I've been a fan of the the Berger 185 BT's out of my various .308's and was impressed by the accuracy of that particular bullet. Recently however due to an unforeseen 'miscommunication' between myself and a supplier I ended up having to work up a load for the 185 Berger Hybrids. Initially I thought this bullet change wouldn't be a problem as, while Berger recommends a 1:11 twist or faster, I own suitably-barrelled rifles but what a frustrating journey this load development proved to be.
Now, on paper, this Hybrid is an impressive bullet with a BC higher even that the BT's but for me it proved to be a very finicky bullet to perfect a load for. Of course, I used quality rifles - a PGW Coyote with Krieger 1:10 and a Defiance with Rock Creek 1:10 - of proven (sub .5 MOA) accuracy but no matter what the load I fed them the best I could achieve at 200m ( my preferred load testing distance as 100m gives too many false positives and 300m leaves too much room for shooter error ) was barely MOA. In sum both rifles shot no better than a decent hunting rifle and I was getting pretty frustrated especially as I had over a 1000 bullets that I thought were now only of use as pretty fishing weights !
Berger claims that, unlike their VLD bullets, the Hybrids are not sensitive to jump but since no reasonable powder charge was working I played around with seating depth but still no joy and in any case in both test rifles I was still limited by mag length. Clearly it was time for a new approach and so I decided to run some of the Hybrids through my custom F/TR rifle - now this is a rifle that should not have shot these particular bullets well as it uses a Krieger 30" tube that is a 1:12 twist but at a COAL of 2.942 and a Varget powder charge of 41.5 and at 43.2 ( Norma brass and FGMM primers ) these bullets produced excellent groups. In fact at every .5 incremental weight between 41.5 and 43.2 the groups were acceptable with the worst recorded 5 shot group still measuring a respectable 0.688 MOA but it was at 43.2 that the best group was produced of 0.568" which if my math is right is shooting in the .2"s MOA.
What I learned from this exercise was that these bullets are sensitive to 'jump' and that neither powder charge nor ROT isn't so important as bullet seating for these particular bullets.
Hope this may help with others who are getting spotty results with these relatively new bullets.
Best Result:
Now, on paper, this Hybrid is an impressive bullet with a BC higher even that the BT's but for me it proved to be a very finicky bullet to perfect a load for. Of course, I used quality rifles - a PGW Coyote with Krieger 1:10 and a Defiance with Rock Creek 1:10 - of proven (sub .5 MOA) accuracy but no matter what the load I fed them the best I could achieve at 200m ( my preferred load testing distance as 100m gives too many false positives and 300m leaves too much room for shooter error ) was barely MOA. In sum both rifles shot no better than a decent hunting rifle and I was getting pretty frustrated especially as I had over a 1000 bullets that I thought were now only of use as pretty fishing weights !
Berger claims that, unlike their VLD bullets, the Hybrids are not sensitive to jump but since no reasonable powder charge was working I played around with seating depth but still no joy and in any case in both test rifles I was still limited by mag length. Clearly it was time for a new approach and so I decided to run some of the Hybrids through my custom F/TR rifle - now this is a rifle that should not have shot these particular bullets well as it uses a Krieger 30" tube that is a 1:12 twist but at a COAL of 2.942 and a Varget powder charge of 41.5 and at 43.2 ( Norma brass and FGMM primers ) these bullets produced excellent groups. In fact at every .5 incremental weight between 41.5 and 43.2 the groups were acceptable with the worst recorded 5 shot group still measuring a respectable 0.688 MOA but it was at 43.2 that the best group was produced of 0.568" which if my math is right is shooting in the .2"s MOA.
What I learned from this exercise was that these bullets are sensitive to 'jump' and that neither powder charge nor ROT isn't so important as bullet seating for these particular bullets.
Hope this may help with others who are getting spotty results with these relatively new bullets.
Best Result:
