Compare terminal performance of the Berger Hunting VLD vs. Accubond please.

[Glenn Powell]

I shot 5 north Texas white tails last year with a 6.5-284 with the 130 accubonds, 5 shots 5 dead deer. None were over 300 yards away, two lung, two neck, one head shot. None went more than 30 yards, and terminal performance was top notch with the lung shots. My opinion for long range bullets is the operating velocity for the bullet. Bullets are designed to work in a certain velocity window, too fast and they don't work as designed, too slow and you have the same issue. With the range of velocities different cartridges operate in bullets have to be designed to work in such a wide window. The only bullet designed for the operating velocities to specific caliber I know of are the flat point. 30 Cal's for the 30-30. Accubonds are a very heavily constructed bullet, the lower the velocity at impact the less they will open, keep that in mind when going for those longish shots. Just my two cents, take it or leave it. Good hunting, good luck, and good good times.

 

[bozo699]

I shot 5 north Texas white tails last year with a 6.5-284 with the 130 accubonds, 5 shots 5 dead deer. None were over 300 yards away, two lung, two neck, one head shot. None went more than 30 yards, and terminal performance was top notch with the lung shots. My opinion for long range bullets is the operating velocity for the bullet. Bullets are designed to work in a certain velocity window, too fast and they don't work as designed, too slow and you have the same issue. With the range of velocities different cartridges operate in bullets have to be designed to work in such a wide window. The only bullet designed for the operating velocities to specific caliber I know of are the flat point. 30 Cal's for the 30-30. Accubonds are a very heavily constructed bullet, the lower the velocity at impact the less they will open, keep that in mind when going for those longish shots. Just my two cents, take it or leave it. Good hunting, good luck, and good good times.

Very well put!
Wayne.

 

[BigDMT]

Steve,
You can have good and bad luck with any bullet...
I shot a deer three years ago with my muzzle loader 50 cal, 405 grains of soft white lead,........................................7 times before it expired, it was thanksgiving afternoon or after the 6the one I would have roped him and hauled him to the vet and had him sewed back up, I was starting to feel sorry for him and very angry at myself and my rifle,....1st 5 in the traditional location but a little high and it missed the vitals, all 5 were clover leafed and some of the off side shoulder was broke yet he didn't go down until number 5 the one to the neck when I caught up to him the last time,...didn't want to miss with a head shot and break his nice horns, waited 25 minutes in the worse snow storm ever finally got impatient and took the head shot, about 30 yards away that was # 7 and it did the trick but good lord I have used that same bullet for probably 15 years with 100% success up til that point,..

Wayne, your story does not depict an example of bullet failure. It rather illustrates the importance of proper shot placement. I've had to finish a handful of animals off after neck shots. If you don't hit that spine, the neck shot is no good at all IMO. And I've had animals run from shots at vital zones that hit their mark a little higher than I planned then had to finish them off. Lost a bull elk during archery from an arrow that hit just above the vitals as well. Although that buck definitely had a vicious will to live, I don't think it was a problem with your bullets.

Branden,...isn't it?
I know it was a shot placement problem, although I felt they should have done a little better then they did, I am a better shot then that also, found out the site had failed and I was shooting high on every shot but the neck shot, that was kind of my whole point good bullets can fail while others can get the job done but if you don't do your part it doesn't really matter what your using, but thank's for re clarifying for me
Wayne.

Oh, I see what you are saying. Indeed a 180gr accubond or a 190 to210gr Berger, from a 300 WM probably would have put him down with that shot placement on the first round. But congrats on staying with the buck and harvesting him.

 

[zcrackshot]

I took a fun part time job a few weeks back doing some load work up for my gunsmith. He shoots Bergers religiously but when the owner of his business got back from Africa he didn't have many nice things to say about VLD's. The game over there traditionally has thicker hide and muscular tissue and the VLD's didn't cut it. They came apart a bit early and really made a mess out of some very expensive hides. I quickly worked up a few loads with Accubonds and TTSX's for his upcoming trip to Alaska with Colorado Buck who endorses his rifles. The round used was a 300 Tejas which is a 300 RUM improved to deliver more velocity than a 30-378 Wby. The 180 Accubond fully penetrated a large grizzly with a double lung shot but the animal required 3 additional shots to finish him even after a 45 minute wait to let him bleed out. A very large bull moose took two Accubonds in the shoulders and managed to run over 100 yards. The bullets were both recovered from the moose and only one was found in the grizzly. The velocity may have been too much at the semi close range (200 yards) at which the bullets impacted as there was not much bullet left. I personally shoot 210 gr VLD's just over 3300 fps out of my Tejas and I seriously doubt that either animal could have walked away from a single well placed shot. My wife shoots 140 VLD's in a Swede and has killed her last two deer and a cow elk with neck shots on each. None took a single step from where they stood, all shots within 300 yards. Last year I killed a bull elk at 660 yards with a single shoulder shot with a 168 VLD from my Tejas and a cow elk with my 6.5-284 using a 140 VLD (lung shot, walked 10 steps and fell). I have good faith in all of the premium hunting bullets excepting the solids no matter who manufactures them. I hope this helps and good luck with whichever bullet you choose.
Zac M.

 

[howl 1 up]

ive been working with a 300 ultra mag 225 bthp hornady 2900fps with excellent accuracy out to nine hundred yards , as far as i can shoot on farm. got the bright ideal i would try expansion ,filled a trash can with verticaly stacked magazines hard backed cabelas books then filled with water let set for couple of days and the paper swelled the sides of can were bulging,recovered rounds went 11inches average hardly any expansion, just one hole.average weight of recoverd bullets 188 gr,now let me express these books were so tightly swelled i could not get them out ,took chainsaw to trash can lol, im afraid these would pencil through on my up coming elk hunt, ordered 230 bergers to try this week,these 225s hit extremely hard shooting through old chevy rims at nine hundred.my to cents on white trash ballistics

 

[2506]

If you have a perfect broadside shot or frontal shot then the VLD will work but if you have to take a raking shot it might not. So give me the Accubond. I use the 130 Accubond in my 264 Win mag and it is an excellent bullet. It flies like the ballistic tip and starts to open up like the ballistic tip on impact but holds together like the Partition and keeps on trucking. Best of both worlds in my book. I have lost count on how many deer I have killed with the 130 AB, somewhere between 10 and 15. I have only recovered one bullet. I mostly take shoulder shots and they have exited with a quarter size hole and taken every thing out between entering and exiting. I did recover one bullet from a buck that was shot at 111 yards. The bullet exited my 27 3/4" barrel at an average of 3350 fps and was placed on the front edge of the left shoulder of the buck as it slightly quartered toward me. He fell back on his butt and fell over dead. When cutting up the meat I found the bullet against the ball socket of the right ham. It was a text book expansion that weighed 87 grs. For a bullet to still be going at least 3100 fps on impact and smash a scapula and go through some 4 1/2 feet of deer wiping out everything along the way and holding together and retaining two thirds of it's weight it has to be a GREAT BULLET. Every deer I have shot with the 130 AB has been dead on impact and fell within 5 feet. The first one I killed was in a green soybean field 322 yards away. It came trotting into the field with is nose to the ground trailing a hot doe. I had to shoot quickly as he stopped for a moment. When the gun came down out of recoil the field was empty. He dropped so quickly I like to have never found him in that sea of green. I knew I killed him because I heard the bullet POP almost at the report of the rifle. The 264 Win mag sure gets a bullet to target quickly. I have only shot one deer with a VLD. It was a 155 gr 30 cal. from my 30X47 at a muzzle velocity of 2650 fps. It was standing broadside at the same crossing of a logging road 111 yards away where I shot the buck that I recovered the 130AB from. This was a doe and the bullet struck dead center in the right scapula. The doe just squatted a little and took of running full tilt into the thick cut over in front of her. I went to the spot that she was standing when shot. For about 10 yards on the off side there was a line of blood spray and lung tissue strewn down the road. There was not a single drop of blood that I could find from that point in the direction the deer ran. The cut over is so thick I had to get down in my hands and knees and crawl up a trail that the deer ran up. I found the deer dead right at 50 yards up that trail. The reason that there was no blood trail was that there was nothing left to pump out any blood. The exit hole in the hide was large enough to drop a baseball into. The heart and lungs were liquified. On skinning the deer the front shoulders were totally destroyed. They were not even fit to feed to the dogs. I can not understand how that deer ran 50 yards but it did. I have since gone back to the 125 gr Nosler ballistic tip for all my 30 cal. weapons for deer that keep the bullet below 3000 fps muzzle velocity. The 30 cal. 125gr Ballistic Tip is a GREAT kill a deer in it's tracks bullet when impact velocity is kept under 3000 fps. Hope this adds to the picture of these bullets performance.

 

[BigDMT]

If you have a perfect broadside shot or frontal shot then the VLD will work but if you have to take a raking shot it might not. So give me the Accubond.

That's the most ridiculous statement about a bullet I've ever heard. You obviously have ZERO experience with Berger VLD's for hunting.

The Accubonds are great bullets too, nothing bad to say about them, but to say that stuff about Berger VLD's is just plain ignorance from lack of experience using them in the field.

 

[Mr. Ten-X]

I deer hunted for many years with a Ruger in 6.5 x 55, using 125 grain Nosler Partitions. Most every one fell dead right there from a broadside or neck shot. My nephew and I are now using a pair of custom 6.5 x 284's with 140 Accubonds. Both rifles are 1/4 minute guns and well suited to the long shots in Northern Missouri.

I'm thinking of trying the Berger Hunting VLD's but am curious about their terminal performance on deer, specifically with neck and broadside shots. I don't take high shoulder shots. The Accubonds are very accurate and give excellent, controlled expansion, results.

How are the Hunting VLD's working out for you?

First of all, if you are having success with a bullet in a ballistically similar cartridge, why reinvent the wheel? However, if you are bent on switching, why not use a bullet with "real" hunting roots?

Not a proponent of shooting hollow point bullets at medium to large game animals, particularly with a long/weak nose that promotes even more abrupt, unreliable expansion/penetration than the same match hollow points that the "big" bullet manufacturers advise against using. A bullet with a tapered or skived jacket for "true" controlled expansion, a means of locking the core in place, a loooong history of terminal performance on game and a combination of these attributes will always be the smart play.

Not to preach, but there is a lot of the "neck" that can be hit and not kill. It is a low-percentage shot that should be avoided.

 

[BigDMT]

Not to preach, but there is a lot of the "neck" that can be hit and not kill. It is a low-percentage shot that should be avoided.

I totally agree with that little piece of advice for shot placement. I never shoot for the neck because I've seen a couple animals lost with neck shot attempts.

One was a bull elk that my Father's buddy shot in the neck at 25 yards with a 225 gr Nosler Partition from a 338 Win mag. Ran away like nothing happened because he somehow missed the spine and arteries. Ended up running into the same bull again the next day and killing him. We actually had no idea it was the same bull until we got up to him and smelled something bad and investigated. It was the neck wound from the morning before in the beginning stages of rot from bad infection. Had we not been so lucky to see him again, who knows how long he would have lived. Probably would have died a painful death from infection eventually I'm sure.

The other was a mulie buck my Father shot in the neck. Hit him with a 180gr Ballistic Tip from a 300 Win mag and when he got about 100 yards from his trophy, it jumped up and ran over the ridge dripping blood everywhere. Blood eventually disappeared and he lost the trail. Never did find that buck.

Now I will admit, I've killed a bull elk and 2 mule deer bucks with neck shots myself, but the bull already had a 180gr Partition from my 300 Win Mag in the shoulder and was about to drop into a deep ravine. It was the only shot I had and it worked perfectly. Dropped him dead in his tracks.
The mule deer bucks were accidental shoot and pray 200 yard shots off hand. One was killed when I was 13 years old, the other when I was 14. That's how I used to shoot when I was a youngin' if I didn't have a good rest. I shoot a little more ethically now of course. Pure luck I harvested both of those bucks with those shots. But I've never once complained when good luck comes my way and never will

 

[bozo699]

I deer hunted for many years with a Ruger in 6.5 x 55, using 125 grain Nosler Partitions. Most every one fell dead right there from a broadside or neck shot. My nephew and I are now using a pair of custom 6.5 x 284's with 140 Accubonds. Both rifles are 1/4 minute guns and well suited to the long shots in Northern Missouri.

I'm thinking of trying the Berger Hunting VLD's but am curious about their terminal performance on deer, specifically with neck and broadside shots. I don't take high shoulder shots. The Accubonds are very accurate and give excellent, controlled expansion, results.

How are the Hunting VLD's working out for you?

First of all, if you are having success with a bullet in a ballistically similar cartridge, why reinvent the wheel? However, if you are bent on switching, why not use a bullet with "real" hunting roots?

Not a proponent of shooting hollow point bullets at medium to large game animals, particularly with a long/weak nose that promotes even more abrupt, unreliable expansion/penetration than the same match hollow points that the "big" bullet manufacturers advise against using. A bullet with a tapered or skived jacket for "true" controlled expansion, a means of locking the core in place, a loooong history of terminal performance on game and a combination of these attributes will always be the smart play.

Not to preach, but there is a lot of the "neck" that can be hit and not kill. It is a low-percentage shot that should be avoided.

Spot on advice there!
Wayne.