[quote=HawkI]Unless they're Keith SWC's, where the shoulder plays a role as well.
The shoulder has been found, by the likes of Veral Smith, to contribute nothing to the wound channel. If a big wound channel is the goal, the "Keith" bullet shouldn't be considered over any of LBT's designs. Nothing wrong with them, there are simply better options today.
It will cut a caliber-sized hole in paper. The meplat is what creates the wound channel and determines the size of the wound channel. This doesn't change because of the shoulder of the semi-wadcutter design. And frankly, I don't want a caliber sized hole, I want a bigger hole and that is what you get with a bigger meplat.
Even Ross Seyfried, whose opinion to me matters a great deal more than any other public figure in the gunwriting fraternity, switched from semi-wadcutters to LBTs when he discovered them. Nothing against Pearce or Keith, but when Seyfried speaks, I listen.
It also cuts in muscle, lung....the shoulder cuts until it wears down. Not because Veral Smith said so or Ross said so, its because it does, way below velocities that large meplats work well at.
Try Verals nonsense; painting the shoulder. He claims that the paint stays there because of tissue spray. The problem is that his little experiment proves the exact opposite. The shoulder wears because it contacts the sand, muscle, tissue, whatever. Ross passed along the nonsense.
Even when driven faster, the shoulder still wears down, totally contrary to Veral's "knowledge".
I'm not disagreeing that the large meplat LBT's will not create larger wound channels, especially as velocity is increased, what I'm saying is that one will have no trouble taking deer with a Keith bullet not loaded to the gills with H110 and the Keith bullet performs similarly on the flesh whether driven 800 fps. or higher.
Actually, in 45 caliber, the Keith 280 (RCBS 270 SAA), the 280 LFN and the 280 WFN create pretty similar damage in deer when all bullets are driven around 1,000 fps. However, the RCBS bullet created a much more precise, defined hole, not just in the skin...of course as velocity is increased, yes, the WFN's created a larger diameter hole, but at the cost of noise, racket and recoil not needed to tip over a deer, for me.
When Ross started shooting large beasties, the increase in velocity and the need for more frontal area came into play. A caliber sized hole would not cut it.
