For long-range target shooting, there is a great question:
Light and fast or heavy and slow?
What that is referring to is the weight of the bullet and velocity. Is it better to shoot a light bullet fast or a heavy bullet slower and rely on improved B.C.? With the new offerings from Berger Ammunition, we put that to the test at 100 and 500 yards. We were shooting a Ruger Precision rifle with our prefit barrel offering for this comparison. The barrel specs are 24” length, 1:8 twist rate and spiral fluting. I confirmed zero with the 130g Hybrid OTM tactical projectile then moved on to collecting velocity from the 130 and the 140g Hybrid target bullet.
Groups at 100 yards were respectable with both coming in just under 1 MOA and POI shift between the two was within a half-inch. The truly impressive part of this factory ammunition was the consistent muzzle velocity with both projectiles coming in with standard deviations of 9 FPS. Low standard deviations help make long-range shots more consistent. The closer the velocity of each shot that leaves the barrel, the closer they should land to each other. Berger was able to make both lines of ammunition perform like I would want hand loaded custom ammo to perform. The advertised velocities on the boxes were very close to what we found with our 24” 6.5mm Creedmoor barrel. The 130g ammunition was advertised as 2921 and we recorded 2938, I am usually surprised when the advertised velocities are slower than achieved. Typically this is a bad marketing ploy to sell a box of ammo but Berger did their homework and advertised truth here.
For the 140g ammo advertised was 2850 which is a hot loaded round with a 140, we were able to reach 2825 which is still respectable and should keep up with reloaders no problem at a match. Our 24” barrel was able to produce advertised velocities no problem and shot very well especially at distance. Overall I’d say the 130g ammo seemed to hold a bit tighter further out and was able to get multiple hostage style swinger target hits while the 140 was more of a challenge to do so. Both shot in almost no wind conditions. This ammo is definitely good value at the moment and I would suggest trying some out in your rifle before the prices jump up when people realize it performs the way it does.