Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Todays world opinions on round nose bullets

Little known secret is that round nose bullets usually shoot tiny groups.

I use RN bullets in about 75% of my hunting loads (30-06, 308, 30-30, 35 Rem, 35 Whelen). I don’t have any scientific proof however the game seems to be hit harder with RN bullets. Definitely a more visible effect. I get most of my shots under 100 yards, so 1.5 MOA is all I need, out to my self imposed 300 yard limit. 150 with leverguns. FN bullets are used in my 45-70 levergun loads. Spitzers are used in my smaller calibers. I think RN and FN bullets are extremely useful even today.
Thanks, Tom

Used them a ton in 30-30 but I've picked up some of these 338 cal ones to try out. I've got an 270win that's been set up to use this year but my fallback hunting rifles are my 338cal. Picked up the 338cal roundnose bullets for an lot less than I found pointy bullets

I ended up with 6 boxes of those in a mass deal. I have a 19" 338-06 carbine that has been picky about bullets and has not yet really shot well for me. I call it "Little Big Gun."
Been thinking these 250 RN and a nice charge of RL-15.5 might be worth exploring. Only three weeks until my elk hunt but still time to give it a chance.

I've used the Hornady 180 RN in the .30-'06 and 170 gr. in the 8x57 without complaint, but have no real commitment to the RN design. For <100 yd. hunting they are just fine.

They won't shoot out of an 338-06 very well. Something like 9" group @ 50yds is about average out of the 338-06. When you decide you don't like them you can send them my way.

I love round nose performance on game, but rarely use them anymore. Seems i often am set up for longer shots than I care to take with round nose. I still use them often in load development as I often get great accuracy from them. Use for barrel brake in and to find potential accuracy. The Sierra 180 30 cal rn is very easy to tune to a rifle.

117 grain Hornady RN out of my 250 Savage do everything I need to do with that rifle.

Out to 300 yards in an 06 you have a heavy hammer.

Use the 117 gr core lokt in my 257 Robert's and the 150 gr in my 270. When I first started with my 270 when I was 15 my dads uncle said to switch to the 150 and haven't had a deer go out of sight.

I always found that the 190 gr Silvertip killed deer very effectively from my 1899A Short Rifle.
Hogs as well.

Next up are these 200gr RNs in 35 Remington.

I hope to have better luck with these than I did with the 220s in my 300H&H.

Wat happens at 310 yards?

I have killed elk in the 375-400 yard range several times with 220 gr RN

I use 154 RN's in my 7mm-08, average shot where I hunt is under 100 yards and they hit like a sledgehammer. I have found over the years that rn bullets in any cartridge have shoot great groups. I picked up Speer 105 RN's in 6mm a few years ago and never loaded in my 243 but suspect they will shoot well and hit hard if kept within intended range

About all I use are RN’s.

I plan to use factory loads of 150gr core lokts in my 270 win for whitetails this year. For my New Mexico elk hunt I’ll be using 150gr partitions in the same rifle.

"Interested in your load for these. I have a box of these bullets and an old husqvarna crown grade 308. I have tried the 220 hornady with 760 powder. Shot well but not as fast as yours."

"Thanks Blackheart, I have used that 760 load with the old core lokt RN. I was actually asking about Mainers 220 Nosler load.

Not Mainer but maybe this will help I'v done some testing using W760 and the .220 gr. Sierra round nose bullet. Using the data from an earlier One Book/One Caliber, later issues no long have this dataI worked up to the max in the book, Got an honest 2300+ FPS and based on what was in the book, believe I could easily go much higher. I'll post the data for W760 and 220 gr. bullets. Take note on the max pressure posted.

Winchester 760, Winchester brass and primer.

Start: 42.0 gr./ 2177 FPS/ 42,000 C.U.P.

Maximum: 44.0gr./ 2295/ 46,900 C.U.P.

For W748 note the pressure levels.

Start: 36.0 gr./ 2111 FPS/ 45,000 C.U.P.

Maximum: 38.0 gr./ 2232 FPS/ 49,900 C.U.P.

Interesting that they couldn't reach that same 49,000 C.U.P. level with W760.

The earliest Winchester loading booklet I have is #15 circa 1990 and the show data for 200 gr. bullets but not the 220 gr. bullets. I wish I could find an earlier version or preferably several to see when they dropped data for the 220 gr. bullet.
Edited to add: I would do a load work up past that posted max load if I could. Doc put the port in my shoulder for the chemo right where the butt of the rifle goes. Trying to shoot anything, including a .223 is not uncomfortable, it would be painful.
PJ

I’ve only had one round nose bullet that I could not get to shoot - 30 caliber 220 grain Hornady Interlock. Of course in all my lever guns I shoot round nose or flat nose. They work very well. All my cast bullets are round nose or flat nose too.

My 30-30 waffle top is extremely accurate with 150 grain CL’s.

I find that boat tail bullets often don’t shoot as well as plain base bullets. Anymore I’ll buy a flat base bullet and avoid boat tails unless I’ve already have a combination that works.

Round nose bullets kill stuff. The buffalo agree.

I've found my 7mm08 likes that Hornady 154 RN very much also grouping 1.08". I just chronoed my load this week and from the 20" barrel they're running 2533 fps which should be perfectly adequate since my shots are 75 yards at most.