Starting to get low on my supply of old stock 105 VLD targets with the smaller metplats. I had heard that around lot #2420 they had gone to a larger metplat and lowered the BC. Received a 100 to compare and in my opinion they are unusable. Lot # 4159, PN#24429. Weights were within .2 grains and base to ogove within 2 tho. but the metplats look like they had been sheared off with a knife!! Used to seeing something approaching 90 degrees give or take some but 75% of the box had a angle of between 15 and 40 degrees...very noticeable to the naked eye. If someone can tell me the tips don't matter I 'd like to hear from you and I don't have the time to get into a tipping die and trimming metplats. Is this a bad lot or common amongst the new lot 105's? Eric in DL
Berger 105 VLD target metplats??
- Thread starter Cakes
- Start date
I haven't shot the 105 VLD target in a while (since they cut it shorter), but yeah, the meplats do look a bit funky, and they shoot just fine.
My wife shot an F-class record with them ugly and un-modified, I've won a goodly number of regional medals with them, they shoot just fine. Though I have started pointing them because I'm a tinkerer and there's BC to be had! Not sure it matters much, but placebos can be valuable, too ;D
My wife shot an F-class record with them ugly and un-modified, I've won a goodly number of regional medals with them, they shoot just fine. Though I have started pointing them because I'm a tinkerer and there's BC to be had! Not sure it matters much, but placebos can be valuable, too ;D
[br]NateG said:
At 600, trimming and pointing helps somewhat. At 1000, it helps quite a bit with vertical. Even if it did nothing for the B.C., it would make the bullets more uniform.
Re: Berger 105 VLD target meplats??
FYI- I usually shoot these 600/1000 for f-class. Did talk to Teresa @ Berger and she was most helpful. She did mention that there had been some production issues with slanted tips but she didn't recognize the lot # I gave her. I can only assume (which I don't like to do) that the slanted tips certainly don't help with the ballistics. I have tried the hybrids with good success, their meplats are very consistant and will probably push in that direction. Kudos to Berger for their quick and correct response. Eric in DL
FYI- I usually shoot these 600/1000 for f-class. Did talk to Teresa @ Berger and she was most helpful. She did mention that there had been some production issues with slanted tips but she didn't recognize the lot # I gave her. I can only assume (which I don't like to do) that the slanted tips certainly don't help with the ballistics. I have tried the hybrids with good success, their meplats are very consistant and will probably push in that direction. Kudos to Berger for their quick and correct response. Eric in DL
Eric
If you want a good profesional answer to your question email Bryan Litz and ask about the effects of the meplate in relation to how it will affect your exterrior balistics. I cant think of a better person to give you a highly educated and honest answer to your query.
I, like big Nate G dont mess with the meplate until im doing a major match ( state, Regional or national championship) then I point only and then only past 600 yards.
Does the Hunting VLD still have the old design?
Russ T
If you want a good profesional answer to your question email Bryan Litz and ask about the effects of the meplate in relation to how it will affect your exterrior balistics. I cant think of a better person to give you a highly educated and honest answer to your query.
I, like big Nate G dont mess with the meplate until im doing a major match ( state, Regional or national championship) then I point only and then only past 600 yards.
Does the Hunting VLD still have the old design?
Russ T
[br]Rtheurer said:
But Russ, isn't your 10 ring several feet in diameter?
Russ- Eric Stecker from Berger relayed to me that the change was due to inconsistencies with the smaller meplat and thicker jacket of the old vld's in conjunction with the small diameter ejection pins used in the bullet forming process. Larger ejector pins (larger meplat) translates into less problems during manufacturing and (lower bc.) Eric also said the slanted tips will perform well since there is a supersonic pressure wave just in front of the meplat, as long as the opening is a consistent diameter internally it will fly true. According to Berger the VLD hunting version has not been changed, it still has the smaller meplat along with the thinner jacket. I know several who have gone to the hunting version with good success but I'm going to push on with the hybrids. Eric in DL.
Bryan Litz Ballistics
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johara1,
I totally understand the apparent contradiction you're describing. I'll do my best to explain as I understand it, but Eric (the bulletsmith) may correct me on some points related to fabrication.
The tooling used to make the original (thin jacket) 105 VLD was sized perfectly for that jacket and core. But with the thicker jacket, the core length was longer and didn't allow meplats to form consistently. The two available options were to either truncate the nose length so the meplats could be made consistently, or re-tool both the jacket lengths and dies for making this bullet with small meplats. The somewhat experimental direction of truncating the noses was taken. I say somewhat experimental because we wanted to see just how this addressed the consistency issue, as well as BC. The reduction in BC was disappointing but until the OP, we (I personally) have never heard of consistency issues with the meplats of these thick jacket 105 VLD's.
Part of the decision to truncate the nose was affected by the knowledge that we would soon have the 105 Hybrid available. The jackets and tooling for the 105 hybrid was designed from ground up around the thick jackets, so we were able to make them with the smaller meplats with no issues like we had with the thick 105 VLD's.
As to the effect of the crooked looking tips, I'll relay a true story that happened to me when I was about 16 years old hunting groundhogs with a .243 loading Sierra 70 grain MatchKings. I got a batch with visually crooked tips and called the tech line. They explained that the jacket is [weight] balanced/concentric before it's drawn, and that if the tip appears crooked, the mass is actually balanced. Any aerodynamic effect would be to minimal to notice. Naturally I thought they were feeding me a line of BS (I was 16...) so I filed the tips flat with a file. Lest anyone think that's a barbaric way to address a bullet, I'll have you know I did choose the 'fine' file over the coarse one. After 'fixing' the bullet tips to be nice and flat, I proceeded to the fields and proceeded to miss every groundhog I shot at for days. A trip to the range showed the bullets grouping like 3" at 100 (my usual was closer to 1"). The modified bullets were the only difference, so I went back and, cringing, loaded the crooked tips. Groups went back to 1" and groundhogs started dying again.
Now the above is purely anecdotal, but it was my limited experience with shooting crooked tip bullets. My advice is to (cringe if you have to, and) load them and give them a fair try. Others have reported no noticeable difference in precision with crooked meplats, but I would hesitate to say "it never matters".
I hope Eric can correct me if I relayed any inaccuracies related to the fabrication stuff.
Take care,
-Bryan
I totally understand the apparent contradiction you're describing. I'll do my best to explain as I understand it, but Eric (the bulletsmith) may correct me on some points related to fabrication.
The tooling used to make the original (thin jacket) 105 VLD was sized perfectly for that jacket and core. But with the thicker jacket, the core length was longer and didn't allow meplats to form consistently. The two available options were to either truncate the nose length so the meplats could be made consistently, or re-tool both the jacket lengths and dies for making this bullet with small meplats. The somewhat experimental direction of truncating the noses was taken. I say somewhat experimental because we wanted to see just how this addressed the consistency issue, as well as BC. The reduction in BC was disappointing but until the OP, we (I personally) have never heard of consistency issues with the meplats of these thick jacket 105 VLD's.
Part of the decision to truncate the nose was affected by the knowledge that we would soon have the 105 Hybrid available. The jackets and tooling for the 105 hybrid was designed from ground up around the thick jackets, so we were able to make them with the smaller meplats with no issues like we had with the thick 105 VLD's.
As to the effect of the crooked looking tips, I'll relay a true story that happened to me when I was about 16 years old hunting groundhogs with a .243 loading Sierra 70 grain MatchKings. I got a batch with visually crooked tips and called the tech line. They explained that the jacket is [weight] balanced/concentric before it's drawn, and that if the tip appears crooked, the mass is actually balanced. Any aerodynamic effect would be to minimal to notice. Naturally I thought they were feeding me a line of BS (I was 16...) so I filed the tips flat with a file. Lest anyone think that's a barbaric way to address a bullet, I'll have you know I did choose the 'fine' file over the coarse one. After 'fixing' the bullet tips to be nice and flat, I proceeded to the fields and proceeded to miss every groundhog I shot at for days. A trip to the range showed the bullets grouping like 3" at 100 (my usual was closer to 1"). The modified bullets were the only difference, so I went back and, cringing, loaded the crooked tips. Groups went back to 1" and groundhogs started dying again.
Now the above is purely anecdotal, but it was my limited experience with shooting crooked tip bullets. My advice is to (cringe if you have to, and) load them and give them a fair try. Others have reported no noticeable difference in precision with crooked meplats, but I would hesitate to say "it never matters".
I hope Eric can correct me if I relayed any inaccuracies related to the fabrication stuff.
Take care,
-Bryan
I don't shoot any unmodified bullets at long range but have noticed no short range accuracy difference between thin and thick jacket 105 VLDs. I have proven, to my satisfaction, that uniformed and pointed bullets (including 105 VLD) produce less vertical dispersion at 600-1000 yards.
I read an article years ago in a hunting magazine where they ran a series of tests to prove or disprove the effects of damaged bullet tips on bullet impact at 100 yards. They made several batches of the same bullet and reloaded them all the same except the tips. The control batch was straight out of the box but the other batches had various modifications made to the tips. Some bent with a hammer, some cut off with a hack saw straight and others at various angles. Looking at the pictures I just knew it was going to be a desaster. They shot them all in a controlled underground range and the modifications to the bullets made no differance on impact or accuracy at 100 yards. Then they loaded a batch with the bullets loaded backwards and again, no differance in impact or accuracy. I'm sure if they did the same test at 600+ yards it would make a differance, but from that day forward, I no longer cared about slight differences in bullet tips.
To think I was good to go with all the 30-06 lead tipped hunting rounds I tossed out as a youngster because they were slightly ill-regular.
Having Bryan and others on this fourm to reply to us is incredibly awesome.
To think I was good to go with all the 30-06 lead tipped hunting rounds I tossed out as a youngster because they were slightly ill-regular.
Having Bryan and others on this fourm to reply to us is incredibly awesome.
Bryan, Thank you, I plan to use the 105 H this year at!K unless something happen to change my mind. They seem to shoot very small and better than any of the 105 - 108 bullets i tried. I will use them against the 115 DTAC that i used last year, so far they shoot very small. I did have a tail wind issue i never noticed before....... jim
This same subject was posted on bencrestcentral.com. Below is the response copied from that forum thread.
Eric,
We stand behind our quality and if you have bullets that you believe are not good we will exchange them at no cost to you. The first step is to contact Teresa Collins who handles returns. She can be reached directly at 714-447-5484 or at teresa.collins@bergerbullets.com. She will have some questions and will get the return process started.
Now setting that aside for a moment, the critical aspect of any meplat is the dimension from outside edge to outside edge. The flatness of the ogive does not influence drag. If the tips are consistently the same diameter but the ends of the bullets are at an angle there is no negative effect to drag and precision. This is due to the fact that the compressed air in front of a bullet traveling at supersonic speed and spinning at 250,000 (or so) RPM does not know that the tip is not flat.
I'll offer that you should shoot some to see how they perform. If they don't shoot for you then contact Teresa for an exchange. We will even replace the bullets you shot in your test. I know that you relayed that you are looking for small meplat Target bullets which we don't make anymore but you can choose form the VLD Hunting bullet which is exactly the same with a slightly thinner jacket or we can send you the new 105 gr Hybrid Target bullet which has a higher BC than the original VLD bullet. These are shooting very well in many rifles.
For those reading this thread who are confused about the meplat diameter change that is mentioned you can go to our blog to read an article about this change.
http://02b0516.netsolhost.com/blog1/...target-bullet/
Regards,
Eric Stecker
Berger Bullets
I'll add that when forming bullets we work to keep the tip as flat as possible but our primary concern is the OD of the surface area of the tip. If this area is consistent but the tips have slight angles we will allow these bullets to ship as we know they do not negatively influence performance. The slant on a tip that has consistent OD is purely a cosmetic issue.
Regards,
Eric
Eric,
We stand behind our quality and if you have bullets that you believe are not good we will exchange them at no cost to you. The first step is to contact Teresa Collins who handles returns. She can be reached directly at 714-447-5484 or at teresa.collins@bergerbullets.com. She will have some questions and will get the return process started.
Now setting that aside for a moment, the critical aspect of any meplat is the dimension from outside edge to outside edge. The flatness of the ogive does not influence drag. If the tips are consistently the same diameter but the ends of the bullets are at an angle there is no negative effect to drag and precision. This is due to the fact that the compressed air in front of a bullet traveling at supersonic speed and spinning at 250,000 (or so) RPM does not know that the tip is not flat.
I'll offer that you should shoot some to see how they perform. If they don't shoot for you then contact Teresa for an exchange. We will even replace the bullets you shot in your test. I know that you relayed that you are looking for small meplat Target bullets which we don't make anymore but you can choose form the VLD Hunting bullet which is exactly the same with a slightly thinner jacket or we can send you the new 105 gr Hybrid Target bullet which has a higher BC than the original VLD bullet. These are shooting very well in many rifles.
For those reading this thread who are confused about the meplat diameter change that is mentioned you can go to our blog to read an article about this change.
http://02b0516.netsolhost.com/blog1/...target-bullet/
Regards,
Eric Stecker
Berger Bullets
I'll add that when forming bullets we work to keep the tip as flat as possible but our primary concern is the OD of the surface area of the tip. If this area is consistent but the tips have slight angles we will allow these bullets to ship as we know they do not negatively influence performance. The slant on a tip that has consistent OD is purely a cosmetic issue.
Regards,
Eric
[br]ehparis said:
Uh, that was Eric Stecker and Bryan Litz, both of Berger Bullets. We are fortunate to have their responses on this forum. Not everyone has an account on both sites.
bozo699
Gold $$ Contributor
I agree with you Derek! not nice at all!pmarauder said:
Erik and Bryan,
Thank you very much for that first hand from the horses mouth so to speak information! I have fretted over uneven meplats for years and for no apparent reason. Both your posts were very informative, Eric your offering to replace bullets if the customer is not happy with them just because of the meplat being uneven and your positive it doesn't matter is true customer service, I am very glad you are running the company the same as Walt always did, it is going to sell more bullets for you I am sure of it, I have been shooting your new 105H at 1K with very good results, I was going to trim the meplats but after reading your post I am only going to point them to test if my vertical shrinks. Thank's again for a great product and even better customer service, I wish you and your company a very prosperous year.
Wayne.
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