When I tested them along side the 142g ABLR, the 156g EOL did strange things 3 times at 800 and beyond, whereas the ABLR did exactly as advertised. I have not had great results with certain Berger bullets at our elevations above 800 metres. All of the OTM's I have tried have done weird things, which include, yawing on game, pencilling through or disintegrating.
Accuracy on all have been excellent.
I hunted with the 30cal 210g Hybrid for many years out of 1 of my 300WM's, never failed me, but when I started LR hunting, the 215g made it's way into my heart, then availability ceased here. Had to find something to use and the 210g ABLR is now my favourite in that cartridge. I still use 180g/200g Accubonds for normal ranges to about 500metres when required, even in my SPS 300RUM.
Cheers.
Your "pencilling through" is a result of using a line of Bergers not labeled "hunting". Berger themselves state that in their own testing the thicker jackets they use on their non-hunting bullets gave them unreliable expansion in testing. Their "Hunting" line uses the original VLD jacket thickness and gets tested on ballistic gel. All of their non-hunting bullets use the thicker jackets original named "VLD Thick" which they started making after mid air blowups started occurring with regular VLDs.
Your disintegrating is what Berger hunting bullets usually do. If you don't like that, Berger's are not for you.
I have had one Berger "yaw" in an animal, and have heard of it happening as well. Every instance that I hear of it happening has been one of the heavier bullets for caliber, and I would suspect is marginally stable. The one that I had yaw had an SG of about 1.3. I contacted Berger and they didn't seem to think that would have been the cause, but after encountering more reports of tumbling or yawing in the animal, I suspect that it occurs when the SG is too far below 1.5. Compounding that problem, Berger's older twist recommendations would give you an SG around 1.5 at sea level, but since Lapua bought them out, their twist recommendations have been revised to be too slow to achieve a 1.5 SG. Why Lapua did that is beyond me, but it has done hunters a disservice.
What twist did you have when shooting the 156?
Your elevation is not the problem.
That 215 Hybrid, despite not being part of the hunting line, did have an excellent reputation on game. I think that was probably just a fluke. Since determining the VLD Thick did not open reliably, Berger does not test any bullets outside of their hunting like on ballistics gel to make sure they open consistently.
The only kill I have with the 156 however, was disappointing for me. It exited the mule deer leaving about a 2" diameter exit, and made maybe a .5" diameter hole in the lungs. It's the only animal I've hit in the chest with a Berger that took more than a step or two, and it ran a solid 75+ yards. Thats not enough to say there is a problem with the 156, but there certainly could be. 140's have all penciled in 3-6", and fragmented violently in the lungs. Same with 190VLDs in 30cal.
