Why Doesn't Berger make a Bonded Bullet??

I also like the performance of bonded bullets on deer. I have had good results with the Fusion in my 300 WSM. My experience albeit is from 50 to 300 yards. I have had excellent accuracy and always a leak hole! Glad to see we can now get Fusion bullets for reloading.
However, for moose and elk I prefer the performance of A-frame's in my STW and 300UM.

Eagleye242 said:

I have not personally shot an Elk with a Berger, and never will. I was along on a Grizzly hunt where 4 heavy for caliber Bergers failed to anchor a medium size bear. He was finally put down for the count with a 220 grain A-Frame from an 8mm Rem Mag. I have that bullet in my collection. Not one piece of those Bergers was much bigger than a pinhead. The Swift still weighs 172 grains. Dave.

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I give you allot of credit for posting the above with the crowd here. Even with the above scenario posted, I bet that some guys here will STILL defend Berger's even for Grizzly Bear.

Again I'm not totally crapping on Berger's, I just think that people should overlook the hype and use Berger's for what they are designed to do...fly accurately, efficiently with super high BC, then strike an animal and fragment.

I can't think of a WORSE bullet for Grizzly.

Just returned from a Scimitar Oryx cull hunt, 300 WSM, Berger 215 Hybrid, velocity 2780 fps. Shot the gal at about 100 yards, knew I had her, but guide said shoot her again, which I did. Quartering away and below me. Bullets entered just behind shoulder, destroyed top of heart completely and most of the lungs, exited off side front shoulder low, massive blood loss, dropped and rolled down a hill, breaking the other horn off. Oh well was a cull hunt. Same thing with the small white tails her in Texas. Also gutted ferrel hog at about 150 yards with the Berger. I am a fan of the Berger. Please move this if this post is too far off base.

Ingwe said:

You call the Accubond an Accubomb AND swear by Berger's....am I reading that right

Here's a pic of the 175gr ABLR from that Zebra I talked about earlier, which broke a shoulder, 2 lungs and recovered under hide on off side. 77gr retained weight. What do you think would be left of your 175gr Berger with a similar shot?

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I started calling them Accubombs when I ran a wild game processing plant, you can always tell an Accubond hit because you find their little white tips just inside the on side meat somewhere in usually a wreckage of meat. The worst bloodshot animals I've had were elk hit with Accubonds, hence the Accubomb!

TexSavage said:

Just returned from a Scimitar Oryx cull hunt, 300 WSM, Berger 215 Hybrid, velocity 2780 fps. Shot the gal at about 100 yards, knew I had her, but guide said shoot her again, which I did. Quartering away and below me. Bullets entered just behind shoulder, destroyed top of heart completely and most of the lungs, exited off side front shoulder low, massive blood loss, dropped and rolled down a hill, breaking the other horn off. Oh well was a cull hunt. Same thing with the small white tails her in Texas. Also gutted ferrel hog at about 150 yards with the Berger. I am a fan of the Berger. Please move this if this post is too far off base.

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Tex, IMO, Berger's are PERFECT for Oryx, Pig, Deer sized game.

Not knocking them just use for what they were made to do.

Overkill338 said:

Well, I believe Berger was just target bullets from the start. Then some person shot a game animal with one, and it dropped in its tracks. So Berger in turn said "oh yeah, we knew that would happen, it's a hybrid hunting bullet. We meant for it to do that!" . Then more and more people kept buying them, and kept shooting game with these oversized Varmint bullets. That's the story

Me personally, I prefer the AB or Partition. I'm trying the TTSX this year. I just can't put my Hope's behind a bullet that blows apart. They do shoot phenomenally well!

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The history as I saw it was John Burns started using them and then others started because they were looking for a better bullet because the offerings of the time just didn't cut it, they grew more and more popular before with many guys way before Berger even recognized or even said they could be hunted with. I really was all the feed back from a lot of guys shooting a lot of animals and taking actual field results and documenting the terminal performance that brought Berger into the hunting market. They didn't even have a hunting line forever then when they came with the thicker jackets for heavy strings of fire they decided to simply distinguish the difference by hunting and target then time moves on other players come in and go.

From my experience with terminal performance of a few bergers and a whole bunch of accubonds (regular, not LRs) I think it might be a toss up. Or if I really over think it, for good hits involving hide, meat and no bone bigger than a rib, Berger's are better at impact velocities below 1500 FPS and accubonds are better at faster velocities.

My history was much similar, Berger were not a hunting bullet when I started using them, I just knew I had to find a better thing and I was shooting everything I hadn't before, took me two years and a LOT of shooting and opening game, first few elk were shot first with them as a second shot only. Then I started shooting game with them first pull and found I didn't need to put two in anything, I didn't need to modify my shot placement but it certainly got more precise, lost way less meat per shot because they went in a few inches then started opening and doing a slow mushroom and frag as they continue to the of side. I built test rigs that I could shoot repeatable shots into media that I could hang elk bones and hide in and I put a lot of bullets into every test possible till I just had some much confidence built by performance that I simply don't do it anymore, testing doesn't appeal to me as much and I enjoy just hunting for hunting again.

I think Berger should put out a line of otm type bonded bullets. No one else has an open tip match style bonded bullet. But they would have to use much thicker jackets for it to be helpful. The thin jackets they use now would be worthless if they were bonded. They would likely perform about the same as their bullets do now if the jackets weren't made heavier.

For those of you who don't know John Barsness, here's an interesting read:

http://www.riflemagazine.com/magazine/PDF/hl248partial.pdf

For those that don't know we actually have had a very similar bullet but bonded, Matrix used J4 jackets and you could order bonded versions, I didn't find anything I likes about it but it's not like it's not out there, you can make your own with J4 Jackets and Corbin dies and then bond them or partition them yourselves. Rich Sherman was doing a partitioned bullet before he was doing all the wildcat thing and they were interesting!!

Eagleye242 said:

I have not personally shot an Elk with a Berger, and never will. I was along on a Grizzly hunt where 4 heavy for caliber Bergers failed to anchor a medium size bear. He was finally put down for the count with a 220 grain A-Frame from an 8mm Rem Mag. I have that bullet in my collection. Not one piece of those Bergers was much bigger than a pinhead. The Swift still weighs 172 grains. Dave.

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Exactly, the A frame is a bonded Partition, When you hunt in Griz country, you want a bullet that can anchor the worst case scenario you might encounter. And Berger is not it !

In my experience, not all Berger's are created equally. I had good luck with a 190 VLD in a 30 cal. But issues I've had are with the 140 VLD in a 6.5. It destroys way too much of exactly what I harvest the animal for MEAT ! 3 times now I've had the 140 grenade and ruin some portion of the meat from tip to tail. All 3 kills were in the 600 yrd range. But the 130 gr 6.5 performs just like the 190's. My thoughts are it has to do with length, weight & caliber. It seems the jackets are not the same thickness on the 140's as the 130's or maybe tip design, I'm not a ballistics engineer but I can easily spot poor performance from one bullet to another.

I find this post super funny!

When someone posts about a short range bullet, everyone talks about this being a long range forum.

When someone asks about a long range bullet, everyone talks about short range.

OMG, too dang funny!

Sorry....back at er boys!

Steve