I have been shooting and reloading for a very long time and have shot many different calibers. Nowadays it seems that all the talk is about Berger. Are they really worth all the hype? I feel other bullets have just fallen off the radar. There are way better bullets IMO like Swift, Lapua, Speer, and Norma. What's your opinion?
Sergeant D,
I have been reloading for 37+ years, I have used just about every projectile out there, with the exception of Swift, Hammer, Cutting Edge, G2 Tech, and a few other specialized bullet manufacturers.
the most accurate hunting slugs in my rifles are Nosler, Barnes, and Berger
the most reliable slugs below 500 yards are Barnes hands down. (My most trusted slugs ever)
the best hunting slugs over 500 yards I have ever shot are the Bergers (close second is Nosler accu-bond)
best Varminting slugs I have ever used have to go to Berger 17 caliber, Hornady V-max and Nosler Varmigedon, 22 caliber
My target slugs of choice are Nosler, Lapua, and Hornady. (Sierra has finally gotten good at batch to batch uniformity)
Dangerous game slugs I trust are Hornady (.458" DGX and DGS) and (.375" Woodleigh 270 and 300 grain) for pigs the 375 H&H gets 300 grain nosler partitions or Barnes 270 grain solids.
I once thought that Speer and Sierra were the best but they have definitely let me down in critical situations and found their way out of my reloading bench since they refuse to make better slugs than these other people.
Just so everyone will understand I was a loyal Speer and Sierra user. I had such poor performance out of Sierra M/K's; at one point I was using Nosler Accu-Bonds for 1,000 competitions. I used Speer and Hornady for all my hunting until Speer started letting me down with marginal accuracy and weight variations within the box as much as 2.5 grains. bubbles on the sides of the slugs so they spun irregularly and some other things happened with Hornady. I started experimenting with any slug that I could get my hands on. A 5 year hunting and target experiment went on. the culmination is what I wrote above.
while up in Montana I was buying only Barnes slugs with few exceptions. deer went down with 110 grain Barnes out of my 270 Winchester better than anything I had ever used in California (Speer, Sierra, Hornady). for longer shots I was using 140 grain Barnes and 140 grain Nosler Accu-Bond (before I found Berger 140's and 150's). Elk was going down with 225 grain Barnes out of my 338 Win Mag like nothing I had used previous. Bear was getting a steady diet of either 250 grain Barnes out of 338 W/M or 400 grain Barnes out of my 45-70. something does upset me about Barnes. they used to make a wonderful 120 grain 270 slug that I was using but they no longer make it.
When my time was up in Montana I have not hunting much big game and have been shooting varmints, coyotes, prong horn, and nothing else since I moved down to help my parents out in Nevada. My time here in NV is running out, I am going to be either going back to Montana or I am going to be in another state where I can hunt more and bigger game again. then I can break out my reloading setups and get back to eating a much more freshly killed diet.