215 Berger failure

[mt100gr.]

Just like mentioned several times. One bullet someone says is gold another someone says is the worst performing bullet out there. After using ELD M’s I really really dislike their performance. After seeing the bull my wife shot @200 yards, high shoulder, with a 168 Berger I’m sold. There was no way that bull shouldn’t of needed a follow up shot. But it didn’t. And there was zero blood shot.

My dad and wife put as close to identical shots on deer as you can get. One was a 168 Berger, the other a 180 ELD M. The deer shot with the Berger dropped. The deer shot with the ELD ran 70 yards and I never saw a drop of blood.

After 14-15 kills with the ELD in two years I’m done using them. But other guys love them. The animals I see shot with Bergers just drop and are done. The animals I’ve shot and seen shot with the ELD seem to take forever to die.

The OP obviously had a different experience. Good thing there are a ton of choices and more every day.

I too, have had stellar results from the 168gr bergers (.284). Both VLDs and classic hunters. The 215s have been good to me also.

This year I have been toting a reasonably fast 6.5 CM with 147s. I know I can hit the spot with these in this rifle and want to see first hand how they do.

I see no reason to switch away from bergers in my 7mm or 300 though. So many great bullets.

 

[Broz]

As I and others have said before, no two shots are ever the same. Impact velocity, shot angle, got a rib on entry, didn't get a rib on entry, on and on. There have been so many elk taken with the 215 it is ridiculous. Positive reports are everywhere. I personally have seen over 100 elk fall to them and the 215 is the killingest bullet I have ever seen. There are not enough detailed pictures to offer any conclusions on what happened. But if the first one went into the crease behind the shoulder, and didn't exit. I will bet a dollar to a donut the bull was dead on his feet. If the second one fired "hastily" didn't open in the neck we know one thing. It didnt hit the spine and that is what it takes for a lethal neck shot, anything else is often not terminal. At least not right away. I have seen many many big game kills. Two today. Sometimes things don't add up to what we want. If all your previous kills have been with perfect bullet performance, then you are a very lucky man, or you have not taken many big game animals in a variety of situations and distances. If you keep judging bullets from a single impression, you may run out of bullet choices and worse yet, you may write off some very good choices as well. Good hunting in the future. I hope your next experience is not so dramatic.

 

[Wapiti1]

How many folks have a preparation routine when they load Berger bullets (any, not just the 215)? Uniform the tips, use an orifice cleaner, or small drill to ensure good hollow points, etc. Prep has been mentioned here and on other threads I've seen.

Curious if the more successful take more care in prep, or not.

Jeremy

 

[justin davis]

The 215 Bergers have a proven track record as being a great hunting bullet. Lots of game has been taken with them. I’ve used them or seen them used on a few animals and they always worked really well. Every bullet will have its day I think. So I don’t think you can say 215’s suck and are horrible.

There are some guys who have taken tons of animals with them so it proves they work in my mind.

 

[Broz]

How many folks have a preparation routine when they load Berger bullets (any, not just the 215)? Uniform the tips, use an orifice cleaner, or small drill to ensure good hollow points, etc. Prep has been mentioned here and on other threads I've seen.

Curious if the more successful take more care in prep, or not.

Jeremy

I do every hunting round. I do not enlarge the tip opening, but I insure the hollow point tip is not blocked from manufacturing all the way back o lead.

 

[Wrench]

I've stacked up enough elk with the rdf with a significantly smaller meplat to not lose sleep over it. If I uniform meplats, it's for accuracy not fear of performance on game.

 

[5MilesBack]

Instead it came apart in fragmented pieces about 6" in

I thought that's what they were supposed to do. That's why I stopped using them. I like bullets that stay together as much as possible and blow on through.

 

[theleo91386]

The only one that counts as a failure is the one that penciled through. If you're going to say the one that came apart was a failure, it's from your failure to do any research on Berger's. That one was text book Berger performance, penetrate a few inches and transfer all the remaining kinetic energy. I'm not a fan of that kind of bullet construction, but for guys that are Berger's are excellent.

 

[bayoublaster7527]

I just had recent Alamo Precision build in 300 WM. It loves 215 bergers, stacks rounds from bench at 100 yds. Sample size of 1 on bull elk this year at 150 yds. One shot tipped him over and kicked once. Dead in his tracks. So far so good.

 

[Quicksilver]

How many folks have a preparation routine when they load Berger bullets (any, not just the 215)? Uniform the tips, use an orifice cleaner, or small drill to ensure good hollow points, etc. Prep has been mentioned here and on other threads I've seen.

Curious if the more successful take more care in prep, or not.

Jeremy

Unless you’re shooting hundreds of animals a year (even at that) then prepping your Bullets like your brass I could see a step you’d want to skip. That being said, when it comes down to “the moment” I doubt you’re going to care the extra hours you out in your prep work for at the least peace of mind knowing you did everything you believed was right and possible to make your ammo the best it could possibly be.

I would say laziness is simply what it is. The OP had a bad experience, but got a bull down so congrats to him and that’s what matters. He said he will not be drilling tips and whatnot on his bullets, his choice but if it could mean potentially more consistent performance with a bullet he already has an accurate load for then seems like a moot point to me.

I trimmed the meplats on my 300 berger OTM’s which I 100% believe resulted in a softball sized exit wound on my black bear last year at 500yds. Large bullet carrying a lot of energy and was prepped ahead of time to help expansion...and expand it did. Bear was dead on the shot but made it 40yds.

Buddy of mine was using 200eldx bullets in his 300wm. Handful of 1 shot kills on it and really liked them. I’ve seen them perform well, this year though he sent 2-3 (can’t remember which one) to bring a cow elk down at 300yds. Both through the vitals and both exited without expansion. As of now he will be moving on to something different because of it. His choice and I’m always up for something new since I work up the loads for his rifle. If he stuck with the same bullet I don’t think it would be a bad move. He is making a choice based off one experience just like the OP. Beautiful thing is it is their decision and I hope it doesn’t go any worse the next time around.

 

[tdhanses]

Unless you’re shooting hundreds of animals a year (even at that) then prepping your Bullets like your brass I could see a step you’d want to skip. That being said, when it comes down to “the moment” I doubt you’re going to care the extra hours you out in your prep work for at the least peace of mind knowing you did everything you believed was right and possible to make your ammo the best it could possibly be.

I would say laziness is simply what it is. The OP had a bad experience, but got a bull down so congrats to him and that’s what matters. He said he will not be drilling tips and whatnot on his bullets, his choice but if it could mean potentially more consistent performance with a bullet he already has an accurate load for then seems like a moot point to me.

I trimmed the meplats on my 300 berger OTM’s which I 100% believe resulted in a softball sized exit wound on my black bear last year at 500yds. Large bullet carrying a lot of energy and was prepped ahead of time to help expansion...and expand it did. Bear was dead on the shot but made it 40yds.

Buddy of mine was using 200eldx bullets in his 300wm. Handful of 1 shot kills on it and really liked them. I’ve seen them perform well, this year though he sent 2-3 (can’t remember which one) to bring a cow elk down at 300yds. Both through the vitals and both exited without expansion. As of now he will be moving on to something different because of it. His choice and I’m always up for something new since I work up the loads for his rifle. If he stuck with the same bullet I don’t think it would be a bad move. He is making a choice based off one experience just like the OP. Beautiful thing is it is their decision and I hope it doesn’t go any worse the next time around.

You make a great point, we spend all this time prepping our brass, developing loads, seating bullets just perfectly and finding the best powder and primer combo, yet it’s too much to do a little more prep on a bullet? Doesn’t make sense.

 

[Tumbleweed]

How many folks have a preparation routine when they load Berger bullets (any, not just the 215)? Uniform the tips, use an orifice cleaner, or small drill to ensure good hollow points, etc. Prep has been mentioned here and on other threads I've seen.

Curious if the more successful take more care in prep, or not.

Jeremy

I drill ALL Berger bullet tips out that will be used for hunting! Mostly I use a bit that is roughly the same size as the original hole.
Sometimes I open them up quite a bit bigger than factory. I have also noticed over the years that different lots of 215’s often have widely varying tip hole sizes. Not sure what to make of that? I use a mini electric drill and micro bits of varying sizes.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Cahunter805]

The jacket of a Berger is still a target bullet design and can be distorted and closed. The hollow point cavity can and does get filled with polishing media and should at least be checked and cleaned out.

I’ve been considering a Meplat trimmer also. Does anyone use one? What has your results been?

 

[Ledd Slinger]

...
First shot was in the lungs, he hunched up and I sent a second round a little hasty...
It hit him in the center of the neck where it meets the shoulder.
Should have dropped in his tracks but the bull barely flinched.

I would also like to see pictures if the first shot that "failed" to see where it actually impacted.

First reason to raise question is the distance of the shot. Not calling the OP a liar or that 680 yards is not a makeable shot, but when a person says the second shot on the animal standing there hunched up missed it's mark so badly that it hit the bull in the neck...I wonder if the shooter has any business taking shots at that distance in the first place.

Second, a neck shot NEVER drops an animal unless it hits and breaks the spine. It can be very deceiving where the spine is located in the neck at different angles. I know he wasnt aiming for the neck, but any bullet I've ever seen hit the neck and miss the spine with a shot intentionally placed there, the bullets penciled through the meat and you wouldnt even know the animal was hit. It's easy ti see in the photo that the Berger bullet never touched the spine in the neck. I've seen poorly placed neck shots that penciled through the meat with Nosler Partitions, Swift Scirocco, Berger, and Nosler Accubond. The neck is very soft meat and there is not enough of it for a bullet to fully expand before it exits. Of course if you hit the spine, the bullet will open up violently. The neck is always a bad choice for shot placement in my opinion

 

[Ledd Slinger]

I drill ALL Berger bullet tips out that will be used for hunting! Mostly I use a bit that is roughly the same size as the original hole.
Sometimes I open them up quite a bit bigger than factory. I have also noticed over the years that different lots of 215’s often have widely varying tip hole sizes. Not sure what to make of that? I use a mini electric drill and micro bits of varying sizes.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I dont drill out Berger meplats (tips), but I did notice a lot of variance in the size of the meplat hollow point diameter on the 215s (original yellow boxes).

I just picked up 2 boxes of Berger 215s a few days ago with the new black and yellow labels the box. NAMMO (Lapua parent company) bought Berger and had them move shop recently. The new 215s since moving shop are .023" shorter from base to lands touch point on the ogive. BUT, the meplats are much more consistent.

 

[MattB]

I don’t think the bullets are inconsistent, I think the structure of a elk is inconsistent. It’s so hard to determine bullet performance when it hits different parts of the body at different velocities. No two shots are
identical, which means no two bullets will perform identical to each other. I’m not saying that One off your bullets didn’t have bad performance I’m just saying there are circumstances that change the performance on any given bullet on any given shot on any given animal.

The bullet performance is absolutely inconsistent, as the performance is apparently highly variable depending on the amount of resistance encountered. I've heard similar deem other guys who no longer shoot Bergers. I personally wouldn't feel comfortable shooting a bullet that is that finicky as to what you have to hit to get adequate performance.

 

[Vandy321]

215 hybrid into a cow, entry behind onside shoulder, stopped between offside shoulder and hide. I'm no terminal performance expert, but seemed to do pretty well at a pretty high impact velocity.

Distance was 100 yards, left the barrel at 2988fps...2873 FPS and 3941 ft/lbs of energy at impact.

She took 5 steps and expired. 98gr retained.

 

[Vandy321]

I drill ALL Berger bullet tips out that will be used for hunting! Mostly I use a bit that is roughly the same size as the original hole.
Sometimes I open them up quite a bit bigger than factory. I have also noticed over the years that different lots of 215’s often have widely varying tip hole sizes. Not sure what to make of that? I use a mini electric drill and micro bits of varying sizes.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Is there a reason you use the drill over a specific bullet pointer? I too see the tips are less than consistent, would like to try uniforming the tips as well, just not sure the best/most consistent way to do it.

 

[Mike Islander]

Two failures on the same animal has to be more than shot placement.

Or a mild coincidence.

 

[Ryan Avery]

The bullet performance is absolutely inconsistent, as the performance is apparently highly variable depending on the amount of resistance encountered. I've heard similar deem other guys who no longer shoot Bergers. I personally wouldn't feel comfortable shooting a bullet that is that finicky as to what you have to hit to get adequate performance.

What would you shoot then? And remember this is an LR discussion so the shot could be to 800+ yards.