. Two days later another guy shot him. 1st guy hit about 4" under his jaw in neck, blew big chunk out back of his neck. For 2 days straight everyone in camp was blaming his 7RM and to light 140gr bullet! Had bull not been killed, to this day 30 plus people would of been convinced that gun or bullet was to blame!

Well said - great points.

 

[povertyknob]

The crazy thing to me about hunting is you never know, in most cases, where the animal will be (yardage) when you head out to hunt. Thinking I was most likely going to have 2-300 yd shot at the stand I was going to. Turned out to be 40 yds. 6.5 PRC using the 156 EOL bullet. I shot high shoulder and he was DRT. (Whitetail). No exit. Bullet performed flawlessly IMO.

 

[VTbluegrass]

This thread is comical, it's amazing at the difference people can have or think they have had. I've shot at least 40 whitetails with my 270 using 150 gr VLDs bergers. Most right around 100 yds a few around 400 yd. Ive hit them in shoulders, behind shoulders, frontal and a few shots to far back! But never had one not kill the animal. Ive shot many hogs too right in shoulders all dead. Most passed thru a few did not but still dead! I must be just lucky sounds like I should of only found about half of what I shot based on some of you. To be honest Ive taken well over 300 big game animals with bullets of all kinds, i have never felt like the bullet itself was a cause of non recovery it was always me not making the right shot. Heck everyone is a crack shot right! So it has to be the bullet! No I have seen so many animals recovered later but the hunter swore he saw perfect hit and hit not be anywhere close to where they said. One guy at elk camp said he had frontal hit on nice bull square in middle of chest. Said he saw hair fly. They trailed half a mile lost him. Two days later another guy shot him. 1st guy hit about 4" under his jaw in neck, blew big chunk out back of his neck. For 2 days straight everyone in camp was blaming his 7RM and to light 140gr bullet! Had bull not been killed, to this day 30 plus people would of been convinced that gun or bullet was to blame!

If an animal is dead, especially DRT, what in reality are were talking about. Now I have never shot any of the hyper velocity rounds that are pushing bullets into the mid-3000's so I can't speak to those. But if a game animal of almost any kind walks out with a clear line of site at close range under 100, heck under 30 yards, and I have my 270 pushing a 130grain Berger as hard as I can thinking the bullet might come apart is the last thing on my mind. What I am thinking is this is near guaranteed to be a short easy tracking job.

 

[dana bodnar]

If an animal is dead, especially DRT, what in reality are were talking about. Now I have never shot any of the hyper velocity rounds that are pushing bullets into the mid-3000's so I can't speak to those. But if a game animal of almost any kind walks out with a clear line of site at close range under 100, heck under 30 yards, and I have my 270 pushing a 130grain Berger as hard as I can thinking the bullet might come apart is the last thing on my mind. What I am thinking is this is near guaranteed to be a short easy tracking job.

Berger bullets are awesome at any range. I shot a nice Buck at 40-yards and the bullet went in the 12 ring and blew the heart and lungs up big time they looked like Berger and that was with my 2506 115-g Berger and it grouped in a dime at 200-yards bullet speed that my barrel loves is 3149. Same thing with my 300 Win Mag at a bull Elk at 723-yards with a 210-g Berger at 2845 fps........... I could go on but I think you get the point.