Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Are flat base bullets inherently.....

LMAO! Truth be known. I don’t even know you, but there is probably a good chance. That you probably shoot better than a high percentage of the liars that say they can.




Take care, Willie

Well First off, YOU don't know and have NO way of knowing who is lying and who is not.

My dealings with people -- professionally 53 yrs worth -- liars are more suspicious of people lying than those who are not liars.

Makes me suspicious of YOU.

jwall, and I said that.

A profound statement. I totally agree !!!

You have that right Jwall...

I had a Sako 270 that only shot flat base bullets accurately. It did not like boat tail bullets of any weight

In my experience that's far more common than the other way around--except of course at longer ranges than the typical 100-yard range where most handloaders do their testing.

The pressure envelope around the bullet takes a while to form, the same thing happens to golf balls…

when you shoot them the club (golf ball) follows the direction of the club swing, but after 30-40 yards the spin of the ball forms and you either get a hook, slice, or straight ball.

Bullets in the short ranges do better if they are flat base, and long ranges do better if they are boatails for the same reason.

If I have a choice, I'll try the flat base version of a bullet first as it will often show at least slightly greater accuracy during 100 yard group shooting when developing loads. Two examples I can think of are the Sierra .25 caliber 117 grain flat base ProHunter vs. the 117 grain boattail Game King and the Sierra .30 caliber 180 grain flatbase vs. the 180 grain boattail. I think the flatbase versions of these bullets have been discontinued.

Like fixed power scopes, the flat base bullets probably don't sell well among many of today's newschoolers and others who prefer boattail bullets.Many times, the difference between bullet base styles is not great and if you're shooting beyond 300 yards, boattails will often have an advantage.

My rifles argue about this a lot. I don’t worry about it. Some go one way, some go the other, and a few go both ways.

I’ve heard many times that cast and/or BP loads will never better jacketed smokeless loads either. A few of my guns will argue that point also.

Mine too....

Though I have yet to shoot a .15", 5-shot group at 100 yards with cast bullets or a BP rifle--and have done it numerous times with jacketed bullets.

My experience - flat base bullets are more accurate. But then I don’t shoot bullseye at 500 yards.

I’ve always had good accuracy and killing power with Sierra Pro Hunter bullets.

My .250 Savage thinks FB are more better. Top target was 85 Ballistic Tips, which have a short boat tail. Bottom was 100 Partitions. Everybody knows that Ballistic Tips are more accurate than NPT. 100 yards, shot in sequence.


FWIW, I have never shot a .15" group at 100 yards, or for that matter anything less than .2". OTOH, I have shot some fair groups with paper patch and cast bullets.


Wish my range had a 100 yard line. Dang it. .30 Sneezer...


For purposes of the conversation, is a cup base considered the same as a flat base?


Long time ago there were a bunch of wankers got together and constructed a thing called the National Rifle Club. During the heyday it was all BP and lead, most of the matches held at 200 to 1,000 yards. They used a thing called string measure, which unlike today's scoring measure spread and precision. They measured the distance from the center of the X (POA) to center of hole in the paper (POI), added up the numbers for a total of whatever it was. 10 and 20 shot matches were routine, and sometimes they did 30 shot strings. One of them shot a rather remarkable 10 shot string on the 200 yard butt (that's what they called it back then). I forget the fraction but it was just a little over 6". I have seen photos of targets shot at 600 and 800 yards, both 10 and 20 shot strings, some that measured less than 20". They used what was called slug guns. Muzzle loading with paper patch, false muzzles, all the tricks of the craft.

Fun discussion here.

I'm super lucky in that I belong to a club where we have GREAT conditions almost every evening, dead calm with no shadows.

I'll say that FBs shoot better inside 300 in my 22 CFs, I notice it in group shape and size, with the FB groups smallest and roundest on aggregate. But that reverses beyond 300, and gets obvious further out. So since much of my shooting is either close varmints or paper, I mostly use FB tips or HPs.

D D

You said, "My .250 Savage thinks FB are more better."

Don't you know you can't believe a Savage ? What's the matter with you?



Jerry

I'm talking about at least three 5-shot groups AVERAGING .15 at 100 yards.

Am familiar with string measure--but also corresponded with a professional statistician a few years ago (he makes his money crunching money numbers, but is also a rifle loony) who said the statistically best measure of a group is probably the standard deviation of ALL the shots in a group from a central point. And string measure comes pretty damn close to doing that.....

Some time back I was fiddling with a Mod 70 SG in .257 Roberts. Fired a group of 2 and another of 3 back to back using 117 Hornady boat tails. Never bothered to measure each group. Twist of the knobs put it on target and life is good.




Digital "Tongue in Cheek" Dan

Now you can BANK on the Roberts . LOL


Jerry

1/4 bore whores are like that Jerry! I shot a two shot group once with my .25-20 levermatic at 100 that put both cast bullets thru the same hole. Dead center on the X. With a tang sight.

I’d rather be lucky than good,

DD