urbanrifleman
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If the 90 VLD is even worse, wouldn't that mean they're a bit longer than the 90 SMK. either way, appreciate the pictures gives people a good image of what's really going on. Have you done any work with the 95 Bergers223 ISSF
90 vld
You can barely see the pressure ring. So, it appears to be even worse than the 90 SMK.
View attachment 1694130View attachment 1694131
If the 90 VLD is even worse, wouldn't that mean they're a bit longer than the 90 SMK. either way, appreciate the pictures gives people a good image of what's really going on. Have you done any work with the 95 Bergers
not all about that, honestly I really enjoy shooting a well tuned 223 pretty amazing what that cartridge can do. Have a couple thousand 88.5's to try, after I use up all the 90 smk and vld's again thanks for the pictures. It puts everything in perspective for someone trying to figure out and set up that cartridge.I guess you were correct. Whatever little difference that is, I had noted all of them being in the donut with that reamer and never really gave it much thought after that.
Does Berger make a 95gr bullet for 223?95 Bergers
Holy laser beam! That thing is averaging under .3 for over 1500 5 shout groups? In 223?In my .223 bolt action, with heavier bullets (69 gr to 77 grs) for 5-round groups at 100 yards:
Varget seems to be better in my rifle than anything else by a bit
Varget is first (0.261 for 511 groups).
N540 is second (0.267 for 142 groups),
H4895 is third (0.271 for 51 groups).
IMR4166 is fourth (0.286 for 498 groups).
N140 is fifth (0.289 for 224 groups).
N133 is sixth but only with light, 52 and 53 gr, bullets (0.290 for 98 groups).
They all shoot pretty well, but the large group counts eliminate the small number of "wonder groups" that many use to judge performance. I find that it is more due to shooter induced variations, or lack of them, and can be very misleading for decision making about overall accuracy.
It's a SMK not a Berger.Does Berger make a 95gr bullet for 223?
Bullet | BBTT | BBTO | BOTT |
70 Berger VLD | 0.960 | 0.452 | 0.508 |
73 Berger BT | 0.966 | 0.454 | 0.512 |
77 Berger OTM | 1.023 | 0.491 | 0.532 |
80 Berger VLD | 1.103 | 0.477 | 0.626 |
90 Berger VLD | 1.240 | 0.515 | 0.725 |
69 Sierra SMK | 0.903 | 0.404 | 0.499 |
69 Sierra TMK | 0.978 | 0.415 | 0.563 |
77 Sierra SMK | 0.980 | 0.487 | 0.493 |
77 Sierra TMK | 1.074 | 0.515 | 0.559 |
80 Sierra SMK | 1.084 | 0.436 | 0.648 |
90 Sierra SMK | 1.181 | 0.543 | 0.638 |
73 HornadyELD-M | 1.040 | 0.484 | 0.556 |
80 Hornady ELD-M | 1.159 | 0.515 | 0.644 |
88 Hornady ELD-M | 1.237 | 0.572 | 0.665 |
After a bit of research (not much) and thanks to Bergers excellent data. Some data came from the GRT database so not sure how accurate it is. It looks like the 88ELD and 90VLD are longest with the 90SMK being 'stubbier', close to the 85.5. The 80's are all pretty close. I wonder if the BTO of the 85.5 and 90SMK are similar as well. Given the bullet descriptions of ogives I suspect they are. Same with the 90VLD and 88ELD? I don't have any to measure so that's guess work. If you have some measurements it would be interesting to see the differences. Note: I looked at the picture of the 95SMK on Sierra's site and it looks like all they did was increase the body length a bit, ogive looks same as the 90.
Bullet length BTO
80SMK 1.0945 unk
90SMK 1.1693 unk
80ELD 1.0630 unk
88ELD 1.2457 unk
80.5FB 1.091 0.589
85.5HY 1.167 0.585
90VLD 1.254 0.622
Just some thoughts in case they are helpful.It does seem like you were right about the 90VLD and 88ELD being the "problem children". The 90SMK's and 85.5's a bit less so.
It does create a dilemma for those of us who might wish to shoot lighter bullets in these guns (if you can call 77 and 80gn 'light'). Get the longer FB to allow shooting the 90 and 88 long pills or go slightly shorter and limit to the 90SMK. Decisions, decisions
I've tried following the F-TR folks as well. Most there repeat your caution about seating past the donut. Most of their concerns are about pushing higher velocities for that last bit of advantage, something I won't be doing. Bullet preferences seem to still be the 90SMK, 90VLD and 88ELD.
Heck, I do ok shooting 73ELD's at 600yd, informal of course.
Just curious how much of advantage does the 88/90 bullets give you over the 80’s at 600/1000 after speed is figure in. Is it worth? Not debating just asking
Unless you have achieved Master or High Master at 1000 yards, then you typically need to accept that there is another learning curve to get to the same level of shooting at 1000 as you had at 600. That said...Just curious how much of advantage does the 88/90 bullets give you over the 80’s at 600/1000 after speed is figure in. Is it worth? Not debating just asking