Berger 155.5 gr Fullbore jump tolerence

[swadiver]

I have a Savage Criterion barreled .308 i am playing around with. the Criterion has about a .090" throat. i decided to try some Berger 155.5 gr Fullbores. i did not realize how short the bearing surface is with that bullet. i have about .136" of bearing surface in the neck and it is still jumping like .053".

is this bullet that much jump tolerant? i would prefer to seat them a bit deeper in the neck but the jump would be even greater of course. any input on this bullet appreciated.

BTW, i plan to use IMR 8208 XBR with this bullet

 

[dttheliman]

My TRG 22 loves them at 0.070 off the lans on top of AR Comp 43.3 (discovered this during the great Varget famine a few years back) Lapua brass and any primer. I get them around 2850fps out of a 24" barrel with a ultra 9 on it

 

[barefooter56]

I have a Savage Criterion barreled .308 i am playing around with. the Criterion has about a .090" throat. i decided to try some Berger 155.5 gr Fullbores. i did not realize how short the bearing surface is with that bullet. i have about .136" of bearing surface in the neck and it is still jumping like .053".

is this bullet that much jump tolerant? i would prefer to seat them a bit deeper in the neck but the jump would be even greater of course. any input on this bullet appreciated.

BTW, i plan to use IMR 8208 XBR with this bullet

The Berger 155.5 FULLBORE bullet is a tangent ogive design bullet. So it is very tolerant of jump. You have less than 1/2 caliber of bullet bearing length in the case neck so you may want to continue your bullet seating depth testing by seating the bullet deeper into the cartridge case neck in .002-.003 increments to see if you can find another bullet seating depth accuracy node. Any bullet seating depth testing should be done using the lowest powder charge listed for the bullet/powder/cartridge you are testing. If you have any questions please feel free to contact us here. Or at techsupport@bergerbullets.com
Thanks for using our bullets!
Take care,

 

[gme]

it's an easy bullet to get to shoot, my palma gun likes them soft seated best

 

[spclark]

it's an easy bullet to get to shoot, my palma gun likes them soft seated best

Whereas mine seem to like them anywhere from 0.020” up to 0.060” off, the latter as far as I’ve ever tried ‘em, minimum neck tension.

And with IMR 8208XBR I used 45.0 grains with ‘em for several years (Lapua Palma cases, Wolf/Tula 223M, CCI BR4 or Rem 7-1/2 primers for 3,025 fps SD<8) until I got turned onto something a bit better...

 

[swadiver]

Whereas mine seem to like them anywhere from 0.020” up to 0.060” off, the latter as far as I’ve ever tried ‘em, minimum neck tension.

And with IMR 8208XBR I used 45.0 grains with ‘em for several years (Lapua Palma cases, Wolf/Tula 223M, CCI BR4 or Rem 7-1/2 primers for 3,025 fps SD<8) until I got turned onto something a bit better...

and that something a bit better?

 

[swadiver]

The Berger 155.5 FULLBORE bullet is a tangent ogive design bullet. So it is very tolerant of jump. You have less than 1/2 caliber of bullet bearing length in the case neck so you may want to continue your bullet seating depth testing by seating the bullet deeper into the cartridge case neck in .002-.003 increments to see if you can find another bullet seating depth accuracy node. Any bullet seating depth testing should be done using the lowest powder charge listed for the bullet/powder/cartridge you are testing. If you have any questions please feel free to contact us here. Or at techsupport@bergerbullets.com
Thanks for using our bullets!
Take care,

i am going to seat them deeper, minimum 1/2 a caliber inside. thanks

 

[memilanuk]

I got in on the beta test of those years ago... contacted Jerry Tierney (he'd been the alpha tester) and he said jump 'em 50 thou. The Obermeyer chambers we were using at the time had approx. 85 thou free bore. I said 'Okay...' and jumped them. They shot like a laser. The really freaky part was a round with a 155.5BT jumping 45-50 thou was still longer OAL than one with a 155VLD jammed 10 thou... that's how much different the design was compared to those that came before.

There were times that with that 45-50 thou jump I only had 90-110 thou bearing surface in the neck, with 2 thou neck tension. For slowfire, single-load... didn't matter. Its not like you're abusing them (or shouldn't be, if you are) during the trip from the bench to the chamber. Yeah, in an ideal world the thumb rule is a minimum of one half caliber worth of bearing surface in the neck. That's great... but when the bullet in question doesn't even have a full caliber worth of bearing surface... you gotta roll with it a little bit

 

[Steve Donlon]

This is an old forum but I have a serengeti chamber on my 06 and loaded these at 3.350" at .120 off. I was 3.470 touching and at 3.340 I have all of the bearing surface in the neck. It seemed like I needed a little more bearing surface sticking out so I moved them out to 3.350" I called Berger to ask how much bearing surface I really need sticking out of the brass. He really didn't have an answer. Just that I could not have a gap. He also said the M1 Grand teams load this bullet at 3.340" .And that is where I started but like I said that was right at the end of the bearing surface. I guess I could have trimmed the neck back a little but I tried them at 3.350" anyway. So they looked like this was the best place to start. I went out and tried them at 500 yards first. They shot a 1 1/2" 3 shot group once I got them zeroed in. they never shot more than 2 1/2" sighing them in and shot a 4" group at 800 yards. At 1000 it was a different story for me. The wind had come up by then and I was out of bullets. I was glad at that point they shot good at 500 yards with no load development. So my point is, if you try these bullets, start with all the bearing surface you can in the neck first because they will jump in my rifle anyway. They only have .229" of bearing surface to start with. I only had twenty bullets to start with because I had no idea if these would even work. It's been gusting to 40 knots up here for 2 weeks now but I'll find out how they do at 1000 next week maybe if the wind stops.