Of the current lineup of Bergers, what 90g class bullet do you recommend? Many thanks, Robert
I can't answer that I'm afraid - I've not used this weight in a long, long time, rather 105-108gn models. (That's in 1 in 8 twist barrels of course.)
I've just started looking at what you can do with a factory 243 Win with 10- twist (Howa 1500 Varmint 24-inch actually) and searching Bryan Litz's bullet drawings in B
allistic Performance of Rifle Bullets / measuring OALs of others he doesn't include. There are not that many bullets of this weight that stabilise in 10-twist. The plain old Berger 90gn Target BT is one of the few you can use in 'normal' conditions. At 1.023" OAL, 3150 fps MV it has 1.47 Sg under 'standard conditions' (sea level, 29.92 inches Hg, 59-deg F) which although now classed as sub-optimal stabilisation is more than good enough for me. (1.5 Sg = the 21st century desired figure.)
The Berger 87gn Hunting VLD was originally introduced as the highest BC / longest shape that Bryan Litz could design for Berger that would perform in the common 243 Win 10 twist and so performed the dual role of hunting and match. Its 1.042-inch nominal OAL and slightly lower weight reduce the Sg value to 1.35 in standard conditions at 3,200 fps. In the days when >1.4 was regarded as optimal stabilisation that was apparently seen as close enough, but no more, no more. In practice, I'm pretty relaxed at 1.35, but have still to see how it shoots in the Howa.
Bryan L gives their average G7 BCs as 0.217 for the 87 VLD and 0.210 for the 90 BT although they'll be reduced a little in standard conditions. Of course if you shoot up in the clouds in warm weather, Sg values improve because of the thinner air. At 3,000 ft ASL and 80-deg F, the 87's Sg value rises to a comfortable 1.56 and optimal stabilisation.
The 88gn FB HBC Varmint is comfortably stable in 10", but has a lower BC thanks to the absence of streamlined tail - 0.191. A bit of tip-pointing would no doubt raise that a useful amount. This bullet used to see some use in 600 yard benchrest in the 6BR and Dasher and is obviously still very capable at this distance and their MVs.
