COL sensitivity of 300gn Hybrids?

[Charlie Bravo]

Hello all.

In the video about Berger hybrids, Bryan Litz says that the Hybrid bullets aren't very sensitive to seating bullets further out than the caliber specified COL. What are peoples experiences with this in real life?

 

[psinclair]

He's right.

 

[Charlie Bravo]

He's right.

That sounds great, thank you.

 

[leadbullet]

they shoot great even .040 off the lands, Brian Litz knows what he is talking about.
cheers.

 

[High Binder]

300gr OTMs are insanely sensitive to seating depth. Do a search on it and you'll see that the OTMs are hyper-sensitive to seating depth. I had major problems with them (still sub-MOA but shitty) and after searching the internet found that it was a very common problem despite the hype that they are insensitive and I instantly regretted buying 1,000 of them because I switched to the much happier SMKs after only shooting 114 Hybrids. Hybrids were shotgun pattern at all but .060 and .005off anything else sucked I tried every seating depth from .120 to .005 off and Retumbo/H1000. SMKs One-Hole for me regardless of the seating depth. So on that note, I have a lot of Hybrids still in their sealed boxes (bought off the shelf about 6 months ago) if anyone wants to shoot some clay pidgins with their 338.

 

[Charlie Bravo]

Thanks for your input. Do you shoot a 338lm pr another cartridge?
I read that pressure in 338lm can sometimes cause deformation in Hybrids, but I haven't come across seating depth issues as such when i googled it. Did they perform well in those two depths that you specify?

Sendt fra min LT18i med Tapatalk

 

[High Binder]

Thanks for your input. Do you shoot a 338lm pr another cartridge?
I read that pressure in 338lm can sometimes cause deformation in Hybrids, but I haven't come across seating depth issues as such when i googled it. Did they perform well in those two depths that you specify?
k

Yeah 338LM. Well at a 88.5 gr of H1000 (a very light load) and about .060" off the lands is where I found my best Berger OTM load (pic below) and this is the best load I could find with this bullet (the worst are 1.5"MOA). However my worst SMK loads are still better than this and by far. I mean even my worse SMK loads make holes that are are still touching and the best ones pile into one hole and they do so along a wide span of seating depths with charges from 87.5 all the way through 91.5.

So to the pressure point, if my OTMs are deforming at 88.5 gr then there's a problem with bullets which I doubt. The take away point is that after a lot of frustration and testing I found that the OTMs were way to sensitive to seating depth and switched to SMKs and have been happy ever since. I've even posted on this forum about the sensitivity my OTMs had.

pic of Best OTM groups at .060 off lands (each grid is 1/4"):

 

[High Binder]

Yeah 338LM. Well at a 88.5 gr of H1000 (a very light load) and about .060" off the lands is where I found my best Berger OTM load (pic below) and this is the best load I could find with this bullet (the worst are 1.5"MOA). However my worst SMK loads are still better than this and by far. I mean even my worse SMK loads make holes that are are still touching and the best ones pile into one hole and they do so along a wide span of seating depths with charges from 87.5 all the way through 91.5.

So to the pressure point, if my OTMs are deforming at 88.5 gr then there's a problem with bullets which I doubt. The take away point is that after a lot of frustration and testing I found that the OTMs were way to sensitive to seating depth and switched to SMKs and have been happy ever since. I've even posted on this forum about the sensitivity my OTMs had.

pic of Best OTM groups at .060 off lands (each grid is 1/4"):

PS and FYI my ogive numbers are going to be different because I'm using a non-338 insert.

 

[lte82]

I shoot the berger 224 cal 82s and they are easy to tune and they shoot well. The 338 cal bergers however stumped me and I sold them off. Im sure some folks get them to shoot, I just didnt have any luck.

 

[Charlie Bravo]

That's interesting.

I haven't loaded mine yet, since I'm still waiting for my stock to arrive. I was told a 3-4 week delivery and that was 3 months ago The bullets are pretty hard to come by in this part of the World, so it would be nice to get to a good load with as few wasted projectiles as possible and any and all input is appreciated!

 

[BryanLitz]

The standard test I run on all new Hybrid bullets is to load them to jump: 0.015", 0.030", 0.045", and 0.060". Typically they all shoot about the same groups, and the 300 grain Hybrids were not an exception in my rifles: a TRG-42 in 338 LM, and a 338 Edge. The bullets grouped around .5-.7 MOA at 100 yards in these rifles at the above jumps and moderate loads of H1000.

Of course all rifles are different and I'm sure there are some combinations that don't work as well.

Take care,
-Bryan

 

[Charlie Bravo]

The standard test I run on all new Hybrid bullets is to load them to jump: 0.015", 0.030", 0.045", and 0.060". Typically they all shoot about the same groups, and the 300 grain Hybrids were not an exception in my rifles: a TRG-42 in 338 LM, and a 338 Edge. The bullets grouped around .5-.7 MOA at 100 yards in these rifles at the above jumps and moderate loads of H1000.

Of course all rifles are different and I'm sure there are some combinations that don't work as well.

Take care,
-Bryan

Thanks alot for the information Bryan! It's really great to have the guy who designed the bullet be able to provide advice!
I'll try out those settings and see what works best with the powders that are available here.

Thx.

CB.

 

[High Binder]

( The bullets are pretty hard to come by in this part of the World, so it would be nice to get to a good load with as few wasted projectiles as possible and any and all input is appreciated!

I have ~900 of them. I don't know if I can send them to you or what the deal is with where you live but... You're welcome to them.

 

[High Binder]

There's a funny thread in the bear pit that applies to this thread:

http://www.snipershide.com/shooting/bear-pit/250527-askhole.html

 

[Charlie Bravo]

Hi High Binder.

Applies in what way? The reason i was asking was to conserve ammo. It was pretty hard to come by in the first place and I had to get it from Sweden, which was a complete p.i.t.a. Berger has end user agreements that prohibits sale out of the country where the retailer is.
I could find 500 in all of Europe that I could buy.

I'm not doing the opposite of what people recommend. I'll try finding the right charge in the closest seating depth recommend and go from there.
If there aren't laws prohibiting you from sending me bullets and from me receiving them, I might be interested. Just gotta find out what legal hoops I gotta jump through and see if transport prices wont make it too costly.

Sendt fra min GT-I9100 med Tapatalk

 

[High Binder]

Hi High Binder.

Applies in what way? The reason i was asking was to conserve ammo. It was pretty hard to come by in the first place and I had to get it from Sweden, which was a complete p.i.t.a. Berger has end user agreements that prohibits sale out of the country where the retailer is.
I could find 500 in all of Europe that I could buy.

I'm not doing the opposite of what people recommend. I'll try finding the right charge in the closest seating depth recommend and go from there.
If there aren't laws prohibiting you from sending me bullets and from me receiving them, I might be interested. Just gotta find out what legal hoops I gotta jump through and see if transport prices wont make it too costly.

Well you're welcome to them. I bought 1000 of them in 4 boxes of 250 and three boxes are still in plastic, I only used 114. I bet each 250 box weighs 5-8lbs and I can ship them out anytime. I'm joking about the above because you had two people tell you specifically say that seating depth was a major issue with these pills and one guy who didn't offer anything other than a fan-boy response and then a guy who has a vested interest in these pills give you his obviously pro-bullet response (not bashing Brian, I'm a huge fan of his). Couple that with the fact that you keep mentioning that bullets are hard for you to find... Seems like you already had your mind made up when you asked the question as you're taking a gamble on a bullet that has mixed reviews vs. a known good bullet (the SMK) that works good for everyone (the draw back being the slightly lower BC). Now if you could find these as easily as I can (local store) then it wouldn't be an issue but given that you obviously have to plan way ahead my question is... Why take the risk? Why not go with a sure thing?

Either way, you're more than welcome to my stack of OTMs but do yourself a favor and google these pills for a while before you really set your mind on them. I think you'll see with some internet searching that a lot of people have this problem with them and as a friend, I'm trying to save you from what could be a very costly mistake as again you can't simply runt to the local store and get them like we can here in the states. Take away point: Do more research than simply asking here.

 

[Charlie Bravo]

Well you're welcome to them. I bought 1000 of them in 4 boxes of 250 and three boxes are still in plastic, I only used 114. I bet each 250 box weighs 5-8lbs and I can ship them out anytime. I'm joking about the above because you had two people tell you specifically say that seating depth was a major issue with these pills and one guy who didn't offer anything other than a fan-boy response and then a guy who has a vested interest in these pills give you his obviously pro-bullet response (not bashing Brian, I'm a huge fan of his). Couple that with the fact that you keep mentioning that bullets are hard for you to find... Seems like you already had your mind made up when you asked the question as you're taking a gamble on a bullet that has mixed reviews vs. a known good bullet (the SMK) that works good for everyone (the draw back being the slightly lower BC). Now if you could find these as easily as I can (local store) then it wouldn't be an issue but given that you obviously have to plan way ahead my question is... Why take the risk? Why not go with a sure thing?

Either way, you're more than welcome to my stack of OTMs but do yourself a favor and google these pills for a while before you really set your mind on them. I think you'll see with some internet searching that a lot of people have this problem with them and as a friend, I'm trying to save you from what could be a very costly mistake as again you can't simply runt to the local store and get them like we can here in the states. Take away point: Do more research than simply asking here.

Thank you for elaborating

The thing is that I already have 500 of them that I'm going to try loading soon. In terms of wasting Money, that ship has sailed, if they aren't any good, but I'm hoping they will shoot fine in my rifle. This remains to be seen. Naturally I'm concerned that they might not work well because they are rather expensive although I got them at a good Price. They were more expensive than SMK's og Scenars, but not by a huge margin.

My question, which might have been misunderstood, was how much I'd have to mess around with seating depth initially, since I was wondering if it could really be the case, that it didn't matter much. Apparently the jury is out on that one, which is nice to know. Having some info to go on, is nice to have and having 4 specific depths to load at is better than just doing a standard COL because of a belief that seating depth doesn't matter.
On the other hand I could just start jammed, but I thought I might just ask what real life data is on this before trying it out. I haven't yet recieved my stock yet, so there's no rush to load just yet

Your point to do research is well received, but I have to admit that I've only been hearing good things about hybrids and haven't come across anything negative because I haven't specifically looked for it. Probably I should have done that before purchasing them, but that's a bit late now. For future reference I'll follow your advice.

If they do in fact shoot well, I might be interested in your bullets, but that's provided that freight and customs/taxes don't make it too expensive. I'd like to PM you about it when I know if they are any good or not, if that's ok with you

Kind regards

Christian

 

[High Binder]

Your point to do research is well received, but I have to admit that I've only been hearing good things about hybrids and haven't come across anything negative because I haven't specifically looked for it. Probably I should have done that before purchasing them, but that's a bit late now. For future reference I'll follow your advice.

If they do in fact shoot well, I might be interested in your bullets, but that's provided that freight and customs/taxes don't make it too expensive. I'd like to PM you about it when I know if they are any good or not, if that's ok with you

10-4 on that. I didn't realize you already had a stack of them so, yeah, now you're in my boat. I bought a 1,000 figuring they would be awesome given all the fan-boy responses I heard but after a while of not getting them to work I started doing some research and found that it was a common problem and that the people who had said they were awesome, were simply fan-boys who had no real experience with them. Anyhow, I hope they shoot good for you, report back with you're groups and you're welcome to mine if it all works out for you.