Importance of bullet weight - 6.5 PRC

[z987k]

The 130 terminal ascent is a really good alternative to the ablr or even accubond and doesnt suffer the poor bc of the accubond.
Does not blow up.

 

[Castle Rock]

Noted, thanks! As I said in the original post, my wife's dad has had issues with gut punctures when his Nosler ballistic tip hit a rib on an antelope. Safe to say that a 156 gr Berger risks doing the same thing? Or should it punch through decently before expanding? I'd assume it would expand sooner either way if it hit a rib on the way in.

I understand that absent of hitting bone, they will typically wait a few inches before expanding. However an antelope doesn't exactly have thick ribs and I'd ideally like to find something that can punch through the rib on something as light as an antelope.

I think it’s more likely that a bone fragment caused the issues.
People associate bones with something hard and dry but inside living tissue they are actually quite soft, particularly on something as tiny as an antelope, they really don’t affect bullets as much as is imagined.
The 156 certainly isn’t wanted or necessary and if you are just hunting for meat use the 130 or 140 and shoot heads or necks.

 

[freezerfull]

Noted, thanks! As I said in the original post, my wife's dad has had issues with gut punctures when his Nosler ballistic tip hit a rib on an antelope. Safe to say that a 156 gr Berger risks doing the same thing? Or should it punch through decently before expanding? I'd assume it would expand sooner either way if it hit a rib on the way in.

I understand that absent of hitting bone, they will typically wait a few inches before expanding. However an antelope doesn't exactly have thick ribs and I'd ideally like to find something that can punch through the rib on something as light as an antelope.

Thanks for the input! I have read that unbonded bullets are also a little easier to make accurately than bonded bullets, mainly because of the metallurgy involved in making the latter. Is this accurate or is it more dependent on the QC of a given manufacturer? With that said, my longer range shots are few and far between. I'd like to get more competent shooting over 600 yards, but if I'm totally honest with myself it'll be a while before I'm able to really devote the time to it that I'll need to. It's fun being able to nail coyotes out further, but some of the fun is being able to call them in anyways.

Honestly right now I'm hunting as much for the meat as anything else. Maybe in a few years I'll be thinking differently but with beef prices where they are I'm as concerned about meat in the freezer as I am anything else. That's mainly where my concerns on damaging too much meat are coming from.

With all this said though, the 156 gr Berger EH bullets are $0.27 less per bullet than the 140gr Accubonds and almost half the price of the 140 gr Partitions ($1.24 vs $0.63). For that price the Bergers are definitely worth giving a look.

Well guess I am going to be taking a closer look at the Bergers.

I am not positive how much effect bonded or other bullet construction has on inherent accuracy but QC is definitely important, as is lot to lot variation. I’ve seen a rather large scale of differences on these two fronts depending on manufacturer. Berger has been one of the most consistent manufactures.

Regarding bergers, they can be quite sensitive to seating depth, particularly the VLDs, less so with the hybrids. If the rifle is twisted acceptably and you have the room in the mag to play with seating depth my experience has been that they will shoot and generally shoot better than anything else I load. I do a modified Berger seating depth test (6 rounds at each depth from .010” off lands to .130” off lands in .030” increments) and generally find a .030”- .050” window of exceptional accuracy with them. This test is the first thing I load up when developing a new load, generally with a mid book charge. From there ladder up to pressure then shoot groups in the top 2 nodes watching SD/ES. Can’t really think of a rifle I haven’t had success with them in, the exceptions are actions that are too short for cartridge (300 win mag Tikka would come to mind) or odd balls like a 30-06 760 game master.

Now to prove I’m not getting a Berger kickback, I’ve probably only shot 50% of my animals the last few years with Bergers. Accubonds have accounted for most of the others, along with some Hornady products and $0.10 MidwayUSA factory seconds (i think they were sierra prohunters). I do like to tinker around when I find the right price on other bullets.

 

[mtnbound]

I haven't but from what I've been told the Berger bullets are intended to do one thing - explode on impact. Admittedly I haven't done much of any research into them, but when I have explained my goals most people have pointed me towards Nosler, with a couple even going so far as to tell me to steer clear of Berger.

One of the antelope was through the shoulder, the other two animals were just behind the shoulder through the ribcage/lungs. The shoulder shot on the antelope just about obliterated that quarter, but just the meat was chewed up. The bone seemed to have a relatively clean hole punched through. Still some bone fragments for sure, but I was mainly surprised by how little bone damage there was compared to how much meat damage there was. Lost at least a good 45% of the meat on that shoulder. The other two shots were close enough behind the shoulder that the fragmentation on initial impact chewed up some meat, but not as much as the direct hit on the shoulder.

As far as my qualms with the energy transfer, none of the shots made any of them flinch until they tipped over. I honestly thought I had missed with the first animal I took with the rifle, until the herd was making tracks and he fell behind and eventually went down. Just seemed like the bullet dissipated all it's energy into fragmentation without much "punch" for lack of a better term. I don't mind using a round that won't drop an animal instantly if I know to expect it, but I also would expect less meat loss with a bullet that behaves like that.

The way I am reading what you are saying, I don't think you understand how bullets kill.
Unless you destroy/disrupt the central nervous system with a bullet, an animal is not going to drop instantly. If you want to see bang-flops, change your aim point to the high shoulder shot to destroy the CNS.
A bullet behind the shoulder in the vitals affects the air and pump systems, and while fatal, these shots will not cause instantaneous incapacitation.
Please disregard if I'm just misinterpreting you.

 

[sveltri]

I haven't but from what I've been told the Berger bullets are intended to do one thing - explode on impact. Admittedly I haven't done much of any research into them, but when I have explained my goals most people have pointed me towards Nosler, with a couple even going so far as to tell me to steer clear of Berger.

I can only speak to my experience with the Berger 156 and it has not performed as you've been told. The Elite Hunter is not "highly explosive" as compared to an ELD-m ( which I used to kill my sheep last year) or the Berger VLD ( which I've used on a few deer). The bull my daughter shot this year at 550 with a measly 2760 muzzle velocity entered a little back in the lungs hit a rib, must have been just right to deflect, and blew through the spine even further back. The bullet had every opportunity to "fragment" through the guts but it did not. My experience with that bullet has typically yielded an approximately 2" hole through and almost immediate death of the animals I've seen taken with it.

 

[Okie_Poke]

Tl;dr - just shoot the 140 accubond and be happy, or stick with your 143, stay off the shoulder, and accept that it's intended to expand rapidly upon impact---that's a design feature, not a bug.

I don't have much experience hunting with Bergers, so I'll leave that particular bullet alone (for the most part). My only comment on them is that, unlike an ELD or BT, they aren't designed to open immediately on impact. My experience with bullets like the ELD and BT is that they open immediately upon impact and can cause more meat damage on the on-side shoulder than the off, depending on shot placement. Dramatically effective though.

I have heard lots of people recommend the partition as well, but from my understanding the less aerodynamic design kind of negates the benefits of the 6.5 PRC as far as flatter shooting characteristics and retained velocity/energy at longer ranges. If I was working on something for my 30-06 I'd definitely be looking at the partition more, but i was told that it may nit be the best fit for a 6.5. Am I off base here or is that pretty accurate?

Do you need the extra BC for the ranges your are hunting? Your PRC has speed to burn, so it's not like you have to shoot high BC bullets at traditional ranges.

Maybe I'm looking for too much of a goldilocks bullet?

All bullets have trade-offs. You just have to decide what set of trade-offs best fit your hunting style and what you expect/want from a bullet. I'm still partial to Accubonds for my goldilocks bullet, but you have to understand what you're getting with them. They are bonded, so they fragment less than an ELD or BT (or SST or similar) while pehaps penetrating more. That has the potential to kill slower but with less picking jacket fragments out of your meat. But they are still designed to expand and lose weight so you can't count on pass-throughs all the time as that expanded, bonded mass of bullet acts like a sail and often get caught on the offside hide in my experience. Some folks will say this is the worst set of trade-offs from both bullet worlds (fragmenting vs mono metal), but I still like them. I won't shoot an elk past 400-450 yards, though, and deer closer than that, (using 30-06 or 6.5 creedmoor) so understand where I'm coming from with my expectations and use case.

I have read that unbonded bullets are also a little easier to make accurately than bonded bullets, mainly because of the metallurgy involved in making the latter. Is this accurate or is it more dependent on the QC of a given manufacturer?

Hornady says this is why they've moved away from bonded bullets in their main hunting lineups. Regardless, I've had good luck getting Accubonds to shoot well---sometimes better than Hornady ELDX or SST when evaluating raw dispersion at 100 yards. No doubt there can be measurable differences in the bullet itself from lot to lot of Accubonds (so too the Hornadies), but I can't say I've seen it show up on target or really even affect my seating die setting. If you are hunting at long range, I expect this could play a role, but if you're doing that then you really should be using a match grade bullet made both to be super accurate and to expand at lower impact velocities (e.g., Berger, ELD).

Honestly right now I'm hunting as much for the meat as anything else. Maybe in a few years I'll be thinking differently but with beef prices where they are I'm as concerned about meat in the freezer as I am anything else. That's mainly where my concerns on damaging too much meat are coming from.

Match your shot placement to the type of bullet you are using. Shooting ELDS, BTs, and the like at the shoulder at close range is asking for a mess (though I still do it sometimes because I hate tracking deer). Conversely, mono metals behind the shoulder will destroy very little meat, though you may be more likelty to get to track a bit. Life is full of trade-offs; bullet selection is no different.

Addendum: South Carolina Department of Wildlife published a study on cartridge and bullet selection for deer. It's hardly gospel, as there are limitations and caveats to any study, but it's not just internet keyboard commandos who think rapidly expanding bullets lead to quicker kills and more recovered game, and that caliber doesn't really matter. Copied from the abstract:

We determined that deer shot in the shoulder ran significantly shorted distances (3 yds.) than those shot in the heart (39 yds.), lungs (50 yds.), and abdomen (69 yds.). There were no significant differences in the efficiency of weapons when grouped by caliber. However, deer ran significantly less frequently (42%), less distance (27 yds.) and left sign more often (88%) when struck with soft type bullets than when struck with hard style bullets (60%,43 yds., and 81%).

What you choose to shoot is up to you.

Edit to address the actual OP: Bullet weight matters, at least when comparing bullets of similar construction, but bullet construction is more important than bullet weight when predicting how a bullet will perform. Picking a heavier-for-caliber rapid expansion bullet doesn't reduce fragmentation (assuming similar impact velocities), it just means there's more bullet there to penetrate and fragment before the bullet runs out of steam. I would not bet on any 6.5 bullet exhibiting more "knock down power" than any other.

 

[Harvey_NW]

I haven't but from what I've been told the Berger bullets are intended to do one thing - explode on impact. Admittedly I haven't done much of any research into them, but when I have explained my goals most people have pointed me towards Nosler, with a couple even going so far as to tell me to steer clear of Berger.

There is a lot of misinformation out there regurgitated by people who don't have a functional understanding of constructions by design. In this example, it's the opposite. As others have said, typically Bergers have a longer neck length (deeper penetration depth) before upsetting and/or fragmenting. Nosler ballistic tip (if that's the bullet you're referring to) will have a more rapid expansion rate. Both have variability based on what they impact, soft tissue, bone, etc.

As far as my qualms with the energy transfer, none of the shots made any of them flinch until they tipped over. I honestly thought I had missed with the first animal I took with the rifle, until the herd was making tracks and he fell behind and eventually went down. Just seemed like the bullet dissipated all it's energy into fragmentation without much "punch" for lack of a better term. I don't mind using a round that won't drop an animal instantly if I know to expect it, but I also would expect less meat loss with a bullet that behaves like that.

Energy transfer and meat damage go hand in hand. In this scenario the fragmentation and meat damage actually = all the "knockdown", as opposed to a bullet that holds together and exits, not depositing all of the beloved energy. It's definitely a tradeoff, but I personally shoot the 143gr ELD-X out of a 6.5 PRC because to me it's kind of the happy medium of all the concepts. It fragments well, delivers sufficient wound channels, and typically the base and part of the core either exit on close range shots, or exit the cavity and are trapped under the offside hide.

Simple rule of thumb is if you want big wound channels and quick death, shoot a tipped cup and core and aim for vitals with a direct entrance to the cavity, because you will have fragmentation and meat damage. If you want less meat damage, shoot a "tougher" bonded or monolithic bullet, but understand that translates into narrower wound channels and possibly longer times to expiration.