Interesting unintended comparison of bullets

[scottlep]

I shoot a lot of local steel league matches and Steel Challenge. My go-to load for Steel out of my STI shorty open gun which is set up for steel is 5.4 grains of Autocomp with an Xtreme 115 grain RN bullet with a 1.160 OAL. Since I had some Berry's 115 RN laying around and wanted to save the Xtremes for matches, I decided to load the Berrys and use them up during practice. So the other day I completely took my gun apart for a good ultrasonic cleaning. This meant I had to remove the C-more, then reinstall it and sight the gun back in. Yesterday I went to my range and was trying to sight the gun in using the rounds that I had loaded with the Berry's bullets. Usually, with the Xtremes I can put 10 rounds in the same hole from bench rest at 20 yards after the dot is dialed in. When I was trying to dial the dot in with the rounds loaded with the Berrys I could't get a group any better than about 5"....yes, 5 inches. I though maybe I had screwed something up when I cleaned the barrel and comp on the ultrasonic cleaner and ruined the accuracy of the barrel. So today I grabbed some of the match rounds I had loaded with the Xtremes and tried to zero in the dot again. Same range, same distance, same load and after I got the dot dialed in I could put 10 rounds thru the same hole from bench rest. So I guess my question, or point, is that I never would have expected what is basically the same bullet with the same dimensions, could be so inaccurate from one manufacturer but super accurate from another. I am not trying to slam or bad mouth Berrys and promote Xtreme here, I am just surprised that what amounts to the same exact load/round could have such a difference.

Thoughts?

Edited June 11, 2014 by scottlep

[scottlep]

To add a bit more info...since I always have my chrono in the trunk, I decided to chrono the Berrys rounds to see if there was a big difference from when I last chronoed the Xtremes a few weeks ago. In pretty much the same weather conditions the Berrys average over 10 round rounds was more then 50 FPS slower than the Xtremes. The deviation of the Berrys was also pretty big jumping from 930 on the slow end to 1083 on the fast end. The Xtremes were 1054 slow and 1097 fast. So I am guessing that that drop in FPS is what made the Berrys so inaccurate?

Edited June 12, 2014 by scottlep

[bowenbuilt]

The only difference between the 2 that would account for that much of a difference is the thickness of the plating. The X-Treme's have a thicker plating and are a little less fragile than the Berry's. I have shot X-Treme bullets as fast as jacketed with no discernible difference, Berry's on the other hand were all over the place when I tried to push them this hard. 1083 is not what I would call pushing them but I cant think of anything else other than diameter that would make that much difference. It could be that the Berry's are larger in diameter and that would account for the slower velocities but usually a larger diameter is more accurate not less. You could try seating the Berry's a little deeper and raising the pressure a bit to see if anything improves.

[sniper3]

I've shot both and found ( benchresting ) the extreme much more accurate then the Berrys

[IBSlingin]

With the Extreme bullets, are you guys using the "standard plate" bullets or the "heavy plate concave base" bullets?

[Rick88]

You guys are late to the party, the BBI black bullet is by far the best coated one on the market... But dont take my word for it buy a sample pack and test it yourself, limited or major open :-)

Ps. I have no affiliation with this company...

[Endurokids]

Interesting read.

I'm using some Extreme now in 124g. How are their HP's working?

Thanks guys.

[scottlep]

With the Extreme bullets, are you guys using the "standard plate" bullets or the "heavy plate concave base" bullets?

In my case the Xtremes were the standard plated. So were they Berrys. I just now noticed that according to the website the Berrys claim to be .356 where the Xtremes are .355. I had measured the Berrys before I loaded them and they measure .355 with a good set of digital calipers and so did the Xtremes. Hmmm. Anyway, I have less than 50 of the loaded Berrys left so I will just use them up in practice and stick to the Xtremes from now on since that is what seems to work best with my gun and the load I run.

[rtp]

Interesting read.

I'm using some Extreme now in 124g. How are their HP's working?

Thanks guys.

I'm curious to see responses on this one, as for me/my guns to date, I haven't found a 'load 'em all'/great load with the Xtreme 124gr HPs, while I do have some decent loads for their 124gr and 147gr RNs.

Right now, I'm not planning on buying any more Xtreme HPs, unless I come across a 'magic' load at some point with those I have remaining.

MG 124gr JHPs remain my most accurate bullet at this point (not bench-rested, offhand, but very consistent), followed not too far off by Bayou, SNS and Xtremes, more or less similar enough. I have not yet found a good load for the 125gr BBIs, but I have to load them short in my guns at ~1.07". YMMV, as always.

[lcs]

NOT open, but Xtreme 124 HP with HS6( 145PF) are quite accurate in my CZ Shadow. No complaints in an STI 5 either.

[lcs]

Back to the OPs observations-- Berry's and open guns just don't play well. Minor or Major.