Berger VLD

[Jon B]

Afternoon, with the Berger VLD bullets, what does the VLD stand for?

 

I have looked on the Berger web site but done seem to be able to find out.

[20series]

Very low drag,

 

Alan

[Laurie]

Ther classic VLD form uses a long-nose shape with a secant ogive form. The nose and shank make a sharp junction as a result of this choice of nose type and this in turn often makes VLDs hard to 'tune'. Most chambers / barrels will only shoot well with the chambered round pushing the bullet into the rifling so it is lightly gripped by the rifling lands, although some like a very large jump which may be as great as 80 or even 120 thou'.

 

As a result, the VLD has lost popularity in some calibres and for some purposes. If seated into the lands, the bullet may stick there and be left behind if a live round has to be unloaded also spilling powder into the locking lug areas. 6mm and 6.5mm VLDs remain popular though for the BRs and 6.5X47L as they often seem to be simpler to get them to group well.

 

Walt Berger produced the original 6mm VLD bullet a generation back in collaboration with its designer Bill Davis and promoted the type strongly for years as it offered substantially higher BCs than the then normal tangent ogive design. In recent years, Berger has introduced a 'Hybrid' design which marries a long secant form nose section with a rounded tangent form at the junction with the bullet-shank in order to obtain the 'tuneability' of the tangent type with the low drag of the VLD. Some Berger VLDs have since been withdrawn and this is a trend that'll likely continue, although I doubt if they'll disappear entirely from Berger's lists. That's for match bullets. Berger Bullets found that thin-jacketed VLDs 'upset' and fragment whilst penetrating animal tissue, hence the Hunting VLD range - although many on this forum who've tried this type on deer haven't been impressed.

[Brillo]

In the Berger Reloading Manual there's a section written by Brian Litz on how to find the best seating depth for the VLD bullet. It does take you out of a normal comfort zone because it advocates starting at about 0.010" into the lands and then increasing seating depth adjustments of 0.040" increments until 0.120" off the lands.

I decided to try this method with the 7mm 180 grain Hybrid and was astonished to find the best group (and I mean really good) at 0.080"! If I hadn't read that section I would never have gone further than 0.030" and not realised the accuracy potential of the rifle/bullet combination.

[jay666d]

In the Berger Reloading Manual there's a section written by Brian Litz on how to find the best seating depth for the VLD bullet. It does take you out of a normal comfort zone because it advocates starting at about 0.010" into the lands and then increasing seating depth adjustments of 0.040" increments until 0.120" off the lands.

I decided to try this method with the 7mm 180 grain Hybrid and was astonished to find the best group (and I mean really good) at 0.080"! If I hadn't read that section I would never have gone further than 0.030" and not realised the accuracy potential of the rifle/bullet combination.

 

That is some good info to know! :-)

[trucraft]

In the Berger Reloading Manual there's a section written by Brian Litz on how to find the best seating depth for the VLD bullet. It does take you out of a normal comfort zone because it advocates starting at about 0.010" into the lands and then increasing seating depth adjustments of 0.040" increments until 0.120" off the lands.

I decided to try this method with the 7mm 180 grain Hybrid and was astonished to find the best group (and I mean really good) at 0.080"! If I hadn't read that section I would never have gone further than 0.030" and not realised the accuracy potential of the rifle/bullet combination.

 

I had exactly the Same thing.

I used their method on some 168grn vld and found that 0.080 was the best place to be. Touching the lands was the next best but as it is a hunting rifle I wasn't happy with that set up.

[Laurie]

Yes, but ............ the 180gn Hybrid is allegedly jump-tolerant (as per all Hybrids). That's not how I've found them in 30-cal, the 155 needing a large jump and the 168 working best if treated as per VLDs and seated 10-15 thou' 'in'.

 

The BTs / older tangent ogive designs are still the easiest models to 'tune' by far and in some cases don't lose much or any BC value compared to VLDs / Hybrids - eg the .308 Berger 155.5gn and 185gn LR BT models. In 7mm, all high-BC designs are VLD/Hybrid whether from Hornady, Lapua, Sierra, or Berger, so one has little option but to use them and if necessary play around with seating depths.

[Brillo]

For me the key learning from Brian Litz' article was going for big adjustments each time. He stated that if you went down the traditional route of making 2 thou increments the barrel could be worn out by the time you get to 120 thou jump.

 

I probably wouldn't get away with such a large steps with the.308 but it worked for me with the 7mm 180 grn Hybrid.

 

I'm now load developing the .308 Dyer HBC. As my start point is 2.865" (touching the lands), 0.040" increments would be a nonsense so initially I'm trying 0.010" steps.

[Laurie]

Playing around with settings from 20 thou' 'in' to 120 thou' 'out' is as good an argument as I know for buying the 155.5gn Berger, getting a load sorted with 20 rounds load development, and then getting trigger time in.

 

In my experience the HBCs are easy to tune. They look like aggressively angled VLDs but usually shoot well with 15 or 20 thou' jump. They're much easier to tune than Berger or JLK VLDs.

[dannywayoflife]

For what it's worth ive found the hbc's like a 30thou jump touching the lands they did a consistent inch 30 thou out there half that

[gbal]

+1 Laurie.Too much faffing about,generally.

 

Thanks too,Danny for not mentioning that faff inducer,COAL.

 

gbal

[Brillo]

Playing around with settings from 20 thou' 'in' to 120 thou' 'out' is as good an argument as I know for buying the 155.5gn Berger, getting a load sorted with 20 rounds load development, and then getting trigger time in.

 

In my experience the HBCs are easy to tune. They look like aggressively angled VLDs but usually shoot well with 15 or 20 thou' jump. They're much easier to tune than Berger or JLK VLDs.

That's good to know Laurie and Danny. My initial load development with the HBC's was with 5 thou jump. having quickly established the best powder weight, I've just loaded three batches of HBC's with 15, 20 and 30 thou jump so it looks like I should find the sweet spot quickly.

[dannywayoflife]

I was struggling to get them to group tighter than an in h but as soon as I came back from the lands they tightened up.

[Swarovski1]

Ive loaded the 140gr hybrids and vlds to data oal and they shot really well, was more a case of reducing the load as data for 6.5 06 is crap with all the reloading data for that calibre.

[Brad Y]

I believe the opposite, in that the VLD's are very easy to tune and a good bullet, and the hybrids you have to do alot of work with. Some barrels will shoot them but variation in batches is a problem. Some are fatter, have longer or shorter bearing surfaces and just seem to be touch and go whether they shoot good or brilliantly. Where the VLD you just jam them 10 thou and they hammer. Occasionally you can get them going at a 30-40 thou jump, but from the calibers Ive tried, the jam loads have always been better- you just need to tweak the powder charge. And the best thing with jamming them, the starting pressures are all very even helping out ES. My 284 shehane likes the current lot of 180 hybrids I own but I expect to be having to retune a fair bit to hope the next lot do the same (if any diameter difference doesnt hamper things) The VLD's I would just remeasure to unsure the jam is maintainted and go shoot them. In my 6 dasher I had a very FAT batch of 105 hybrids. They shot amazing jumped 50 thou and shot a 60.9 (equivelant of 100.9X in Australia) at 500 meters with it. The next batch was much more conventional diameter and I tried jamming, jumping all measurements, more powder, less powder, different primers... in the end I threw them in the bin and started buying JLK VLD's.

[Jon B]

Thank you, think I might stick with Lapua for a while all sounds very complicated to me!

[gbal]

Jon,a good summary and action plan.

 

Lapua don't fix their bullets very often,in part because mostly they are not broke.

 

They did introduce the L scenars a while back,and gave those who like to do these things something to research. Such efforts benefit us all.

Lapua bullets are very good. If you are getting good results with Lapua,that will come as no surprise-they are on most shooter's short list of 'must try' semi premium bullets.

So are Bergers. Nothing so far is perfect.But it's closer.

Enjoy your shooting.

 

gbal