Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Flat Base vs. Boat Tail - is one more accurate?

That's not much of a "boat tail". I personally have seen better accuracy from flat based bullets, unless I'm shooting past 400 yards. After that, the boat tail bullets buck the wind better. This attributes to better accuracy at longer range..

My best short range BR rifles preferred boattails although the boat tail was relatively short. I liked that one could make boattails without the pressure ring at the base which was always present on the flat-based bullets. Not many custom makers make boat tails suitable for short range BR and I suspect that is as large a factor in the prevalence of the FB bullets in the BR venues as anything else. GD

Could be.

It could also be that the few who do make the boattails so short there's really not much difference between them and a flat-base.

Not much difference but enough to make a difference in loading and sizing. I don't really think boat tails are necessarily more accurate; they just shot better in my rifles. I am unable to pronounce one design better than the other because I don't really KNOW. Others have no trouble in making such a pronouncement. Could be that they do know. GD

I am just parroting the competitive shooters on the usenet before the www 20 years ago:
flat base out to 200 y
boat tail beyond 200 y

I kill most big game between 400 and 500 yards, so I use boat tail bullets.

Part of the reason is I can't hit anything beyond 500 y and I can do very well on the targets at 400 yards, so I stalk until it is a sure thing.

I did some asking around elsewhere about barrel attributes, specifically crown and leade angles.

After having a target crown get dinged and looking into getting it recrowned, a gunsmith friend recommended a piloted reamer that imparts a 45 degree chamfer into the muzzle. The depth is such that the chamfer extends slightly wider than the grooves. I had it done, and the rifle shoots respectably, as well as having shot both flat and boat tail base bullets about equally well. I don't really understand this stuff well enough to understand what this alteration has accomplished, but I'm fairly certain the crown is less likely to get dinged.

When I asked what the relationship was between ogive and leade angle, I got a surprising answer from a barrel maker/gunsmith. His response was that the leade angle slowly changes over time to conform more effectively with the bullet's ogive, wearing it in as it were, and suggested that this was a particularly good reason to pick a bullet and stick with it as long as possible.

Greg

Hmm, I suppose this is why we handload and try different loads in our rifle's to see what works. Just a guess.