Berger 115 VLD Match bullet and Antelope

[BillR]

Well I have a chance to go Antelope hunting. There were a large of left over tags for an area close to me. Problem was I only had one gun sighted in and no ammo loaded for it as everything I had shot in it was factory loads and I couldn't find anymore overnight. Plus that gun weighs a ton and I use it mainly for targets. Its a Rem 700 VSF .308 with a H.S. Precision tactical stock with the adj comb and butt.
SO yesterday I assessed my reloading components to see what I had. Found I had a new box of 115 Berger's in .25 Cal. A can of Hodgdon Retumbo. 100 rounds of CCI LR primed .25-06 Ackley improved cases and everything else was just a hodgepodge of a little bit of this and a little bit of that. With there not being a hell of a lot of reloading info on the .25-06 AI in print and most of the info out there being from other reloaders which is not always reliable : so it took me about an hour of digging on the net and after looking at a ton of different web sites and info from other loaders on what the do I found two different posts using the components I had on hand. One said max loading and the other said nothing. and both were close.
I flipped a coin on what load to use with both my final choices just a bit below where the one that said MAX LOADING said he was at and loaded up 10 rounds. ;D Nothing like a gamble is there.
I then headed for the range about 15 miles away. Beautiful day, no wind, warm. NICEEE
After sitting up my Prairie Dog bench and putting up a target at 100 yds. ( This consists of putting up a sheet of cardboard about 4' square and placing a 1" adhesive dot on it at 100 yds) :
I settled down to shoot. Wouldn't you know it, the wind started to come up. Oh well, your here lets get it done.
1st shot was 16"s to the left. Adjust, 2nd shot was 4"s to the right and 5"s low. Adjust 3rd shot was 2"s high and 1" to the right. Adjust. 4th shot. HMM can't find it. Shoot again 5th shot can't find it. ??? 6th shot still can't find it. What the heck????
So I get up off my dead *** and walk down to the target to see if I can tell what happened. Got a bit of a surprise. I had a 3/8" group dead center in the 1" circle. Thought what the heck, went back and fired 4 more rounds and still all in the circle but one. Dang wind caught me. Looks good to me. Easiest load development I have ever had that worked. And I don't know what kind of rifle that guy was shooting but I have one with a custom match chamber in a Hart barrel and believe me, that load is no where near the max for it. If all is correct I should be getting about 3200 fps with the Berger but I think I can get up to 3300 with it with a bit more tweaking but that can wait. Got an Antelope to kill and no more time to work up loads. I didn't like the soot though that gathered around the neck on a fired case. Could be the Retumbo or too light of a load. I will have to experiment with that load later. It shoots good enough to hunt with for now though.
The rifle is a custom built Rem 700 .25-06 Ackley Improved with a 26" Hart barrel and McMillian stock with 6.5X20X40 LR Leupold with varmint reticule.

 

[BillR]

Ok, kid that works for me called at Thurs morning at 8:00 and asked me IF I was ready as he was heading my way. He arrived and we loaded up and headed north. When we arrived the owner of the property was sitting along side the road visiting with a relative. He makes the introductions and all and got the permission and we all shook hands and off we went with the Intel that there was a heard of about 80 Antelope out in the middle of this 6000 acres. I asked Matt how we were going to hunt it. His comment was "You'll see" So we drive all the trails through the 6000 acres until we spot a herd of about 80 animals at about 3/4 a mile. Matt stops the truck over the next rise and shuts it off. He says "OK, we walk from here" Now you have to remember I have a bad ankle that locks up on me and a bad knee that gives out on me and heel spurs and planters faciatis (SP) ???? so walking isn't my forte. Plus I'm 60.
We take off up this first hill which is about 600 yds to the top and by the time we get close to the top I am wheezing like a steam engine. Matt stops and looks at me like he thinks I am dying or something. I just said "Hell do you know how long its been since I walked on something that wasn't flat or concrete" He started laughing. I made him promise to not gut me if he had to drag me out of there. The wife might frown on that one.
This is turning out to be a long story so if you get bored you have my permission to go read another thead. ;D
So after a couple minutes I get my breathing under control enough that the Antelope won't hear me from a 1/2 mile away. Well we topped the hill and peeked over the top and dam, no Antelope. So we sit down and look the area over and see that the lopes have spotted us or the truck and headed over about another 3/4 mile away. :'(
So down the hill and around another and then another long stalk. We get almost within a half mile of them and there are two groups. and the one to the west has spotted us and they head east to the rest of the heard across the valley which is just about straight north of us. Well Matt knows where they are going as he knows the area and he says I will go around the hill to the west and up the ridge and you go straight and when you hit the draw go up that till you get to the top. This is another 3/4 mile hike. I have already gone almost 1.5 miles which Matt comments that I have quit wheezing and sound almost normal. : Ain't going to let him gut me, nope nadda, I might be easier to drag that way but there ain't no coming back from that one that I know of. So I sneak up to the fence and crawl through it and begin my stalk up the draw. I'm moving along real slow and looking all around me and I see a white spot up the draw about 600 yds. There is a big round bail in the bottom of the draw as they had mowed it and rolled it up and hadn't removed them yet. I get behind this one and start looking this white spot over. I am using a Leupold 6.5X20X40 LR scope with the varmint reticule in it and left my bino's in the truck to save weight. Like as if it would of mattered. :
What appeared to be a white spot ended up being an antelope lying in some knee high grass and she had spotted me. What was worse there was another one about 15 yds higher up the draw that also had me pegged. The both were just sitting there watching me like I was nothing to worry about as I could not move without them seeing what I was going to do. So what I did was start playing a little game I play when I am out in area's like that. I call it How Far Is It so I started guessing how far it was to another hay bale Ok its about 100 yds. Ok how far to that bush? well its about 250. Believe me I am usually within low double digits out to about 800 or 900 yds. Tough to do when your out in open country with nothing to use to help with like tree's or anything. So I started using bales of hay. I had noticed that there was about 40 yds between me and the next one and it looked pretty uniform in distance between them all so I started to add up how many bales between me and the Antelope. I ran this out about 4 or 5 times and by my best guess it was close to 550 yds between me and the goat. Ok how do I close that distance. I'm looking around and man I am out in the open at the bottom of a long draw with a goat looking me over and there is no place to go except where I am at. Well I always said, or someone did one time anyway, if your handed lemons make lemonade. I got my cross hairs on the goat and lined up on the front shoulder. Started figuring which line of the Varmint reticule would add up to 500 yds and dropped down a bit more. Winds blowing straight out of the north and I am shooting just a bit more west than north. Adjust for the wind which is blowing about 25 mph and hold still dammit. Then I slowly squeeze the trigger. At the shot I loose sight of the doe in the cross hair's so I look up to see what happened and I see an Antelope running over the hill. :'( Well hell, must of missed. I think, I might as well go up there and look anyway just in case there is blood although if there is it will probably die in the next county. : Matt will make me walk there to get it. Oh well. So I head up the draw and half way there I see a white spot in the grass. I stop and look at it and think hmm looks like a white sheet of plastic. OH well go look. Its about 40 yds further up than where the goat was lying so I head up in that direction. The closer I get the more it looks like an Antelope. So I get there and I go crap. Its got horns. This is bad as I have a 3 any doe/fawn tag. The horns are about 3"s long. Hmm small for a buck. I roll the goat over and sure enough its a doe. Whew. Well this is my first real Antelope kill as I am a deer hunter and have just moved to the area so rather than just gutting it out I wait for Matt. He is over the ridge to the west of me in the direction the second antelope had ran. After about 10 minutes I spot him coming. I wait for him and when he walks up he starts making over my antelope about how I'm going to have to get it mounted as he has never seen one with horns that long. He then states "Man that doe has to be 200 years old" I go OH CRAP ain't no good eating then huh. He says oh hell no, big old dry doe like that will be great eating. Ok, so I did good for the first time out. He said I did dam good so I guess I am happy although it was kind of anti climatic as I have only fired one shot and there seemed like there should be more to it than that. That one shot by the way hit exactly where I had hoped to hit and the Berger 115 grain VLD Match bullet had entered making a small hole and nothing coming out. Good performance from what I could tell. Ended up it went in and took out the lungs and clipped the heart. Nice.
Well in the meantime I asked him what he had shot at as I had heard him shoot. Well he took me over to the fence line and points across the valley to the next ridge and there is another antelope lying there. He said he shot twice but thinks he missed on the first shot. We are standing there looking at his antelope and I look to the south and here is another antelope running west but it looked funny. I flopped down and unfolded the Harris bi pod and got the scope on it and here is an antelope running with a back leg flopping. Its about 800 yds out and going pretty good so with the wind like it was and the speed of the goat I decide to not shoot. Just a bit more than I want to try. So Matt and I head after it. Seems he thought he missed his first shot and didn't lead the goat enough and took out the back leg. Well off we went and made a big loop of about 2 miles and never did find the goat. When we got back to the truck we headed up and gutted my goat out and then drove back to where we could get the closest to Matts which was about a 600 yd drag. OH Matt has a Lica Range finder and ranged from where the goat I shot had been lying back to the bail I was behind when I shot and it ended up giving him a 550 yd reading. Guess my guessing game paid off.
Meanwhile we get back where we can get as close as possible to Matts goat and we get out and I again spot the goat with the broken back leg running up the very same ridge. We had missed it someplace back in that next section. Matt says you go see if you can get that one and I will get this one drug back to the truck. Well I headed out across the valley and up the ridge again for another 2 mile walk. When I get to the top I can see Northwest for a couple miles and I can see South West for another mile. To the Southeast and below me is a draw that goes down to a dam. ??? I see nothing anywhere. So I say a little prayer to the Antelope god asking that he let me put this poor antelope out of its misery and start heading South east down the draw towards the dam. Well I get just to where the little trickle of a creek goes into the dam and I spot the antelope running along the fence below the dike. I get the scope on here and line up the cross hairs and touch one off. I hear the whop of the hit but see no reaction. I jack in another one and again touch it off but this one is hurried and I know I miss. The antelope turns and heads back south along the fence away from me and I can see only the top of its head over the dike. I hold on it and again touch it off. Believe me guys, A .25-06 Ackley Improved with a 115 grain VLD Match bullet moving out about 3200 is not the thing to hit an antelope in the back of the head with. That antelope did a bang flop and was down. Now comes the rest of the story. This antelope was shot at about 95 yards and at that distance the bullet is quite explosive. I get over there and look at this doe and the only thing holding her head on is about a 6" strip of hide. But what really surprised me was on the first shot she was out in the open enough that I had a chest shot on her and when I pulled the trigger I did not notice any reaction except that she turned and ran back around below the dam trying to get out of sight of me. She did this on two legs. One front and one back. Matt had broken the rear leg to the point that when she ran it was flopping all over the place. Nothing left holding it but some hide. Well when I shot I hit right where I was aiming but she was running and her front leg was to the rear when I hit. Yup I hit the front leg just about 2"s above the front knee. Broke it into more pieces than you can imagine. She was still running and I could tell no difference in how she ran. The bullet had gone in and broke the front leg, expanded and made a 1" hole going into its chest and did not go out the other side but did take the lungs and part of the heart out. Good thing was, we recovered a wounded animal. The only real meat damage is in the front shoulder. Bad news was, "Man did she stink" Got her home and all washed out and hosed off and she still don't smell any better.
Other good things, I got an Antelope, walked about 7 miles and got some real good exercise and really cleaned out my lungs. I was able to do that without wheezing after the first 6-700 yds. I had an awesome time. Found out that my .25-06 AI has what it takes and more and found that the Berger Match bullet will do a job on an Antelope in a pinch. What more can I say. It was a great day. OH and the wife is letting me get my Antelope mounted. ;D

 

[Nitroused383]

Sounds like you had a good time and I'm glad to hear you recovered the wounded animal. Ditch the retumbo and give IMR 4831 a shot. It's not too hard to achieve 3400+ fps with the 115 vlds in the ackley. This makes a nice recipe for one of the flatest shooting rounds out there.

 

[RockyMtnMT]

Good story, thank you for posting it.

Steve

 

[bigngreen]

Retumbo will soot your necks, at least it really has for a few things I have ran it in.
Glad to hear how the Bergers worked, I need to pick some up for a 250AI and give them a try.
By the way you can tell a doe from a buck antelope by the throat patch, the buck will be black and doe will have a tan patch, both can have horns, if you didn't know

 

[BillR]

BignGreen, not being from an area that had antelope until I moved about a year ago I didn't know any of that. Learning curve and all that you know. I did kind of know about the horns but didn't know that they grew them bigger than 2"s though. These just beat 3". Had to go back and measure them. Still I think they will make a great mount and hopefully will go good with a large buck someday. I think that would be really nice as I also think an antelope makes one of the prettiest mounts I have seen. That and they fit in the house a lot better than an ELK.

Nitroused383 thanks for the info on the IMR 4831 and its what I usually use but haven't been able to find much and I had the Retumbo on hand. Still it shoots sweet in the gun but I will be changing all that when I can find a decent amount of IMR 4831 to work with.

RockyMTNMT thanks for the comment about the story. Yes I did have a good time and even had a good time telling the story.

 

[MontanaRifleman]

Bill, a very enjoyable read

You might try RL17. I was getting about 3200 with Retumbo in my 25-06 and then got 3400 with RL17 and 115 gr bullets. You should be able to better with the AI.

Good shooting,

Mark

 

[Nitroused383]

Bill, a very enjoyable read

You might try RL17. I was getting about 3200 with Retumbo in my 25-06 and then got 3400 with RL17 and 115 gr bullets. You should be able to better with the AI.

Good shooting,

Mark

I bought some RL-17 to play with after reading your results. The thing with IMR-4831 is that my extreme spread is around 5 fps, and a lot of 3427 duplicates . Out of all the powders I tested this was the most consistant. I have read reports that the Berger 115 VLD's will not stay together much over 3400 fps. I have ran them at 3490 with 7828 but that powder is a time bomb. I will test the RL-17 and if anything I can still shoot them at 3400 with better case life!

 

[MontanaRifleman]

I bought some RL-17 to play with after reading your results. The thing with IMR-4831 is that my extreme spread is around 5 fps, and a lot of 3427 duplicates . Out of all the powders I tested this was the most consistant. I have read reports that the Berger 115 VLD's will not stay together much over 3400 fps. I have ran them at 3490 with 7828 but that powder is a time bomb. I will test the RL-17 and if anything I can still shoot them at 3400 with better case life!

Some rifles will like some powders vbetter than others. I try to start with the ones that give best velocites and are temp stable first and if they dont work out, move on. I hope the RL17 proves to be stable, it's been accurate in my 25-06 Sendero, but then again that rifle shoots most anything well.

Have you thought about the 115 Nosler BT's or Ballistic Silvertips?

 

[Nitroused383]

Some rifles will like some powders vbetter than others. I try to start with the ones that give best velocites and are temp stable first and if they dont work out, move on. I hope the RL17 proves to be stable, it's been accurate in my 25-06 Sendero, but then again that rifle shoots most anything well.

Have you thought about the 115 Nosler BT's or Ballistic Silvertips?

I have thought about it but these Bergers are like missiles. I am getting a b.c. around .630 out of these to 1000 yards. 16.3 MOA @ 1000 using a 200 yard zero, pretty hard to beat. Either that or my chronograph reads 200 fps low Sounds like maybe you should try the Bergers. I will take the most accurate powder in my rifle over the most temperature stable powder any day, but ideally you want both. Most of the powders I have tested and read about only really get unstable above 90 degrees. Powder is not so particular to individual rifles as it is the case itself. Do some testing you will find certain powder / primer combinations will be the most accurate load for that case and that will be able to apply to most rifles that shoot the same case.

You should read these test results, actually everyone should. I know this is for the 284 but you can apply it to any centerfire rifle , tons of good info everyone can benefit from. Save it though as there is a lot to read! http://home.earthlink.net/~rfrailey/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/284loaddata.pdf

In all honesty these 115 VLD puts the 25 caliber into a whole new class. These bullets are still going 2040 fps @ 1000 yards, enough to deliver over 1000 ft/lbs of energy. Now if Berger would hurry up and come out with their 125 vld's we will have more options. Hell I even emailed Hornady to make some 120 grain Amax's. Sorry to thread jack ya Bill.

 

[MontanaRifleman]

I have thought about it but these Bergers are like missiles. I am getting a b.c. around .630 out of these to 1000 yards. 16.3 MOA @ 1000 using a 200 yard zero, pretty hard to beat. Either that or my chronograph reads 200 fps low Sounds like maybe you should try the Bergers. I will take the most accurate powder in my rifle over the most temperature stable powder any day, but ideally you want both. Most of the powders I have tested and read about only really get unstable above 90 degrees. Powder is not so particular to individual rifles as it is the case itself. Do some testing you will find certain powder / primer combinations will be the most accurate load for that case and that will be able to apply to most rifles that shoot the same case.

You should read these test results, actually everyone should. I know this is for the 284 but you can apply it to any centerfire rifle , tons of good info everyone can benefit from. Save it though as there is a lot to read! http://home.earthlink.net/~rfrailey/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/284loaddata.pdf

In all honesty these 115 VLD puts the 25 caliber into a whole new class. These bullets are still going 2040 fps @ 1000 yards, enough to deliver over 1000 ft/lbs of energy. Now if Berger would hurry up and come out with their 125 vld's we will have more options. Hell I even emailed Hornady to make some 120 grain Amax's. Sorry to thread jack ya Bill.

I was originally posting to the other Bill (didn't realize you were Bill also), but the info is of course for anyone reading. Your trajectory results are very interesting. the Listed BC for the Berger 115 is .466 (vs .447 fothe Noslers) which was tested by Brian Litz. Different folks will get different results with different rifles but that is huge. Maybe there is a combination of velocity error and BC variance??? I dont completely trust my chrony based on things I've observed. When Lighting conditions change, the reading change. I've shot the 115 BST's (with an ave chrony reading of 3405) out to 427 yds Max distance at the local range) with a 300 yd zero and the drops were about .5 MOA higher than the BC and Vel would predict. I'm looking for a place to shoot them farther and test some more. I have been thinking of giving the Bergers a try. It would be interesting to compare the drops between the two bullets.

In my world, Temp stability is critical. In Montana temps swing greatly from day to day... even the same day. My bullets would be going everywhere with an unstable powder so that is part of the accuracy equation for me, and stable accuracy is my first priority in choosing a load. Velocity is next. So far I've been getting both with RL17, but haven't checked the stability yet.

Thanks for the article. it looks very interesting and will read it later. Right now I'm off looking foe elk

Later,

Mark

 

[BillR]

No worry about Jacking my thread. If it has something to do with the .25-06 AI I do not care. I've shot the .25-06 for close to 40 years and always thought it was the perfect combination of knock down and recoil when it came to a deer/antelope rifle. Very drivable. Then I had a .25-06 AI built with a tight neck chamber and Hart barrel and gained a whole new respect for a cartridge. Biggest problem I have had so far Antelope hunting with it wasn't the cartridge. It was with the optics. I had been shooting my .308 with all summer and had my Leupold MK4 6.5X20X50 TM reticule on it and had put my 6.5X20X40 LR Varmint Reticule Leupold on the .25-06 AI No turrets to dial. I was good out to 550 with it but when presented with my only shot yesterday at 700 I had to do a bit of guessing. It worked. I hit an Antelope at that range plus or minus a few yards as the Lica would not give me an exact distance and was lasering whatever I could find close. Must of been off by a few yds as I took it high just under the spine. She didn't go down but just walked away slow. Spent 5 hrs and 8 miles trying to get close enough to finish her off. She would go out about 1500 yds and lay down. I would just get about to where I could put another one into her and off she would go again but never faster than a walk but faster than I could go and faster than I could get ready. All my shooting is prone using a Harris Bi Pod. Really made me feel bad as I really thought I could do it or I would of never tried. Finally she got over on some property that I cannot hunt on. One of those "DO NOT EVEN ASK" places. So I had to back off and watch for a while and like before she just sat there watching me. So I learned a new lesson.
Anyway before this I had some time and had been able to run a couple rounds over the Chronograph and was getting just under 3200 FPS on the load and I ran that through the Serria 16 program and the drop at 700 should be about 87"s by the program. I must of been off by about 3"s and hit higher than I anticipated and lost the animal. Not going to happen again as the MK 4 goes back on the .25-06 AI and no more guessing. I am a bit concerned about the bullet opening up at that range but if it penciled in between a couple ribs and didn't open up and was a bit high its possible I got little expansion. Gotta quit the second guessing as I do not know.
So now I'm looking at a bit faster load to improve the expansion and hopefully get better performance. I also think that the BC's might be a bit low because man that bullet shoots flat.

 

[sscoyote]

Great read! Bill- i use my VH reticle for rangefinding back to brisket, and it may have worked better than your system or at least for a check and balance thing, tho it sounds like yours worked well that time--impressive. If the doe (usually 14" back to brisket) occupied right at 6 tenths the distance between the x-hair and the 2nd stadia line down (that's actually half way between the 1st and 2nd stadia),when the scope is set at the large triangle that should be ~540 yds. It's not a perfect system but it's very fast to apply. And actually if u can determine the age of the antelope (yearling vs. mature) it should be very close...especially with antelope. I have been quite successful using this system with antelope to ~500 yds. and works OK between 500 and 600. That really was a great story to read--thks.

My VH reticle is in a 4.5-14x VX-III, so all i have to do is adjust the power to it's stop and it's ready for use. I ordered it with an elevation turret only too as this is a hunting rig and if need be i would use the EXCELLENT 1.77 MOA windage line stadia along the main x-hair. The problem with the 6.5-20 and 8.5-25 is that the reticle is set up for a power lower than the highest, and i've never heard of anyone measuing the stadia at 20 and 25x. I should've ordered mine in a 6.5-20 too, as it would've made for a great experiment measuring the reticle subtensions at 20x, something i love to play with. Be nice to know what the offset is for subtension at 20x. Have u ever measured yours?

 

[BillR]

No I haven't ever measured it before but your info has me thinking. What I really want on this scope is an elevation turret. I'm use to dialing for elevation and using the height of an antelope at the shoulder and extrapolating that our for elevation is ok but it takes time going back and forth and back and forth and guessing the height of the antelope by age and hoping your right just isn't my style but was a necessity due to time constraints.
God there are days I hate work as it interferes with my hobby's.
If I can just get a turret put on before this spring and start playing again with the gongs I don't think I will have any doubts next year. Other problem is ranging an antelope on a pool table without much ground structure to range on. The Leica 900 just was not able to range the antelope at 700 and after trying about 4 or 5 times using the closest spot that would range and taking an average its still just guessing. I hate guessing. Also the reason the Mk4 is on the .308 but it was not ready to go either as I had been using factory ammo and was out of them and couldn't find anymore. Plus that gun is just too heavy for me to carry for miles. Good to go with the .25-06 AI 's weight.
Now all I need to do is find enough load info on for the 115 grain Burger VLD to get it ready to go for next year. I need a good buck to go with this doe I'm having mounted.
Plus I think a Sworoski range finder or a Leica 1200 is in the works to help range things a bit better.