Im having problems with consistent bullet length with vmax 87 grain varmit bullets.. They vary .010 in length out of the box, and ogives can be seen different looking at them.. With this they load with .010 different overal bullet lenght.. Have any of you seen this or am i doing something wrong?.. I was talking in a gun shop today and another shooter said he said also that the hornadys are inconsistent, that he uses sierra.. It doesnt seem i have much choice for high balistic coefficeints in a quality varmint bullet.
Im looking for any tips or corrections of my statements/findings, or ways around this problem.. thanks Dave..

hornady has tight quality control. the only time i have noticed anything was buying blemish bullets from midsouth years ago. they were basically giving away 140 grain 6.5mm amax bullets. the lengths on these bullets varied because of the plastic tip. some tips were longer than others. shot great and killed deer. are these polymer tipped bullets? if so, i would not give it a second thought.

No matter how hard I tried, I could not get my 6mmbr to consistently group these under .6 inches. I tried different powders, primers, etc. no dice. The 75 vmax shoots better, but still not great. Now... those 90 grain bergers, oh my, they shoot so sweet but not much good on varmints.

If you are speaking of 6mm or 243, then try the wonderul 75 grain HP from Hornady...if a barrel won't shoot these into a tight group, then you are trying a crappy load for your barrel...

these bullets are my favorite varmint bullet in 6mm bore..

[QUOTE]Originally posted by ffffg:
Im having problems with consistent bullet length with vmax 87 grain varmit bullets.. They vary .010 in length out of the box, and ogives can be seen different looking at them.

Did you actually measure the bullet's ogive length, with a bullet comparator, or are you eyeballing this? I would think that any variation in measurements would be due to the plastic tip. Consistency in ogive length is what really matters here and, if you are measuring overall cartridge ogive length once the bullet is seated for every shell and adjusting each to a set measurement, any variation in bullet length is negated.

My Ruger 77VT just loves this bullet, no matter what powder I put behind it.

I am with jb177 on this . I've put 3 boxes of 87 V Max through 2 custom .243AI varminters looking for an accurate load . Latest rifle has a heavy varmint Lilja on a Stiller action so should have some accuracy potential . Best powder I have found with that projectile is H4350 . One group goes in the 3's , next in the 8's . I've given up on them and will try the 90gn Berger as suggested . Haven't found the Nosler BT's any better really .

I was told by local shooters to try sierra, the 85 bt hp gave me a promising group first time out using 4895 in 6mm rem, 39.1 grains.. 13/16 inch with three out of the four in 3/8 inch... the old 788 weighs about 7 pounds and is tired, but im going to work with the 85 and 75 grain sierras for awhile.. There is obvously more to a bullet than bc.. I know the bergers would be best, I cant use target bullets becouse this is a varmint gun, and i need them to destroy on impact for saftey.. Cows, campers and etc all over the place out here.. dave

Bergers expand well in my experience .