On the subject of bullets....

[CountryBoy19]

Ok, so I'm just starting to venture into the world of "fanatics" or whatever we're called. I've been shooting long range for a while now, with pretty good success. But I want to get better handloads. My handloads still aren't any better than FGMM. I'm to the point that I'm sorting bullets and I'm wondering about bullet pointing and/or meplat trimming.

I know some people swear by one and some people swear by the other. I just want some pros/cons, or "don't waste your time" comments.

I have several thousand of the "bulk" 168 gr. SMK look-a-likes from Wideners a few years ago. I've found that they are fairly good bullets for their price, but you will have to sort them.

I weight sorted them a few years ago when I got them, but now I'm sorting by bearing surface length and I'm wondering if I should go further than that by bullet pointing or trimming. Some of the points are good, and others not so good. Some of the hollow points are obviously "more open" than others, which leads me to believe that pointing may be a better option to get the nose/tip consistent on all of them.

I'm just not too sure which direction to head with it for now, or if I'm just wasting my time.

Any input?

BTW, if anybody is wondering about the quality of the bullets, from memory the weight variation was pretty bad, but not horrible.

I have the bullets sorted into lots as follows.
168.50-, 168.51-168.78, 168.79-169.06, 169.07-169.34, 169.35-169.62, 169.63+

Of those lots, 80% of the bullets fall into the middle two lots (168.79-169.34), and 97% fall into the middle 4 lots. The other bullets (high and low weight) are just set aside to load up plinking ammo etc.

So far I've been sorting the 2 largest lots by bearing surface length.

The groups are as follows:
.454-
.455
.456
.457
.458
.459+

70-80% of the bullets fall within the middle two groups and very few fall in the "outlier groups.

Overall, I'm satisfied with my purchase other than the fact that I wish I would have bought the 175gr bullets instead of the 168 gr.

Anyways, back to the question, what is the best way to make the tip/point uniform?

 

[TexIndian]

Re: On the subject of bullets....

I recently bought a meplat trimmer from Sinclair and am just now testing it. It trims the tips of HPBT bullets to make them more uniform. It indexes off the ogive so it tends to cut one bullet more than the next if you have inconsistencies in that area. I've never tried those 'pointing' devices, but I have been considering trying one of the bullet sorters from Sinclair that lets you sort based on length to the ogive - in conjunction with some attempts to get stretched-out bullets whose ogive is a consistent distance from the lands.

I tried those same bullets from Wideners once and didn't have much luck in terms of ultimate accuracy, although I didn't sort them out like you have. I was using them mainly for some blasting/plinking ammo in semi-autos that was better than using FMJs. If it were me, I might try a box of Sierras before I spent a huge amount of time trying to make discount bullets into premium bullets. It might be like trying to get LC brass to be as consistent as some of the premium brass - you might get close but only with a lot of effort and a lot of rejects.

 

[Truck10]

Re: On the subject of bullets....

I wouldn't look for perfection in something your gun might not like to begin with. When i had my first .308 built i tried atleast 8 different kinds of bullets untill i found 2 that i thought performed the best. And from there i workied on my load development untill they improved even more.

Unless you have OCD you are going to drive yourself crazy sorting all of those bullets. Not knowing your gun i would recommend trying some 155 amax's and maybe the 175 smk or 178 amax. I personally never had much luck with the 168's.. Good luck

 

[turbo54]

Re: On the subject of bullets....

Good God, man! Unless you really, really enjoy the process of sorting components, STOP!

Unless you really, really enjoy the idea of meplat trimming/pointing....DON'T!

In my opinion, these things are only for retired benchresters.

Unless you can *consistently* get 1/2 moa 10 shot groups, you need to read my signature line over and over until the idea of sorting/trimming/pointing/neckturning/reaming is FAR from your mind.

If you can consistently get 1/2 MOA 10 shot groups, and that 1/2 MOA just isn't good enough for your purposes - then proceed into the dark, dungeoneous depths of the practices you inquire about.

 

[CountryBoy19]

Re: On the subject of bullets....

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: 10Truck</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I wouldn't look for perfection in something your gun might not like to begin with. When i had my first .308 built i tried atleast 8 different kinds of bullets untill i found 2 that i thought performed the best. And from there i workied on my load development untill they improved even more.

Unless you have OCD you are going to drive yourself crazy sorting all of those bullets. Not knowing your gun i would recommend trying some 155 amax's and maybe the 175 smk or 178 amax. I personally never had much luck with the 168's.. Good luck </div></div>

OCD: Check
Already have the bullets: Check
Time to sort them: Check

I figured I'd make the best of what I already have. I'm not looking for ultimate accuracy in these, just trying to improve what I already have on hand. I've had decent luck with these so far. To give you an example, at 500 yards, same day, I shot groups of FGMM at about 4 inches. I shot my handloads with these bullets (weight sorted only) at around 5.5 inches. I just want to see if I can get them dialed in less than MOA.

I'm thinking that the sorting should take care of most of the inconsistencies. But one inconsistency that I noticed that I'm not sure how to correct is the points. I thought about the Sinclair meplat tool, but I just don't see how it can fix a hollow point that is larger than the hollow point on another bullet. It just trims the end flatter correct? So you're going to be left with a flatter hollow point that is still larger than others. A bullet pointing die should squeeze that down to a uniform size right?

So to really do the best I think I need to point them. Just wanted to check with the hide.

ETA, I just looked up the cost of the bullet pointing dies... With the recent spending spree I've been on I guess that's going to have to wait until I return from my deployment. Probably won't have access to a long range until then anyways.

I now live 3 hours away from my 500 yard range, but I'm going to start helping a friend extend his 200 yard range out to 600 and eventually to 1000.

 

[EMorr]

Re: On the subject of bullets....

I am way too lazy to search through all of your posts so I’ll just ask, have you already preformed an OCW or ladder test on this load to insure that it is the most accurate combination available to you? I’m far from an expert as I have only been hand loading a short time myself but I’m not sure that only modifying the Meplat will give you that dramatic of an increase in accuracy at only 500 yards. Just from my limited knowledge of your load I think that there are a few other thing to try (bearing surface length being one of those things) that will shrink your groups before you begin messing with the Meplat.

If others have seen significantly smaller groups at ranges of about 500 yards due to Meplat trimming please chime in and let me know so I can add it to my hand loading ritual.