Berger 210vld touching, jamm or jump?

[moosehunter]

Worked up a pretty nice load with my 300WM using these bullets, H1000, Fed215M, a new Kreiger 1-10 twist at 27 1/2" on a Win mod 70 action, mpi stock, pillered bedding, Wonder Optics scope. First thing I noticed was the velociies were considerably higher than the load data. Over 2900 with the starting load. No pressure signs throughout. Settled on 75.8/76.0/76.2 all clumped under a minute. Got 76.0 and 76.2 at .6 and .7moa 3 shot groups at 300yds. Now all testing was with the bullets just touching the lands as Berger suggests. Velocity for these loads was avg. 2982fps. Definatly up there but as I say no pressure signs, miked the web, no sticky bolt lift, no extractor marks very slight primer flattening. Has anyone found an improvement with these bullets by jamming or jumping them?

 

[ICANHITHIMMAN]

Read

Optimizing Precision And Accuracy From VLD Bullets

 

[Dano1]

I'm in a simillar situation with my .30-06 AI. I have a Krieger #6 countour 26" with a 1-10 twist this is on a Remington 700 Action with a Fajien laminate stock and it pillar bedded. It's wearing a Leupold Mk-4 Precision Rifle scope. I've shot 168g Berger VLDs and was getting 3150fps, They shot great and I even harvested a nice Muley Buck (see below) using them. Now I'm shooting 190g VLDs because of the higher BC and the fact that I want to extend (600-800yds) my range with this rifle and take Elk at such distances. This bullet gives me the extra energy that I was losing with the lighter bullet. I'm getting 2950fps with it.

With my rifle, and how I found my optimum seating depth with a Berger VLD (doesn't matter which bullet weight results in accuracy are the same) was that I seated the first bullet (this was done with a dummy round which I kept for resetting my die) by letting the bolt seat the bullet, then taking my die seating it to this depth then adjusting 1/4 of a turn more so that the bullets weren't quite touching the lands so if I needed to take the loaded round out of the chamber It wouldn't get stuck or pull the bullet, I've seen it happen! I then bump the dummy round to set it to be the adjusted depth and then set it aside for future use.

I've learned and always keep a dummy for every cartridge and bullet combo I load for. It saves time in resetting my dies. I load 165g Sierra gamekings for this 30-06AI as well and intrestingly enough, they need to be seated the same way to achieve the same level of accuracy as the Bergers.

Hope this helps,

Dan

 

[Forrest Ebert]

I shoot the VLD's both target and hunting and have found they do like to jump but then again every gun is different. I'm testing some pre-production Hybrids for Berger right now and I'm using the same method I do for my competition shooting letting them jump and the results have been excellent this being from a 300 RUM. The bullets I'm testing are of the Target variety but I hope they produce them in the hunting version as they work excellent on game.

 

[moosehunter]

Went out the other day with 32 loaded rounds, all touching. Fired a few over the chrony to foul and settle the velocity in then did a 3 shot group at 300yds. 7/8" .2moa, fired a couple more groups over the next hour and both groups in the .2 and .3 moa. Doing the happy dance then the sun climbed and groups opened to 1.1 and 1.2 moa. Velocities dropped about 20 fps average. Couldnt figure it out. checked the rifle over for anything that may have come loose but nothing. Kept the ammo box in the shade. All I could figure was temps caused the barrel to expand enough to lower pressures and drop velocity out of the sweet spot. Groups didnt walk just opened. This make sense? Rifle weighs in at 14lbs so its not a thin barrel problem.