I'm going to come right out of the gate and say that I have never been a big Berger guy for hunting ( I had also never tried them). BUT, I have a heavy and a light 6.5 SAUM that shoot them very well, and I wanted to try them on deer this year as my 142 ABLR load isn't developed fully yet.
There was a very particular management buck on the farm that I wanted to get out of the gene pool this year. I passed on some nice bucks to get that guy down. I ended up being able to take my 5 year old daughter with me out one morning and found him. He was 575 yards away, and I had a solid rest off of the bipod. I thought there was a very slight wind from left to right so I put it right on the front edge of his shoulder wanting to hit center shoulder. At the shot his butt hit the dirt, and it almost looked like whiplash as the rest of him followed. I ended up hitting right where I was aiming, clipping the front of the shoulder. I was pretty impressed. When I opened him up there was not much meat loss at all. Some, but not what I was expecting.
My second buck with this bullet was out of a light weight 6.5 SAUM in Idaho. This was a much bigger buck quartering away from me, 11 degrees down, and 453 yards away. It was the same big buck that I missed last year, 400 yards away from where I missed him last year. There was s slight breeze blowing up the draw towards me. I put it on the front shoulder wanting to drift back into the back of the rib cage. I recovered from the recoil in time to see belly fur and legs rolling down the hill. The shot hit right behind the last rib, and drove right into the vitals. I found a small piece of bullet lodged in the offside shoulder. The bullet didn't hit a single bone other than the small piece I found in the offside shoulder. I have never witnessed a non spine shot drop a critter like that.
I can say that I'm pretty impressed with this bullet on deer. I don't think I could bring myself to try to shoulder shoot an elk with one though. Especially after my brother had a 168gr VLD fail on a cow elk shoulder @ 280 yards out of his .284 Winchester this august. That hunt ended in a mile long tracking job and three more rounds into her. It was a mess. If he would have stuck with his 160 AB load it would have been a perfect heart shot (he is back to it now). The VLD failed to penetrate the shoulder.
There was a very particular management buck on the farm that I wanted to get out of the gene pool this year. I passed on some nice bucks to get that guy down. I ended up being able to take my 5 year old daughter with me out one morning and found him. He was 575 yards away, and I had a solid rest off of the bipod. I thought there was a very slight wind from left to right so I put it right on the front edge of his shoulder wanting to hit center shoulder. At the shot his butt hit the dirt, and it almost looked like whiplash as the rest of him followed. I ended up hitting right where I was aiming, clipping the front of the shoulder. I was pretty impressed. When I opened him up there was not much meat loss at all. Some, but not what I was expecting.
My second buck with this bullet was out of a light weight 6.5 SAUM in Idaho. This was a much bigger buck quartering away from me, 11 degrees down, and 453 yards away. It was the same big buck that I missed last year, 400 yards away from where I missed him last year. There was s slight breeze blowing up the draw towards me. I put it on the front shoulder wanting to drift back into the back of the rib cage. I recovered from the recoil in time to see belly fur and legs rolling down the hill. The shot hit right behind the last rib, and drove right into the vitals. I found a small piece of bullet lodged in the offside shoulder. The bullet didn't hit a single bone other than the small piece I found in the offside shoulder. I have never witnessed a non spine shot drop a critter like that.
I can say that I'm pretty impressed with this bullet on deer. I don't think I could bring myself to try to shoulder shoot an elk with one though. Especially after my brother had a 168gr VLD fail on a cow elk shoulder @ 280 yards out of his .284 Winchester this august. That hunt ended in a mile long tracking job and three more rounds into her. It was a mess. If he would have stuck with his 160 AB load it would have been a perfect heart shot (he is back to it now). The VLD failed to penetrate the shoulder.