Pointing Berger 180 hybrid or Buying Sierra 183

[B Nettesheim]

For a strait 284 used in f-class, is my time best spent pointing 180 Bergers or buying the 183 Sierras which are already pointed?

 

[Terry]

Shooting the one your guns shoots best.

I have 180 BHB for sale on this site.

 

[ShootDots]

For a strait 284 used in f-class, is my time best spent pointing 180 Bergers or buying the 183 Sierras which are already pointed?

If they BOTH shoot with the same degree of accuracy, opt for the Sierras. If the Bergers shoot better, then you have to decide if bullet sorting / pointing is worth your time. Sorting SHOULD be worth your time>>>pointing is a personal preference.. But you don't have to do either IF the Sierras shoot just as well.

 

[B Nettesheim]

If both are pointed has anyone seen advantage of one or the other??

 

[Terry]

You are going to hear people say "shoot them" over and over again.
Each rifle and barrel are different. Let your tell you what to do.

Do you need some of each to test?

 

[ShootDots]

There is something more important you should be thinking about besides pointing. Does your reamer that has cut your chamber have enough freebore built into it to handle the 183's? The bearing surface of the 183's is quite a bit longer than the Hybrids.

 

[1shot]

As near as I can measure the 183 SMK has .032 more bearing surface than the 180 Hybrid.
I hope this helps,

Lloyd

 

[1shot]

I recently ran a test with four bullets to track their performance at 1K. I kept the same powder charge on three of the bullets and upped on the forth charge to give an approximate equal remaining velocity at target due to its lighter weight.
The cartridge tested was a 284 Shehane using 6.5x284 Lapua brass and a 1-9 twist Brux barrel 32" long.
The powder was H-4350 lit by CCI BR-2 primers. All bullets were loaded "as is" from the box with no sorting or pointing, and all were loaded .015" off the lands.
I have only listed the amount of vertical dispersion of a 5 shot group and made no adjustments for wind during this test.
I have listed the amount of "come-ups" from my known 100yd. -0- to center up at 1K.

180 Berger Hybrid 5.2" vertical 27.50 moa up
183 SMK 2.6" vertical 25.75 moa up
180 SMK 4.9" vertical 27.50 moa up
162 Hornady Match 12.50" vertical 26 moa up

I hope this helps,

Lloyd

 

[ShootDots]

I recently ran a test with four bullets to track their performance at 1K. I kept the same powder charge on three of the bullets and upped on the forth charge to give an approximate equal remaining velocity at target due to its lighter weight.
The cartridge tested was a 284 Shehane using 6.5x284 Lapua brass and a 1-9 twist Brux barrel 32" long.
The powder was H-4350 lit by CCI BR-2 primers. All bullets were loaded "as is" from the box with no sorting or pointing, and all were loaded .015" off the lands.
I have only listed the amount of vertical dispersion of a 5 shot group and made no adjustments for wind during this test.
I have listed the amount of "come-ups" from my known 100yd. -0- to center up at 1K.

180 Berger Hybrid 5.2" vertical 27.50 moa up
183 SMK 2.6" vertical 25.75 moa up
180 SMK 4.9" vertical 27.50 moa up
162 Hornady Match 12.50" vertical 26 moa up

I hope this helps,

Lloyd

Good job Lloyd! I like it! It is pretty telling of the B.C. advantage of the 183 SMK!

 

[1shot]

Thanks Ben,
I recently finished trimming and re-pointing some of the 183's to see if there is a significant improvement over out of the box. If I had a camera with a macro lens I could post some pictures of the difference. Quite noticeable actually!

Lloyd

 

[1shot]

Good job Lloyd! I like it! It is pretty telling of the B.C. advantage of the 183 SMK!

Ben,
I'm no spokesperson for Sierra, but those bullets are like moving up a velocity node and maintaining the accuracy!
Now if I could just hold still..


Lloyd

 

[Cowtownup]

That is music to my ears.... Thanks Lloyd...

 

[ShootDots]

Ben,
I'm no spokesperson for Sierra, but those bullets are like moving up a velocity node and maintaining the accuracy!
Now if I could just hold still..


Lloyd

Sierra has the wherewithal to develop, test and market excellent bullets. They CAN, when they want to, turn out some of the best designed and manufactured bullets anywhere! Now that Lapua has control of Berger, along with their financial help, should be working on innovative bullets as we speak. We the consumer can only benefit from the competition that I believe will be generated shortly!

 

[1shot]

You are most welcome cowtownup,
I agree with everything you said Ben.
All I know is when shaky ol' me can hold 2.6" of vertical at 1K with a borrowed load with NO fine tuning, it's a happy day here at the shop!
BTW, the same load shot a .248 for 5 shots at 100 yds. the following week.
MOA was virtually unchanged between 100-1,000 yds.
A fluke, maybe, but the other bullets didn't fair that well. They sure weren't bad, and I'd take them to a club match but one of them had to be the winner!


Lloyd

 

[Ned Ludd]

If I understand your test correctly, the SMKs were pointed from the factory, whereas the Bergers were not. That's likely to be a BC difference of at least 2-4% from pointing alone, possibly more. It would be interesting to carry out the same test with loads that were individually optimized for each bullet (i.e. not necessarily loaded to the same charge weight and seating depth), and with both bullets pointed.

As noted above, one potential issue with bullets pointed from the factory is whether they were sorted in any way prior to pointing. Although the quality of the points may certainly differ from Lot-to-Lot or between different types/calibers of bullets, if the bullets are not at least sorted by OAL prior to pointing, the pointing process will not be carried out evenly on bullets of different length. This can be seen on the pointed 90 SMKs (.224). It is unclear to me exactly how much of an impact it has on performance, but I personally prefer to sort and point my own for consistency.

 

[dkhunt14]

If I understand your test correctly, the SMKs were pointed from the factory, whereas the Bergers were not. That's likely to be a BC difference of at least 2-4% from pointing alone, possibly more. It would be interesting to carry out the same test with loads that were individually optimized for each bullet (i.e. not necessarily loaded to the same charge weight and seating depth), and with both bullets pointed.

As noted above, one potential issue with bullets pointed from the factory is whether they were sorted in any way prior to pointing. Although the quality of the points may certainly differ from Lot-to-Lot or between different types/calibers of bullets, if the bullets are not at least sorted by OAL prior to pointing, the pointing process will not be carried out evenly on bullets of different length. This can be seen on the pointed 90 SMKs (.224). It is unclear to me exactly how much of an impact it has on performance, but I personally prefer to sort and point my own for consistency.

I was told the pointing is done with the bullet die. Would that not make them closer? Matt

 

[1shot]

The test was done to demonstrate out of the box performance. A lot of shooters just want to load and go to the range without all the fine tuning. Of course the test wasn't equal, but neither were the bullets, as I tried to make that the only variable. From the conclusions drawn from the test, a shooter can determine what they want to do to maximize their gains and maybe pass that information along to other shooters as I have here.
I hope this helps,

Lloyd

 

[KWeigel]

I recently ran a test with four bullets to track their performance at 1K. I kept the same powder charge on three of the bullets and upped on the forth charge to give an approximate equal remaining velocity at target due to its lighter weight.
The cartridge tested was a 284 Shehane using 6.5x284 Lapua brass and a 1-9 twist Brux barrel 32" long.
The powder was H-4350 lit by CCI BR-2 primers. All bullets were loaded "as is" from the box with no sorting or pointing, and all were loaded .015" off the lands.
I have only listed the amount of vertical dispersion of a 5 shot group and made no adjustments for wind during this test.
I have listed the amount of "come-ups" from my known 100yd. -0- to center up at 1K.

180 Berger Hybrid 5.2" vertical 27.50 moa up
183 SMK 2.6" vertical 25.75 moa up
180 SMK 4.9" vertical 27.50 moa up
162 Hornady Match 12.50" vertical 26 moa up

I hope this helps,

Lloyd

What freebore?

 

[1shot]

.220

 

[Ned Ludd]

I was told the pointing is done with the bullet die. Would that not make them closer? Matt

If that's how they do it, you'd think so. I can only speak to the ones I've seen in person up close, which were the 80 and 90 SMKs. Point heights were all over the map, but those were fairly early batches of "pointed in the box" bullets. I only have second hand reports from others using them since that time, but others have also noticed issues with point uniformity relative to bullets they had pointed themselves. Sierra may have substantially improved the process more recently.