More Berger 300 Hybrid Gen 2 testing

[Eric Stecker]

Rocky Mountain,

I can confirm that the Gen 2 bullets are the Hybrid OTM Tactical. They are the same bullet. At this time we have only the one version available. Even though this bullet was not designed for hunting we are learning from independent reports that they are working well on game. The thread linked in Roy's post is one recent example.

Being so heavy, few 338 cal bullets are not consistently lethal if they hit the intended target where it will get the job done. Although our bullet was not designed for hunting it is no exception. What our bullet does differently is achieve much improved trajectory and precision producing consistently accurate, quickly lethal shots at much greater distances than previously available.

At this time we do not have plans to make the Gen 1 version. This bullet has a performance limitation at higher velocities. Since the Gen 2 bullet is proving equally capable in the area of terminal performance the Gen 1 version provides no improved performance in any area, making it unnecessary.

Regards,
Eric

 

[Eaglet]

Rocky Mountain,

I can confirm that the Gen 2 bullets are the Hybrid OTM Tactical. They are the same bullet. At this time we have only the one version available. Even though this bullet was not designed for hunting we are learning from independent reports that they are working well on game. The thread linked in Roy's post is one recent example.

Being so heavy, few 338 cal bullets are not consistently lethal if they hit the intended target where it will get the job done. Although our bullet was not designed for hunting it is no exception. What our bullet does differently is achieve much improved trajectory and precision producing consistently accurate, quickly lethal shots at much greater distances than previously available.

At this time we do not have plans to make the Gen 1 version. This bullet has a performance limitation at higher velocities. Since the Gen 2 bullet is proving equally capable in the area of terminal performance the Gen 1 version provides no improved performance in any area, making it unnecessary.

Regards,
Eric

Eric, it bothers me that I can't remember where I read it, but I did read that the OTM Tactical were shorter so they would fit the the magazines. Bugs me that I though it was from a trustable source and of course the BC would be lower. I'm glad you're here making all the "talk" right!

 

[Eric Stecker]

I did read that the OTM Tactical were shorter so they would fit the the magazines

To clarify that specific point, when we were asked to make a 338 cal 300 gr bullet for the military, Bryan had already created 3 different designs. These designs were optimized for peak performance and were created with no consideration given to feeding these bullets through a magazine.

We were intially concerned that Bryan's original 338 cal Hybrid design would have a nose that is too long to work in the magazines. As it turns out the 338 cal rifles used by the military are the exception rather than the rule when it comes to magazine box length.

These rifles have proportionally longer than typical magazine boxes which allow for a longer nosed bullet. Admittedly, we would like another .150 COAL for increased case capacity but what they are using now works good enough.

So as it turns out the original and most optimized 338 cal Hybrid design Bryan created works at a COAL for magazine feeding and can be loaded longer for increased case capacity for those who single feed.

I'd say in the end things worked out quite nicely for everyone. Now if we can just convince the rifle makers to increase the lengths of magazine boxes in other rifles we'll get immediate improved performance in these rifles as well. That is a discussion for another thread though.

Regards,
Eric

 

[royinidaho]

Eric,

I'm appreciative that you and your associates have pulled another one out of the hat!

It's nice to know that you are serving the military so well, which makes it an honor to use your product.

For the first time since making a major purchase I, for the first time ever, have a twinge of buyers remorse. Why did I purchase a 375 AM instead of a 338 AM?

Nevertheless I'll be stocking up on some Gen 2s for the RUM.

 

[steelhead]

Well, I managed to find some of these bullets and got out on my lunch hour to test them out. I worked off of Shawn's data, figuring that what he came up with would be relatively close to what would work good in my rifle. (since he built my rifle, it seemed like a logical move).

The rifle is a 338 Edge with 30" Hart barrel, 1-10" twist.

Conditions:
Temp = 85 F
Humidity = 30%
Elevation = 2630
Winds = 3 to 8 mph from 2 o'clock relative to my position
Target range = 100 yards

Chronograph is a Competition Electronics ProChrony set 10 ft away.

I loaded three round of each of the following loads. Every bullet was seated at -0.005" off the lands. (Same as Shawn's best accuracy loads) I have to single load these rounds, as the OAL is too long to fit in my magazine.

Anyway, I started off with 90 gr. of H1000. These gave me an Average velocity of 2781 fps
SD = 13.7
ES = 27

Group size was about 0.5"

Second load was 91 gr. of H1000. Average Velocity of 2820 fps
SD = 12.1
ES = 24

The first two shots when into the same hole. Then the third went wide and gave me a group just under 0.5". I'm pretty sure this was my fault. I was shooting out in the desert and was prone on uneven ground. I don't think I had a very good position settled in on this shot. I've attached a picture of the group and will probably work with this load and shoot another group.

The third load was 92 gr. of H1000. Average Velocity of 2854 fps.
SD = 5.9
ES = 11

This load gave me the worst group, opening up to almost 1". I also had extractor marks on the brass, so it's running a bit hot.

So, I'm going to go load up some more at 91 gr. and do some more testing. Will probably load some with up to 91.5 gr. just to see what happens. I may even try to seat the bullets deeper, so that I can get them into a magazine. If the 91 gr of H1000 works out accuracy wise, I think it will become my bullet of choice for the 2000 yard shoots that we have. (of course I need to do some long range testing first). This load would take 67.4 MOA of elevation (according to my Loadbase) to get to 2000 yards, compared to 71.3 MOA using the 300 gr. SMK. And it looks like I'll be able to get to over 2350 yards before the bullet goes subsonic. Pretty cool!

 

[steelhead]

Well, I was finally able to get out and test some new loads. (work has been extremely busy).
Anyway, I think that I've found that my rifle likes the Berger bullets against the lands as can be seen in the photos below. I loaded these rounds with 90gr of H1000 with the bullet touching the lands and the other three are with 91gr of H1000 again with the bullet touching the lands. Both gave me great accuracy, with the 90gr loads being a bit better. My only concern is velocity. My chrono is telling me 2787 avg. with the 90gr load and 2830 avg with the 91 gr. load. To get the best performance from this bullet, I'd really like to see upper 2800's. I guess I need to confirm the velocity, which I hope to do in the next week or two.

What do you guys think? Should I just stick with the 90gr load, because of its great accuracy or play around with the 91gr load and possibly go up a bit in the amount of powder to see if I hit another accuracy node?

The picture with the measured group is the 90gr group the second, without the measured group is the 91gr group.

 

[Rocky Mountain]

100 yards dosn't always tell you the whole story, I do all my testing at 300 yards and have found the results I've got put you on a beter footing for the longer ranges. I will take accuracy and good ES over top velocity any day.

 

[steelhead]

RM,

Thanks, I'll give that a try.

I guess the reason I want more velocity is to get to a mile better. We have 1 mile shoots at our club, and while I've done well with the Sierra, I was hoping that this Berger bullet would work out a bit better for me.

Hunting with this load.........I'd be perfectly happy.

 

[highridge1]

The most accurate load I have tried for my 338 Edge is with RL 25. It's running 2880 fps with a 28 inch barrel . No pressure signs. I stopped using H1000 way to much variation lot to lot. My ES ,velocity and accuracy are better with RL25.I think my rifle may go over 2900 fps with the Bergers. The results I have had are with 300 gr smk.

 

[Eric Stecker]

Steelhead,

One thing to consider is that within a given barrel brand (and between brands) different barrels will produce different velocities even with precisely the same load. You may have a "slow barrel".

This is complete speculation regarding your specific situation but if your combination gets velocities that are consistently lower than you should achieve in a given case (meaning others actually get higher velocities regularly) this is likely due to the barrel/bullet fit solution.

Having said that, if your situation qualifies, swapping out barrels is easier said than done for a long list of reasons. However, it's important everyone is aware of the influencing effects of the barrel/bullet fit on velocity and more importantly consistent precision.

Regards,
Eric

 

[steelhead]

Highridge,

Thanks. Have you noticed any temperature sensitivity issues with RL25? In the past I have seen this with this powder, however, I know that Alliant changed some of the formulas to their various powders, like RL15, to be less temperature sensitive, so this may have happened with RL25 also.

Eric,

I may indeed have a 'slow' barrel. I'm going to shoot some of these loads out to 300 and 500 and see what happens. If I remember correctly when I was developing my Sierra load it seems like my chrono was lying to me and my velocity was a lot faster. (either that or the BC value I used was way off). I seem to remember after shooting for groups at 300 and 500 and then entering how many inches off the aiming point I was, the Exbal program, altered my velocity by a significant amount. It was really strange to me at the time, but the new velocity value has been pretty much spot on out to 2000 yards.

Hopefully I can report back soon on my results. If the computer models that I've ran are correct, than this bullets going to be my goto bullet for these long range shoots.

 

[Eric Stecker]

Steelhead,

You bring up a great point that everyone reading needs to understand as well. All chronographs can suffer from error for many reasons. If it is possible to test over two different chronographs this can go a long way to confirming (or not) your results.

Like changing barrels, shooting over two chronographs is easier said than done which is why your comments on trajectory calculation are also important for everyone to understand.

If your (anyone's) trajectory predictions don't match observed results it may not be due to inaccurate BC data. Inaccurate MV due to chronograph error realities is the leading cause of trajectory prediction confusion (unless the published BC of a given bullet is inaccurate).

Regards,
Eric

 

[steelhead]

Sorry for the late response. I've been working with these bullets since my last post and finally have some "long" range results.

Since my last post I played around with different charge weights and seating depths and have come to the conclusion that even though I don't get my best accuracy at 100 yards with this load, it is the best for long distance shooting.

The load is 92 gr of H1000 with the 300 gr Berger. Ironically this is the same load as I use with the Sierra's. As for seating depth, I found that I get better results with the bullet touching the lands. Although I did run a quick test with 3 rounds to see what would happen if I seated the bullet so I could get the cartridge to fit into the magazine. These particular rounds functioned fine, with no signs of pressure and the accuracy at 100 was about the same as the load with the bullet touching the lands. I'll probably play around with this more in the future.

"Real World Results" were excellent. A week ago I decided to test the 92 gr load again at 300 yards. This load gives me around 2860 fps from a 30" barrel. The results I got were a 1/2moa group with three rounds. Seeing this, I then decided to use the last 2 rounds on a 700 yard gong, just to see what they would do and to see if my program on my PDA was on. As it turned out I used what the PDA told me and both rounds hit in the center of the 700 yard gong. I didn't take a measurement, but it was very impressive group for that far away.

Then on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, my club had a 1 mile shoot. I decided to go with the 92 gr load using the 300 gr Bergers, instead of my usual Sierra load. This proved to be a good choice!

The way the shoot works is we usually start at around 1200 yards, take 5 shots, and then work our way back to 1500, then 1760, then 2000 yards. The targets are 4' x 4' square and 2' x 2' square AR500 steel.

The wind was terrible that day. It was averaging 10 - 12 mph with 20 mph gusts and was bitter cold. We decided to start out at 1400 yards, because of the bad conditions and the fact that most of us hit with every shot at 1200 yards at the last shoot. The wind coming at us from the 1 to 2 o'clock position. The terrain was fairly flat until around the 1000 yard mark where the bullet would then fly across a small gully maybe 10 or 20 feet deep, then the terrain went uphill sharply to the target. This made reading the wind very tricky. At the target itself, you could see the wind coming down the hill, which equated to a 1 moa up correction at 1400 yards and almost 2 moa up correction at 1760 yards. The wind in the gully area was swirling and wreaked havoc on those who weren't paying attention to it. The wind was a major factor and took some of our top shooters from the last 1 mile shoot out of the top spots at this event.

My partner was excellent in calling the corrections to me. In fact, once I hit on the second try, he was yelling at me to get the rest off quickly so that I didn't even have time to see where my hits were going. At the 1400 yard mark I barely missed to the right of the 4' x 4' target, but with the corrections hit on the next 4. We decided that we'd try the 2' x 2' target and both of us hit on our 2nd try. No one else in the group tried to hit this target.

At 1760 (1 mile) the same thing. I missed the first two, but on the last three shots, I hit all of them, but did not see where they went because of my spotter was pushing me to get them off fast again.

After I was done, one of the guys came up to me and told me that I had a very nice group on the target. This was very good to hear, as I had no idea where any of them landed.

Another thing I noticed was even though I needed to correct my elevation up for the down winds we were experiencing, my elevation was around 4 MOA lower than the same dope I use for the 300 gr. Sierra's.

Needless to say, I'm really liking these new Berger bullets. Going into this shoot somewhat blind, because I hadn't even practiced with this load at these distances, had me a bit concerned, but I actually managed to pull out a win. (I didn't really win anything except bragging rights until the next shoot ;-) ) But I'm very please with how these bullet performed in that wind. I can't wait to try them out on a calm day and not have my partner yelling at me to get them off fast.