With the constant flux of inventories these days, I’ve decided that its time for me to start exploring the option of making my own SD rounds for carbine. I understand that there are many superior options out there than what I can make at home, but I can never find the 64 win rangers that I would prefer, and have only a single box of them.
I was looking around and I already know how effective berger VLD hunting bullets are, but wanted to know if anyone has heard anything about using berger “tactical” 77gr rounds for SD purposes, or if any other high gr bullet would be acceptable for SD/HD/SHTF round. These rounds will be loaded up for a DDm4v1LW
many of bergers match bullets are loaded for a hunting round by HSM. their performance is about what you’d expect with fragmentation being the order of the day. the jackets are uniform and thin so I would expect the 224 caliber 77gr to do nicely and actually outperform the 77gr Match king.
I’d say go for it! 1-7 or maybe 1-8 would be needed for best accuracy
I am looking at the “tactical” round. I like 77grs, I just have no idea if they would be effective, say loaded alternating with green tips for SHTF/HD situations. Currently, I try and keep a stock of those rangers cited above.
Don’t alternate green tips into the mix. That ammo sucks for home D.
I haven’t specifically tried the tacticals from Berger, but the SMKs are incredible fraggers… The 64 bondeds are incredible bloomers. I’d be fine with either of those.
thanks for the input guys, I will keep rangers as primary and load up clones in the event there happens to be an ammo shortage again.
I will play around with the bergers, but I guess there isn’t much on the efficacy of their tactical rounds yet. I use their rounds for deer hunting in a bolt action, and nothing else, since I have seen how effective they are in the field.
if looking for sd you might as well go with something that will penetrate a barrier. the 64 grain bonded performance that was linked is considered to be one of the best. there are others like the partition, gameking, or the tsx.
if you are going to use the berger bullets in the ar you want to make sure they are not the vld style bullet. if they are vld style you more than likely wont get great groups, they are very picky on seating depth.
if you want something that frags the matchkings would be my choice. i have not seen them online, but when i went to my local shop they ordered me a 500pc box of the 77’s, and i got them in less than a week.
i have not seen the hybrids in 224. i was not sure they were making them yet. the matchkings work so well, and the price always seems to be less than berger. so i cant justify the bergers. i would like to try some of there heavier vld’s, and i might give them a try. now that i have the 80’s from markm it might be time to test a couple to see if i can do better than my 75amax.
i might just try the 80’s in amax, berger, and the matchkings. i might as well go heavy if they wont feed from the magazine. i just need to check the length of the chamber in my noveske. it is supposed to be optimized for mk262. so im not sure how long i can go.
