Choosing bullets Berger's or Barnes

[adk hunter]

I'll bet you Hammers won't be a fad. In fact I have been shooting up and giving away all my other cup and core/mono bullets. My sole item for Christmas list was Hammer gift certificates. Betting my guided wilderness hunt on them too. Pet rocks were a fad. Everyone needs a hammer or two...

 

[Bill28]

I have a 28N and I believe it's to much for Antelope almost even deer. I hunt for meat. I use a. 243 for Antelope

 

[Jluck]

I would like to mention, I was NOT a fan of solid copper bullets for the longest time. When I was hung up on maximum paper performance. I started with various cup and core bullets, Went to Bergers when they were all the rage. I loved the ease of load development and accuracy of them. Shot a few animals with them and decided I didn't like them any longer. Tried Hornady SSTs for a few critters similar results, all the while hanging my deer, elk and antelope aside many others. I have formulated my opinion buy the many results I have actually experienced over a few decades. All bullets experience poor performance and failures. I'll do it my way and others can do it theirs. Really... It's okay.

 

[Tom Erickson]

I have a 28N and I believe it's to much for Antelope almost even deer. I hunt for meat. I use a. 243 for Antelope

I have a .270 works great on goats I just wanted to reach out at longer distances

 

[bigngreen]

The 28 is fine, just have to match the bullet, game and impact velocity!!

 

[RockyMtnMT]

High vel with bullets that can handle it is a wonderful thing. I don't believe in too big of a gun for the game.

 

[PredatorSlayer]

Bullets that stop inside an animal stop doing damage. They don't have brakes, they slow down until they stop, doing less and less damage as they come to a stop. There is no such thing as energy dump.

Sure there is. Are you claiming that a bullet that passes through the animal does more damage than say a berger that penetrates 3 inches and expands rapidly shooting pieces into the vitals causing massive damage?

 

[Rich Coyle]

Sure there is. Are you claiming that a bullet that passes through the animal does more damage than say a berger that penetrates 3 inches and expands rapidly shooting pieces into the vitals causing massive damage?

Damage is not what I want. Destroying a shoulder with a damaging bullet is not my liking. I will take a Hammer through the shoulder without damaging all the food it represents any time.

 

[PredatorSlayer]

Damage is not what I want. Destroying a shoulder with a damaging bullet is not my liking. I will take a Hammer through the shoulder without damaging all the food it represents any time.

Hammers still blow up (rapidly expand shedding pieces of itself). I have never had a berger destroy a shoulder - people keep saying that and I just haven't experienced that.

 

[Tidus56]

I've been running a 28 for a while, shot a lot of bullets but I kill mostly elk so pretty much what ever I shoot for elk does great on deer but not everything that is great on deer will be ideal for elk if that makes sense. I do shoot the Barnes for deer and smaller game but will never use them on elk again after years of using them, the 145 will work well on deer I MUCH prefer the Hammers because they cause a way better permanent wound channel and they tune soooo much easier for accuracy, just a better bullet period but just about anything will kill a deer. I shoot mostly 195 Bergers and 177 Hammers in my 28 but that's more bullet than needed for deer but if you want to go light for cal on bullets I would not shoot the Berger because you'll be outside their ideal window.

Can I snag your load info for the 177 HH? I will start low and work up.

 

[Rich Coyle]

You want to believe leadcore bullets don't blood shot a shoulder? And at the same time you want me to believe Hammer bullets do?

 

[RogerPA]

I have a 28 Nosler and for the first couple years used the 180 grain Berger hybrid @ 3125fps. (Primer: Federal 215M) Nothing walked away from it, but my experience taught me not to expect a pass through inside of 200 yards. Over 200 yards, with a behind the shoulder hit, I would regularly get an exit wound. This season I switched to the 177 gain Hammer Hunter. I'm shooting basically the same load of Retumbo that I was shooting with the Berger's, with a velocity gain up to 3170fps, and groups in the 1/2 MOA range. 4 shots a big game animals, all past throughs, all DRT, and all with impressive (but reasonable) exit wounds. I'm sold and have been converting all my rifles to Hammers.
Good Luck with whatever you decide!

 

[RockyMtnMT]

Sure there is. Are you claiming that a bullet that passes through the animal does more damage than say a berger that penetrates 3 inches and expands rapidly shooting pieces into the vitals causing massive damage?

That would depend on the angle of the shot or how much mass is needed to get through. Two diff schools of thought. The highly frangible bullet will create a very large initial wound channel that gets small quickly. Compare that to a bullet that does not expand at all, like and fmj, and there would be a much smaller wound channel from the fmj even though it penetrated further. Then compare that to a bullet like ours that rapidly sheds the nose on impact, creating a large cavity, then retaining enough weight to straight line penetrate the rest of the way through. Also the shape of the retained is important as to how it displaces the soft tissue to create a permanent wound channel. We want a flat frontal area like a flat base bullet shot backwards. This shape displaces perpendicular to the direction of travel better than a rounded mushroom, even though it may be bigger. The shed weight on our bullet is in a few pieces that retain enough weight each that they too usually pass through as well. The shock of the bullet rapidly opening and shedding a big part of animals not traveling after the shot. If the animal recovers from the initial shock and the wound channel is not enough to bleed them out rapidly is when you have animals traveling long distances before they die. The velocity that the bullet is passing through the vital tissue is relative to how large the permanent wound channel is. The more that bullet slows down the less tissue it tears to cause the needed bleeding. The larger the frontal area is in relation to the amount of retained weight causes the rapid slowing of the bullet. If I could make a magic bullet it would deform on impact and then never loose a single fps as it passes through, creating the largest wound channel possible all the way through.

So the actual sq in of destroyed tissue by a bullet that comes all undone and doesn't make it through vs the bullet that properly deforms and does get all the way through could go either way depending on the circumstance of the shot. For me I cover more bases with a bullet designed like ours. I like my chances better on a bad hit or a hit that must cover more distance to get to vitals.

I'll leave the toxic topic alone other than to say there is no good reason to eat lead.

 

[PartsJr.]

I've been shooting Barnes bullets for the last 10 years out of my .25-06 (100 gr TSX), .270 win. (130 gr TSX and TTSX) on whitetail and more recently on my .280AI (145 LRX). Have never had a failure. They will almost always pass through unless you shoot end for end. A friend shoots Barnes as well out of his 6mm AI (older 95 gr TSX), .243 (85 gr TTSX), .270 (130 TTSX), .280 AI (145 LRX). He has had great results as well. Always expand and kill... we've never had any pin holing of any animals including the Fox I shot with my .280 and two or three coyotes my son shot with my .270.