Berger 105 Hybrid Target VS Hornady 105 Aeromatch: PART 1 - Dimensional Consistency

memilanuk said:

Great info... but it might make things a little bit more intuitive when people look at the graphics if the red line was Hornady, because... . Yellow for Berger might be a little hard to see. Otherwise, the charts do a good job of visually depicting the numerical results

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That is a good point, I knew something felt off when making these. I just updated the graphs and switched the colors.

Just picked up my 6 Dasher barrels yesterday, going to try to get a bunch of shooting done on Saturday. Going to change it up a bit though, and do 2, 10 round round groups of Aeromatch 105, 105 hyb, 109 LRHT, and 110 SMK with varget and N150 with each bullet.

After this test I will continue to evaluate the 105 aero match vs the 105 berger hybrids with some shooting at distance.

morganlamprecht said:

solid info

id be curious how different lots of bergers compare to your base lot of bergers as you buy more over time...in just bench measurements

in the past ive had bench measurable differences from lot to lot in bergers i thought was going to be significant when shooting them, but on paper and at distance on steel, i couldnt tell any notable difference. i cant say the same for hornady

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I just ordered another 2000 105 hybrids, no promise I will get to it anytime soon but I will definitely get around to measuring them.

Got a chance to do some shooting today. Unfortunately with the January ND weather along with working out kinks in a new rifle things didn't quite go to plan. I only had time to shoot the 105 hybrid and 105 Aeromatch with Varget and N150, and the Varget test didn't quite go to plan as I had some really extreme condensation issues after shooting a string that would cause the first shot of the next string to go low and eventually lead to heavy bolt lift even with very mild loads. I verified this was a condensation issue by drying out the chamber with a mop before shooting a string, and the heavy bolt lift went away. I also fixed the on-target issue by just shooting a fouler before the groups. I will not be sharing the Varget results, as the noise in the data and issues with the condensation made an apples to apples comparison impossible and I want to make sure I am presenting things as openly and honestly as possible.

Details of the rifle and ammo:
Bat Hammerhead action
Proof 26" competition contour 7.5" twist barrel in 6 Dasher with a .120 freeborn reamer
Vortex Razor Gen 3 6-36 in Area 419 rings
MDT ACC Elite Chassis
LPM prototype 6.5 cal PRS Silencer with brake end cap
Triggertech Diamond 2 stage

Virgin alpha 6 Dasher brass, sprayed with One Shot, ran through a mandrel, chamfered and deburred
CCI 450 magnum primers
30.8 grains of N150
105 Hybrid or 105 Aeromatch seated .040" off the lands

Groups were measured with the 4DOF app, I won't bore you with posting all 8 images of the groups. The 105 Aeromatch groups are on the target with "6R" right above it. The 105 Berger Hybrid groups are on the target with the "6L" right above it. Ignore all the shots in the center of the targets, as those were foolers/sighters and mean nothing in this test.

I loaded 11 rounds in the magazine and shot 1 into the center diamond as a fouler
Then I shot 5 shots at one of the points of the diamond, and another 5 at another point, then let the rifle cool.


Ultimately the results are quite boring. The two bullets shot essentially identical group sizes at 100 yards. The biggest difference was in the MV and SD (measured on a Garmin Xero). I am wondering if the change in bullet copper composition is what raised the mv of the Bergers, as I shot them second. I just cleaned the barrel thoroughly and am going to load up some more of the 105 Berger Hybrids with the same charge and see what they chrono at. Hopefully I can do that and also shoot these loads at 600 yards on paper this weekend if the weather cooperates.

Aeromatch 105




105 Berger Hybrids

waveslayer said:

You're shooting high...

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Shooting groups sucks with a wallowed out aiming point

Sheldon N said:

Maybe it was the slightly larger diameter of the Hybrids? Bit more resistance and pressure build initially creating more velocity.

Interested to see what you find on paper at 600 yards, or even farther out if you're able. The thing I've always liked about the Bergers is how well they fly and hold groups at distance, so curious how the Hornady compares and how the BC matches up.

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That could be, with Varget they were within 7 fps average, and i shot the Hornady second, but it could be that the barrel is speeding up already and gaining 10-20 fps per string.

Likely the final update from me on these. I shot both bullets with the exact same load at 633 and 979 yards on Saturday, with some interesting observations. The big one is that at least for this barrel, I can go from Berger to Hornady, but not Hornady to Berger. You will see in the table below what it does to the average muzzle velocity when switching between the two bullets. The different jacket compositions must cause some weird galling/fouling that dramatically increases pressures. The order in which the data is displayed in the table is the order in which they were shot.

I am not sure how representative the 979 yard groups are, as the barrel was quite hot for the Hornady group, and the wind had died down and the mirage off the barrel was bad with the Berger group. So some of the angular growth in group size for both bullets may be from the hot barrel or mirage distortion.

Overall I think Hornady did a really impressive job. It remains to be seen how they hold up at distance on average against the very highly renowned Berger 105 Hybrid, but in the limited testing they seem to shoot just as well and on average give slightly better SD numbers.

Unrelated to the comparison, but I did shoot a 10 shot group with the Bergers that measured 1.95" at 633 yards when I jumped the bullets -.015" rather than -.040", so I do believe there is likely room for improvement with both bullets with some tuning.