Bullet tipping
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Any of you ever trim meplats and tip bullets? It doesn’t look like something I’d be interested in fooling with but curious if anyone on here does. What kind of real world performance increases does it actually have?
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said:
Any of you ever trim meplats and tip bullets? It doesn’t look like something I’d be interested in fooling with but curious if anyone on here does. What kind of real world performance increases does it actually have?
That's the question I spent several hours researching yesterday. What I found was that the people who are doing this and finding it worth doing are typically those who are bench rest shooters and who are shooting competitively a long range. It's effective enough to make difference (out to 600 yrds+ ) on whether one might win in a tournament. From what I found, these competitive shooters tent to only to this with the sorted bullets they plan on using in a tournament. So, if one is not competitively shooting, the small benefit they get doesn't seem like it worth the time and expense.
But . . . for those anal reloaders, nothing is too trivial to do. ;-)
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@straightshooter1 said:
said:
Any of you ever trim meplats and tip bullets? It doesn’t look like something I’d be interested in fooling with but curious if anyone on here does. What kind of real world performance increases does it actually have?
That's the question I spent several hours researching yesterday. What I found was that the people who are doing this and finding it worth doing are typically those who are bench rest shooters and who are shooting competitively a long range. It's effective enough to make difference (out to 600 yrds+ ) on whether one might win in a tournament. From what I found, these competitive shooters tent to only to this with the sorted bullets they plan on using in a tournament. So, if one is not competitively shooting, the small benefit they get doesn't seem like it worth the time and expense.
But . . . for those anal reloaders, nothing is too trivial to do. ;-)
I think you might be able to get around trimming by sorting weight and length of your bullets. I don't know that I'll go that far. I was surprised that I was able to measure a length variance of .008 on 6.5 Berger Hybrids. I was expecting closer specs. They still shoot great though.
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said:
I think you might be able to get around trimming by sorting weight and length of your bullets. I don't know that I'll go that far. I was surprised that I was able to measure a length variance of .008 on 6.5 Berger Hybrids. I was expecting closer specs. They still shoot great though.
I'm not convinced that sorting my weight warrant the effort. It's virtually an imperceptible benefit.
As for sorting by length (when done correctly) seems to have much more benefit. That is, not measuring from the base on boat tail bullets, but from the shank to the ogive. I think if you measure those Berger Hybrids that way, you will probably find a lot less variance (though there's always going to be an exception or two in a number measured bullets). This is a way one can get more consistent seating depth and neck tension.
Or, did you measure them that way?
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Nope measured base to tip. I will measure bullet base to ogive and report on the thread I started regarding Berger 140 target hybrid.
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I mentioned in the thread martino1 started that I had made a makeshift trimmer just for the heck of it but that's not completely true. I did it because I had some bulk soft point bullets that were just any length you could imagine however they were all 150 grain .308 slugs. One manufacturer and in the same bag so on and so on. They had a cannelure or crimp groove but they were irregular as well. Some high some low and I tried sorting them but finally said I am going to make them all the same length and I did with my cutter. This was way before I had the Hornady tool that measures to the ogive. Now I was assuming the base to ogive lengths were consistent through the lot but at least I had one constant and that was projectile length. I did make a dummy round and determined where I was jammed to the riflings then adjusted set back with my seating die and measured OAL with calipers very carefully so as not to dent the soft lead. I even trimmed them all the way back to the jackets too, makes a strange looking flat point load. I have also hollow pointed bullets but that's another subject.
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@martino1 said:
Nope measured base to tip. I will measure bullet base to ogive and report on the thread I started regarding Berger 140 target hybrid.
This is how I'm measuring and sorting boat tail bullets now:
