168 gr Berger and Varget

wjarrell

New member
Im trying to get a rough guess on my muzzle velocity as I don't have a chronograph or a Berger reloading book. Im shooting a Remington Model Seven in 308 with a 18" barrel. I'm shooting 168 grain Berger match grade Classic Hunter with 42 grains of Varget, Winchester brass and primers. This gives me a consistent sub moa group at 100 yards.

Can someone look in there Berger book and tell me what it says please?

Thank you, Will
 
Load for the bullet weight. Who made it doesn't matter.
42 grains of Varget is the start load for 168. If it's giving you consistent sub-MOA groups out of an 18" hunting rifle, stop. You're done.
I don't believe Berger's story about their match bullets being hunting bullets. Looks like an FMJ to me. Varmints for sure, but I wouldn't use 'em on anything bigger.
 
rough guess would be about 2550 to 2600 fps.

T Oheir- As was told to me by Burger. Our Match bullets and Hunting Bullets are Identical. The only difference being the Target Bullets have a double copper coating to hold uniformity for long range shots. So same , but not the same I guess.
 
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Will, to know for sure what your muzzle velocity is zero you rifle at 100 yards then shoot a 5 shot group at 300 yards without holding over to allow for drop. Measure how much each shot dropped, add that together and divide by 5, you now have a statical average for your drop. Go online to one of the many ballistic calculators and plug in all the numbers (temp, elevation, etc.) and take a guess at your velocity (I'd start at 2500 fps). Keep changing the velocity until the drop chart matches what your rifle did at 300 yards, then you'll know your loads velocity.
 
Thanks guys for your input. The reason why I ask is I shot a 3 shot group at 100 yards and I'm 1.5 inches high and at 200 yards I'm about 4.5 inches low. If I was shooting 2500 fps I didn't think I would be shooting that low at 200 yards.
 
What is the height of your sight line above your bore centerline? That affects the shape of the trajectory arc. A taller sight line makes the barrel angle up higher. That increased angle of departure means a lower velocity will hit the two impact points you describe. An estimate of velocity from bullet drop requires that information. It also requires the temperature of the day you fired to use the ballistic coefficient of the bullet accurately? What is your range's altitude above sea level, or, better yet, what was the barometer reading that day? These also affect the calculation.

For example, if your drop numbers were precise, and fired at sea level under ICAO standard atmospheric conditions (59 °F, 0% R.H., 29.921 in Hg), they would indicate about:

2040 fps for a sight line 2.0" above bore centerline
2094 fps for a sight line 1.5" above bore centerline
2148 fps for a sight line 1.0" above bore centerline

Note that the sight line is the center of your scope main objective or the top edge of an open iron sight like the Patridge sight.

Those velocity numbers seem low, even for an 18" barrel, given your powder charge. So I tried a different method: I took Hodgdon's 42 grain number for the 168 grain MatchKing, put it into QuickLOAD with that program's Varget model and adjusted case capacity to get the same 2520 fps velocity that Hodgdon measured for their 24" tube. I then cut the barrel down to 18" and got 2354 fps. Your gun probably shoots it a bit slower because the Hodgdon gun has a SAAMI minimum chamber and bore, as all SAAMI standard test barrels do. Your's might be 50-100 fps slower. I've seen 200 fps difference before, but that's less usual. Assuming your chamber is not as tight as theirs, let's say 2300 fps.

So, why would the drop be so high in your targets as to give a lower velocity result? Again, I don't know the conditions or even the COL of your load. But the most common cause of that error would be imprecise measurement of the differences in point of impact. These happen most often for a couple of reasons. One is that a lot of people shoot groups of just 3 or 5 shots, not cognizant of how much difference the center locations can sometimes have from one group that size to the next. The second common cause would be imprecise surveying of the range. Figure that for each 0.1" of measuring error on the target paper your velocity estimate could off 10-20 fps depending on how your errors combine. At the 200 yard end, the bullet is dropping that much every yard, so you can see how if someone surveyed what was actually a 100 meter and 200 meter range for different game rules, and just decided to call them 100 and 200 yards, things could go awry. And in fact, at a muzzle velocity of 2300 fps, it turns out that, for a 1.5" tall scope, the bullet is 1.5" high at 100 m and -4.5" low at 200 m.

Bottom line here is that you want at least 10 shots at each range, and I prefer 20 for this. If the holes start to touch and make the center location hard to find, put up several identical targets at each range, fire 5 rounds at the same corresponding aiming point on each, then find the average location above or below the aiming point for each target and then average these average locations. Do that for both the 100 and 200 yard groups. Putting more shots in each group makes your combined groups a little larger by allowing outliers more opportunities to show up, but the averages are more representative.

As for the range surveying, I actually keep a 100 foot tape in my car to check ranges against, if I'm uncertain about them. I then get actual numbers to work from.
 
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Unclenick great post! On that day it was 71 degrees, 20% humidity, 29.86 pressure and the rang is at roughly 700 ft of elevation. I ranged the target with my range finder. My scope height is 1.5 inches my measurements on my targets are persist. I guess in order to really know I have to buy a chrony. If my muzzle velocity is too low I'll start over on my load development.
 
Load for the bullet weight. Who made it doesn't matter.
42 grains of Varget is the start load for 168. If it's giving you consistent sub-MOA groups out of an 18" hunting rifle, stop. You're done.
I don't believe Berger's story about their match bullets being hunting bullets. Looks like an FMJ to me. Varmints for sure, but I wouldn't use 'em on anything bigger.

The bullet matters. You will get higher pressures and velocity with some brands of 168's than with others. The load data should be close, you can start at the lowest levels and work up for that bullet, but as you approach max loads who made it matters.

Berger makes 3 different 168 gr bullets. One is a 168 gr match bullet, they also offer a 168 gr hunting bullet and a 3rd 168 gr Classic Hunter Bullet. The match bullets have a tougher jacket and don't expand reliably, the other 2 have a much thinner jacket at the tip and expand VERY well. Many say too well. They tend to penetrate 2-3" then basically explode. They work very well with good shot placement, but don't penetrate well enough for bad angles.

Since they expand so well they are a good choice for long range shooting or short barrels because they don't need a lot of speed to work.

46 gr of Varget gives me 2750 fps and Sub MOA accuracy from my 22" barrels. My manuals say you should be getting about 2500 fps from a 24" barrel. My guess is some where between 2300-2400 fps from the 18" barrel. I'd add more powder personally. You don't have to shoot max loads, but you're getting 30-30 performance from a 308.
 
My buddy (the buddy that I reload with) shoots 45 grains of varget with the same bullet out of a VTR and it shoots sub MOA at just over 2600 fps. That's 2.5 grains over max according to the Berger Reloading Manual but he doesn't have any pressure signs. So I'll try and go up in powder charge and hopefully I hit another good barrel node before I start to see signs of pressure.
 
Well, too low for what? That is the question. You are still in the range of .30-30 velocities, and .30-30's have taken plenty of deer.

The climate conditions take us down to 2091 fps for your 1.5" sight height if your group center averages are accurate estimates of what an infinite number of rounds would do, but at 3 shots just inside 1 moa, it's likely the standard error at 100 yards is around ±0.34", and slightly over twice that at 200 yards, so I'd look at firing at least 10 shots at each range and getting an average to adjust the drop measurement with, whether you do it by breaking the group up into more than one group or not.

Incidentally, at the bottom of this page, there is a free version of the On Target software. If you scan or photograph your targets, it is a useful tool for finding shot location precisely. It has two stats called horizontal and vertical offset, and the vertical number is the average vertical distance of the group from POA. That's what you'd want to average for all groups shot for a more precise reading.

The ballistic coefficient I used is the G7 BC. Berger gives both a G1 and G7. The trajectory programs at JBM ballistics let you use that for better accuracy than the G1 gives, which is useful when you whittle down to tenths of an inch and smaller.
 
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