.300 win mag bullet tips on inexpensive ammo

[Cncjerry]

I am new to long range shooting and bought some inexpensive ammo to try out a new gun I bought. If all goes well, I'll be at the range this Saturday for the first time with this rifle.

As far as ammo goes, I bought a box of Winchester Super X and another of Remington Core Lockt to break-in the barrel, sighting, etc. When looking at the bullet tip which is lead sticking out of some type of copper alloy, they seem very inconsistent from bullet to bullet within their respective box. So I started wondering how much impact on accuracy, not expecting much out of this ammo, does the tip of the bullet have in itself? I realize there are about a 1000 and 1 different variables, but it seems like it would be easy to clean this up, hell, a pencil sharpener would do a better job than the way they come from the box. it would seem that at a minimum, they would be better of cutting the tip flat as is done in the match quality air ammo I shoot.

I hear about people turning bullets on a lathe and having a CNC as well as manual lathe, I can see where one could get carried away with making or tweaking bullets.

So to restate the question, can you make a significant improvement to low-price ammo by turning the bullet tip? I'm not suggesting I would spend the time, just curious.


Thanks,

Jerry

 

[Defusion]

Interesting question, perhaps better suited for the reloading section?
Not sure on accuracy change with just the tip.
A lot also has to do with bullet weight consistency though, and cheap bullets probably won't be very consistent in weight either. You could weigh them after you pull the bullet.

Then of course there is charge weight. Some variation shouldn't be a really big deal at shorter ranges, but it will result in large vertical spread at longer ranges.
You could dump the powder and weigh the charge yourself.

Essentially, if you really want to improve, you'd be hand loading, and might as well do it right from the start.

 

[Tjsr19]

One thing that people often get caught up in is how pointy a bullet is. The fact is a bullet is actually driven by the base. If the base is off your accuracy will suffer. If you want to know more search bullet casting accuracy. Lathe turning is for a solid projectile.

 

[Hntelk]

Cncjerry, those Remmy corelockt's will surprise you how well they shoot...also they are tried and true for killing game...I like the 180's out of my 300 wm..I hand load now...but if I had to buy ammo I would not hesitate to use corelockt.

 

[Hntelk]

Also...don't worry what they look like unless grossly deformed, I used to think same thing but they shot fine.

 

[CanPopper]

My soft point lead tip bullets usually shoot just fine out to 400 yards. It is only when I go past 400 that the more uniform tips of the match bullets really take over.

However, lead tips are designed to take game and it is usually unlikely you would be hunting past 400 yards anyways so they are good enough for their purpose.

I wouldn't try to turn the tip of lead bullets since that may change their weights noticeably. The change in weights means your groups become highly inconsistent.