Berger Long Range Hybrid Target for hunting

[Shooter264]

I’ve personally killed 16-17 big game animals with the 25 cal 135 LRHT and my buddy has killed probably another dozen with his 25 saum I put together for him. All pretty much bang flop. Distances from 100 yards to 900 and game consisted of Antelope, Deer, sheep, mountain goat, elk, bear, and wolves . They work very well in the 25 cal and I can’t imagine the 6.5 144’s would be much different. We hunt with them out of the box, don’t trim the meplat. If anything, just ensure the cavity is clear with a wire bit.

 

[Kimber7man]

Can I resurrect this thread? I was gifted a bucket of 6mm 105gr VLD Target bullets, about 990ct. I'm more of a hunter, not so much a shooter. I was going to try and trade these for some hunting bullets, or maybe sell them and then purchase hunting bullets. After reading this thread, I'm wondering would these bullets be suitable for deer out of my .243 Win?

I would not use the VLD target bullets myself. Hybrid targets, yes.

 

[Megastink]

I would not use the VLD target bullets myself. Hybrid targets, yes.

Can you expand on that, please? What makes the Hybrid targets better?

 

[Kimber7man]

Can you expand on that, please? What makes the Hybrid targets better?

Easier to develop an accurate load and plenty of positive reports with the hybrids.

 

[crgchck]

Easier to develop an accurate load and plenty of positive reports with the hybrids.

Ive hunted with both the lrht from Berger as well as the VLD. I’ve so far have mixed emotions about the lrht and wouldn’t hesitate to hunt with the VLD!
All but one of my VLD kills were pass throughs with devastating damage. Many whitetail have fallen to my xp-100 .308 with the vld..
I’ve just recently started hunting with a custom 7saum. I load for accuracy not speed so have not chronoed current load but I’ve harvested 3 animals using the lrht first animal was an adax bullet stopped at hide on exit side of animal.. made it 15 yards and was done by the time I walked up on him. 60yard shot..zero blood.. next was an axis running at 160ish yards.. 1st round was a bad shot but broke him down. As he laid I was able to place a perfect shot just behind his left shoulder angled forward into his right shoulder… just knew that would be the last round fired. As I approached, I noticed a gaping hole behind his shoulder with ribs exposed yet all intact. Weird.. he was also unable to get up.. but very much alert and seemed he was not experiencing any mortal wounds..I ended up shooting him at point blank range with a handgun.

3rd animal was a black buck at a couple hundred yards.. forward facing slight angle to my left. Placed shot in lower neck just to his right shoulder angled into chest cavity. Dropped with just a few seconds of quiver he was done.

Best I can make of it, #1 I’ll never shoot at something running again no matter how good I feel about it. #2the second round on the axis exploded on impact particles of the bullet passed through and broke the front leg of opposing side. Seemed to not hurt vitals at all.. no blood pool from either wound channel of 1st or 2nd shot fired..
I will likely use up the rest of my hybrid target bullets punching paper or maybe varmint hunting.. but the hunting performance is too unpredictable and with no blood trail it makes it tough.. my kid using same rifle and bullet lost a whitetail last week of our season. Thought he’d missed it which he never does.. so I went with him that afternoon and found one droplet of blood on a leaf and nothing else.. ran into thick nasty swamp land that you are unable to see further than 5’.. had it been a vld I don’t think blood trail would have been an issue and we would have recovered.

 

[Article 4]

My recommendation would be to sell, trade or bang steel. I'm a huge Berger fan but wouldn't take a LRHT hunting.

Second vote for this. Run Bergers in a few rifles but tend to lean toward manufacturer recs on this kind of stuff. Have the LRHT in my 25 CM but don't hunt with it. Use it expressly for range/target/barrel life practice.