best seater for berger vld's?

[alaskan9974]

What's the best seater for accurately seating bergers? Can they be used reliably set to mag coal?

I am getting inconsistent results with the berger's in my .308. Not sure if it is due to the jump, or varied seating depth off the tip. My reloading process is;

sorting and matching cases by capacity

sorting bullets of identical length and weight

tossing any cases with any imperfections or dings

depriming then tumbling and then full length resizing

tumbling and checking cases again after deburring and reaming

weighing out powder charges, double checking for consistency using two digital scales

seating bullets and pulling any with a variance of .004" or more

light crimp on all, lee fcd, the same setting since I use my rifles for both hunting and recreational shooting

one last check for any imperfections or cracks and they get dropped in the range box

I always shoot a control group of GMM 168, averaging .6" in my 19" rem 700 at 100 yards, my Amax 178's are grouping at .55-.80" with H4895 and IMR4094 respectively

My bergers are all over the place, best I have gotten so far in a ladder test is at reduced charges 175 vld @ 1.080" and 168 vld @ 1.133" in 5 shot groups, both near minimum charges with 4895 and 4064. I haven't tried loading longer then mag length, it wouldn't be of much use to me. Am I doing something wrong with these? I have 4 boxes of these, buyers regret, looks like theyll be used for plinking.

 

[FROGO207]

You could send a couple sample bullets to the die manufacturer and have them turn you a special seating plug that contacts down a ways on the ogive and that might help. Now it may be contacting the bullet close to the nose and causing problems. First though I would try loosing that crimp and see if it makes a difference. Also investing in a VLD tapered expander might improve your accuracy but I have not tried this yet. I have tried both with and without crimp on a LOT of different rifle rounds and I find no benefit when crimping accuracy wise, so now I do not bother unless for a tube fed firearm. I have even had some target groups size cut in half by simply not crimping, other calibers/loads show no difference either way. YMMV

 

[Sneakyt]

Berger vld`s will vary in over all length. Coal measurement when developing loads for your rifle are a must. Some say it is necessary to jam them into to lands. It is not. If loading close to max pressure, jamming that round will increase the starting pressure substantially, and if you're not crimping, a jammed bullet can remain in the lands when removing an unfired cartridge. Big, big mess. Berger has online tutorials explaining how extreme accuracy is attainable by jumping vld bullets. I load them jumping around .007 in everything and literally clover leaf the center out of a dime. Every die set I own from pretty much every die manufacturer there is seat the vld`s with no deformation of the bullet.

 

[Sneakyt]

Ps...the vldh is a seriously venerable bullet on game at low velocities like those experienced at long range impacts. Coupled with unbelievable bc`s, they are worthy of the migraine problem of load development. I lean on my hunting rifles a little pushing about 6% below max psi. Also loading the slowest powder for each cartridge. MRP is great for the bottle necked stuff. Win748 or R17 or for short bbl .308 stuff R15 trying to achieve 99% burn in my barrels

 

[Bart B.]

Any bullet seater puts bullets straight in case necks if they're properly sized. If the case mouth ends up too small after sizing, bullets oft times end up crooked because an expander ball bent the neck as it came through it. Use dies without expander balls whose neck is a couple thousandths smaller than loaded round neck diameter.

I think you're overdoing all the case prep, sorting, weighing and measuring. It's not needed with good bullets, brass, barrels and shooter. Note that the distance from a .308 case shoulder to the bore diameter on the bullet (about .300", but all 30 caliber bore diameters are not exactly the same) is what controls bullet jump to rifling distance. The case head is off the bolt face by a spread in case headspace when the round fires. Nobody should care where the bullet tip is relative to anything else.

Sierra Bullets does no case prep nor measuring at all, throws powder charges with a 3/10ths grain spread, tests bullets as they are without any sorting process, has several thousandths spread in OAL then shoots several 10-shot groups throughout the production run. Their match bullets have to stay under 1/2 MOA in their 200 yard range. Their better ones shoot near 1/4 MOA; that's half an inch at 200. Benchrest matches through 300 yards are shot with powder charges with a 2/10ths grain spread; metered direct from measure, not weighed. And they don't work up loads with different component lots or a new test barrel.

Sierra proved decades ago that crimping bullets in case mouths in any way whatsoever degrades accuracy. Nobody getting best results consistently in rifle matches crimps their bullets in case mouths. Arsenals quit crimping bullets in .30-06 match ammo and quit putting cannelures in bullets because they learned that process hampered accuracy. Commercial match ammo doesn't have crimped in bullets.

 

[murf]

bergers like a lot of jump. try forty or fifty thou off the lands. Suggest you lose the crimp.

luck,

murf

 

[Bart B.]

I agree with murf on Berger jump distance.

Besides, as .308 Win's throat erodes away about .001" for every 40 rounds fired, are you going to seat bullets that much less every 40 rounds?

Having seen no significant loss of accuracy in my .308 Win barrels as bullet jump for Sierra 168's increases about .070" over the accurate life of the barrel, I'm not concerned about such stuff.

After all's said and done, if one bases any load's accuracy on one or two test groups with less than 15 shots in it, all sorts of ideas come up for what's best. The best rifles and ammo winning bench rest matches shooting 5- and 10 shot groups have a 5 to 6 times spread from their smallest one to the largest one over 20 to 30 groups; all with the same load.

With commercial rifles, there's typically a 5% or so spread in charge weights that will show no significant accuracy change. They'll all shoot 20 to 30 shot groups within 10% of the same size.