Berger 245 EOL in F-Class

[davidjoe]

Finally the Berger 245 EOL .30 caliber bullet is in stock. Along with the heavy A-Tips, the existence of this bullet was the reason I had in mind for chambering 300 Win Mag barrels for F-Class, and that was literally years ago.

Until this last week, this bullet was merely a catalog item as far as my awareness of US availability was concerned.

But by this time tomorrow, it will have shot 1,000 yards in a registered match. Moreover, aside from a single round fired into the backyard ground to analyze brass pressure, that match will be my first use of it.

This is patterned along the lines of the seating depth flexible 195 EOL, which has been my go to bullet, - unsettled a bit by a couple of changed circumstances. For the second half of the 195’s life, it has been extremely hard to locate. Also, the SAUM and anything bigger, can blow them up in string fire shooting.

The 245 has been, until now, wholly unavailable, and honestly I was hopeful that A-Tips, 250’s and 230’s, would soften that fact. It’s been rough going with them. The 250’s must be managed carefully to survive string fire in Texas. Even when 20 rounds survive, I’m not at the scores of my smaller calibers. The 230’s, while seemingly tougher skinned by reason of a shorter body and less heat generation, had me wondering with their scores, if the cause of lower aggregates rested solely with me as the shooter.

It will soon be clearer to me how viable a Win Mag is in F-Class, because this will be the first time I have shot a bullet that I know from experience with its 195 progenitor, works very well.

I tipped these 245’s with Whidden die and have a reasonable and probably conservative load of 70.0 grains of H-1000 in virgin Lapua brass. I very lightly dusted them with HBN powder, because my barrels are seasoned with it and I don’t want to change that variable while evaluating them.

This is not a high BC bullet by comparison to the A-Tips, even the 230 A-Tip. Further to that, I’m loading them down a smidge below what I’d normally shoot the 250’s at. The test round was 71.0 grains and I felt the primer was bit flatter than ideal, so I dropped a grain.

Results to follow. Because I am evaluating these, I plan to shoot a .284 with 195’s some, as well, which just shot extremely well at the last 600.

I’m looking to discern whether the Win Mag with like bullets, holds inside the .284 in real world match conditions. It’s now been almost two generations ago, but the answer long ago when rifles were held, was that the Win Mag did not out perform the .284, and everyone switched. However, they were holding those guns such that recoil was a bigger factor, and none of the bullets we have now existed then.

 

[Doug Beach]

Rifles are still held. It’s still the proper option.

 

[davidjoe]

First impression of these is that they can do the job. All we can ask of the gear is to let the point drops be our own fault as shooters. And this target is a perfect example of that. Clearly shot three unnerved me with the ease of that fat a left 9, and after that, all risk was borne by the upwind side of the target, and there is knot of 9’s that accumulated over the match on the right side. Meanwhile the left hemisphere of the 10 is basically untouched.

It may be hard to understand why I’m very encouraged by this target, but I am. Learning the bullets’s drift and centering up better to use rhe whole 10 ring is doable. This target lagged the other 300 in points, which was a lucky looking clockeface target with a different gun, snagging 10’s, but this one showed real potential for good vertical of all but a couple shots and I do like that.

The .284 with 195’s shot right between the two 300 targets scorewise. I had a 193, 194 and 195. This 193 target with refined wind calls could have been 5 points higher.

The come ups exceeded my expectation but the retained velocity for the mild pressure utilized exceeded the .284’s retained velocity by probably 75 FPS. I suspect another 50 FPS on target with likely increased, not decreased precision. Is possible. It’s probably the case that Retumbo is a better choice and will both increase velocity and decrease peak pressure.

Two things to note, the vibrations and disruption of a 300 Win Mag is not producing worse vertical at 1,000 than a .284, both with Begrer heavies, and secondly, I needed a dozen sighters the first match and this neither blew up a bullet nor opened rhe group in any obvious way.

These bullets are likely to allow string fire aggregates matching the best of anything I’ve used, when I learn them and nail the load. In the pair fire portion which is 2 x 15 shots, it’s possible the 250’s are more forgiving. I had two or three very close 9’s today that I’m fairly sure would have been 10’s, and a liner 8 that would have been a 9, or possibly a liner 10.