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

[barnesuser28]

After being so wildly impressed with the 105 Berger Hybrids in my 6 Dasher last competition season, and disappointed in the Hornady options I had tried, I was excited to see the Aeromatch line announced recently. This gives us a great opportunity to see if Berger has something special in their manufacturing consistency, or if it is their bullet shape/design that gives them their world renowned match performance.

I picked up a box of 500 105 grain Aeromatch from Sports South, lot number: 2241647 to compare to the lot of 105 Berger Hybrids I shot all of last season, lot number 3264.

In Part 1 I will be sharing my measurement results for the two different bullets. I did a sample size of 50 for each. For some added context I have been a machinist/machine shop owner for 8 years so I have a decent "feel" with metrology tools for when things feel right and best practices for consistent measurements. The weights were measured on a calibrated FX-120i digital balance with .02 grain resolution, the length and base to ogive measurements were done with a Mitutoyo 500-196-20 0-6" caliper with .0005" resolution, and diameter was measured with a Mitutoyo 293-185-30 0-1" Quantumike with .00005" resolution. I realize that the resolution would ideally be higher when measuring variances this small, but I do not yet have a keyence laser comparator so until then, this will have to do. Take the results with a grain of salt, on target is where it really matters.

In part 2 I will share groups with each bullet from this seasons virgin 6 Dasher barrel. I will be testing bullet jump at -.010", -.030", -.060", -.090", -.120". With 30 shot groups at each seating depth and each bullet, for a total of 300 rounds between both bullets and all tests.

I have added some graphs to display the data below, but in summary here are the results:

AEROMATCH 105
WEIGHT GR	LENGTH	BASE TO OGIVE	DIAMETER
104.89	1.2725"	.6581"	.24313"	AVERAGE
.14	.0028"	.0004"	.00004"	STANDARD DEVIATION
.52	.014"	.0015"	.00015"	EXTREME SPREAD

105 Hybrid Target
WEIGHT GR	LENGTH	BASE TO OGIVE	DIAMETER
104.99	1.2700"	.6631"	.24333"	AVERAGE
.03	.0033"	.0007"	.00002"	STANDARD DEVIATION
.16	.0018"	.0025"	.00005"	EXTREME SPREAD

A few notes I want to make:

1. The Bergers have a much more brassy/yellow color to the jackets, which makes me believe the alloy they use likely has a lower copper content than the Hornady Aeromatch. This would leave me to believe the jackets on the Bergers are slightly harder
2. The Bergers have a slightly domed bottom at the base of the boattail, which made the length measurements on the caliper slightly trickier than on the very flat bottomed Aeromatch, so that may have added a bit of variance to the Berger lengths as getting it perfectly perpendicular to the caliper jaws was tricky.
3. The meplats on the Aeromatch look great, I give them a slight edge over the Bergers here.
4. Both bullets had a slight taper to their diameters, with the boattail/bearing surface junction being the widest point. The Bergers had about .00015-.0002" of taper depending on where you measured, the Aeromatch were about .0001" or so. All measurements were taken at the boattail/bearing surface junction for both bullets.
5. A few of the Bergers were about .0001" out of round, I didn't notice the same phenomenon on the Aeromatch.

My gunsmith should have the new Proof 6 Dasher barrel chambered by the new year, so I will throw some ammo together in the meantime and get to shooting as soon as the ND winter allows. I'm looking forward to sharing those results with you all.

 

[DairyDictator]

Thanks for taking the plunge and collecting this data!

I'd put money on that level of diameter variance showing up in the velocity spread at a minimum on the Hornady.

 

[WeR0206]

Thanks for taking the plunge and collecting this data!

I'd put money on that level of diameter variance showing up in the velocity spread at a minimum on the Hornady.

Bullet weight variance on the bergers is also way lower, more of a flat line

 

[inertia]

Thank you for doing this.

 

[Kickin45]

Wow. Great amount of info.
Thanks

 

[memilanuk]

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

 

[barnesuser28]

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

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

 

[LPO]

Awesome write up. Looking forward to reading your future findings.