Done with 215 Bergers

[treillw]

I might as well be bringing up politics, but here it goes. I've been shooting the 215 Bergers out of my 300 win since 2017. Developed a great load shooting sub half minute at 2705 fps.

2017:

• Wife shot a cow at 260 yards. Didn't look for a blood trail because we could see the animal laying 40 yards away. Bullet worked. Wonderful.

2018:

• I shot at a cow. 300ish yards, poor rest, rushed/hectic shot. My wife, brother and I looked for about 1.5 hours. Couldn't find a drop of blood. No hair. Nothing. Three people looking all over for that long, we swore I missed. My other brother had a tag and ran off after the herd after my shot. He came back and asked if we found blood. No, we said. I guess I missed. He said alright. Let's head back to the truck. He started walking and we all followed closely behind. After a couple hundred yards he stepped to the side to reveal my dead elk laying there. He followed that elks tracks the whole way back to where we stood looking for blood and said that he didn't see a single drop. Granted this one is my fault; I hit it in the guts. I would still hope to see some sign of a hit.
• The next day my wife shot at a cow at 460 yards. She practices at this range all the time and I know she can make the shot. She doesn't shoot if she's not comfortable and confident. No sign at all of a hit. The four of us looked for half the day and couldn't find anything. She definitely could have missed, but after the previous day's display I would not be surprised at all if she hit it.
• Couple of weeks later I shot a cow at 260 yards. Ended up breaking the front shoulder and it only went 10 yards.

2019:

• I shot a bull at 40 yards. It ran maybe 70 yards with blood spewing everywhere and died. Happy
• My wife shot a bull at 260 yards and dropped it in it's tracks. Happy.

2020:

• This spring I shot a beautiful big color phased bear. 260 yards, prone, solid as a rock - I could hit a baseball with the gun at that range. The bear was over a hill and disappeared after the shot. It looked like I hit it in the scope. Walked up to it swearing I would find a beautiful dead bear. Nothing. No hair. No blood. Nothing. Looked all over. Nothing. Two weeks later I found a pretty monstrous (in my book) black bear skull in the same area. My bear? I'll never know for certain. Sickening.
• Monday I shot a bull. Thought it was dead. Walked up to it and it stood up. I shot it at ~30 yards broadside right in the boiler room. It flinched and kept standing. I shot it again, right in the boiler room. It took a couple steps and fell. I gave it 30 seconds and it was still pretty with it, so I shot it in the head. Still moving. Shot it in the head again and it finally faded slowly.

The first shot was at about 100 yards. None of the shots, except one head shot, had exit wounds. I found one copper jacket laying against the far side ribcage. The autopsy revealed that the internal organs were essentially fully intact. I saw no signs of the one "boiler room" shot. The other one, I saw a hole the size of my pointer finger through the lungs. I could barely stick my finger through the hole. The bullet didn't exit the far side of the animal, but penciled through the lungs - I would have expected to find a pencil exit.

I guess I'm starting to see why "not suitable for hunting" is stamped onto the box.

Unless somebody can show me what I'm doing wrong here, I'm pretty sure I'm done with the 215 hybrid. I might try the 205 Elite Hunters out. I'm also open to other suggestions.

 

[brushape]

Have you checked if the tips or open


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[Trigger06]

Glad you've come around.

I don't understand trying to hunt with bullets not explicitly designed for killing. Sure, some work, and work really well. But why try to make something into something it really isn't?

 

[treillw]

Have you checked if the tips or open


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Yes, I go through the whole box and pick out the perfect ones for hunting.

 

[pnw]

probably not but do you happen to have one of them 11.5 twist win mags ?

 

[treillw]

probably not but do you happen to have one of them 11.5 twist win mags ?

Nope. 10 Twist.

 

[wildwilderness]

Are the EOL designed differently than the Hybrid targets?

 

[ShortMountain91]

I know a lot of folks on here shoot them but seems to be plenty of trouble with bullets that are designed for the task. I'm not going to even chance it with a bullet that's not designed for the task

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[pnw]

I have hunting vld loads for a couple different calibers that are better than anything else and some 180 elite hunters that I have yet to load but always chicken out before hunting season because of these type of threads

 

[treillw]

Are the EOL designed differently than the Hybrid targets?

Yeah. Hybrids say not suitable for hunting right on the box. That being said, lots of people, myself included have harvested animals with them.

The 205 is "designed for hunting".

With all the attention Berger gets on the 215, you think they could tweak the thing a little to give it a "hunting jacket and pedigree" and keep close to the same weight and shape.

 

[tdhanses]

Yeah. Hybrids say not suitable for hunting right on the box. That being said, lots of people, myself included have harvested animals with them.

The 205 is "designed for hunting".

With all the attention Berger gets on the 215, you think they could tweak the thing a little to give it a "hunting jacket and pedigree" and keep close to the same weight and shape.

They say that yet tons of animals are killed by them, Broz alone has seen 400+ Elk alone, I’ll still be using them. The 215 is a tired and true bullet but some just expect it to act like an accubond, can’t punch a shoulder with them.

 

[slvrslngr]

Here’s a crazy idea, how about using a bullet designed for hunting when actually hunting. I mean c’mon, the box says “not for hunting”. BC, VLD, MOA and all the other LR gack don’t mean squat if you’re wounding and not recovering game. Sure seems these Berger’s are consistently inconsistent on game.

 

[762 ULTRAMAGA]

They say that yet tons of animals are killed by them, Broz alone has seen 400+ Elk alone, I’ll still be using them. The 215 is a tired and true bullet but some just expect it to act like an accubond, can’t punch a shoulder with them.

Yeah they're trash for hunting...
I put three in my bull last year and 2 fraged 1 penciled.
Turned into a total tracking nightmare.
Watched a friend grenade a 300 grain berger on a bull as well, he tracked it for two days before killing him.
I'll never hunt with Bergers of any variety again.

For the life of me I can't understand why guys are so passionate about the 215's, there are much better elk bullets out there

 

[WCB]

First of all...the number one bullet I here complaints about at work (I work in the shooting industry we will leave it at that) and in hunting camps are Bergers. "they shoot great but are really suck an game". The second would be Nosler Ballistic tips for similar reasons. I know different Berger bullets and bullets in different calibers may perform different but this is a general thing I hear more than any other projectile on the market.

Someone above said you can't punch shoulders with them. That would be the number 1 reason I don't hunt with a bullet.

#2 I do not get why guys expect bullets (and more so poorly constructed as far as weight retention) to exit or leave a blood trail. Bullets are not arrows. If the bullet does not exit you have a bullet diameter hole going in...add fat, muscle, bone, and hide and that sized hole is not staying open for blood to get out.

#3 on the last elk you write about...a bullet "not intended for hunting" was shot at a range bullets are not designed to hit an animal at when you tried to finish it off. On top of that you have a few instances of poor shot placement above.

 

[BigPrince]

I don’t understand disavowing the whole brand for using bullets that verbatim say “not for hunting” on the box when hunting with bad results.... use field tips on arrows when hunting too?

edit: So what was the expected outcome in cross posting this to pretty much every hunting forum?

 

[Ryan Avery]

The same box of bullets?


I have never shot anything with 215 Berger but I have watched over 30 elk get shot with them and have shot a pile of elk with Bergers. I will keep shooting them.

I could start threads on lots of premium hunting bullets that I 'think' failed me. The bullet is the easiest to blame.

 

[fatbacks]

This episode of the Backcountry Hunting Podcast is a good listen... I think Joseph von Benedikt is a quality gun writer and adds a good perspective on it:

https://backcountryhunting.libsyn.com/hunting-with-match-bullets

Bergers shoot really well in most of my rifles. I avoid them for hunting because of the possibility of a close up run in with a grizzly/brown bear. I've heard of lots of Berger failures when shooting animals sub 50 yds.

 

[Ryan Avery]

This episode of the Backcountry Hunting Podcast is a good listen... I think Joseph von Benedikt is a quality gun writer and adds a good perspective on it:

https://backcountryhunting.libsyn.com/hunting-with-match-bullets

Bergers shoot really well in most of my rifles. I avoid them for hunting because of the possibility of a close up run in with a grizzly/brown bear. I've heard of lots of Berger failures when shooting animals sub 50 yds.

He also says in a Shooting Times Article(I think) He doesn't have much experience with them on animals.

Hunting Magazines don't really want to tackle this match bullet for hunting debate. Ya, they skirt around the edges but rarely anything with meat to it. They don't want to piss off advertisers IMO.

 

[treillw]

I don’t understand disavowing the whole brand for using bullets that verbatim say “not for hunting” on the box when hunting with bad results.... use field tips on arrows when hunting too?

edit: So what was the expected outcome in cross posting this to pretty much every hunting forum?

I haven't disavowed Berger. I'm thinking about using their 205 if you read the original post.

What's wrong with cross posting a thread? They are different audiences, with different perspectives and different people read each. I do it all the time. I surely hope that there are more than 3 hunting forums on the internet. I have no axe to grind.

I drank the 215 koolaid. Had a $5500 custom rifle built to shoot 215s. I'm just discovering that the koolaid tastes a little funny.

 

[treillw]

Again, I have no axe to grind. All I want to do is kill my animals as quickly and cleanly as possible.

I don't understand why people get their panties all bunched up when you question something (largely referring to other forums).

I don't care if Chevy makes my bullets if they do what they are supposed to, and I could care less if you'd rather shoot a Dodge!