Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Origins of boat tail bullets

Mule Deer: New issue of Handloader arrived on the stands today and started at the beginning with the editor's column.

He refers to use of the boat tail in machine guns and it jogged my memory to something I read quite a long time ago. Can't recall the source although it may be in my library. Also am not so interested that I'm going to go looking for it as it may not even be in my books. Might have been a loaner or library book.

However, the nut of it was that the design was to reduce bearing surface of the bullet to increase barrel life in - machine guns.

Whether it accomplished that or not I haven't a clue but having shot a lot of 147 grain military boattails from 7.62 X 51 I can confirm that there is a much reduced bearing surface- to the extent that a slower twist is required (1/13 or 1/14) to keep the bullet accurate.

FWIW.

The 8mm Lebel had an advanced bullet with a spitzer point (pardon my German) and a boat tail. It was also a solid copper alloy.

That bullet changed the thinking all around the world and the 8-57 went from a 2XX plus RN to a 15X gr spitzer and even the 30-03 Springfield became the 30-06 with a similar dramatic change in bullets all due to that French development.

"In 1898 the French again started a trend by introducing a 198 grain spitzer boat-tail bullet for the 8mm Lebel (the "Balle D"--named for Colonel Desaleux). This begot all of the spitzer boat-tail military bullets that followed........."

"The 8x50Rmm French (8 mm Lebel) rifle cartridge was the first smokeless gunpowder cartridge to be made and adopted by any country. It was introduced by France in 1886. Formed by necking down the 11 mm Gras black powder cartridge, the smokeless 8 mm Lebel cartridge started a revolution in military rifle ammunition."

Mauser developed the spitzer bullet for their 8x57, and perfected the boattail design for their MG-34 and MG-42, which have a very high rate of fire (twice that of most light machineguns), with quick-change barrels.

The British also perfected a boattail bullet for the .303 with a hollow point over a flat pointed lead core, which goes to sleep quickly, is accurate, and has a high BC.

There's an interesting discussion of "taper-tailed" bullets on page 210 of the Brits' 1929 Textbook of Small Arms.

My impression is that the first American boat tails were 172 grain 30-06 bullets about 1920. The idea was to use machine guns instead of artillery against troops in the open. They wanted to get maximum range by elevating the muzzle. This never caught on but the same bullets were used in National Match ammo at Camp Perry until they were replaced with Sierra 168 grain boat tails about 1970.

The advantage of the boat tail in reducing drag is not really that great until the bullet drops below the speed of sound, which would be very important for the "artillery" application.

The US was sued by Mauser for patent infringement on the spitzer bullets.

The Wermacht did employ the 8x57 MG-34 and MG-42 as light artillery in indirect fire mode, raining streams of bullets down on troops at 1,000 to 1,500 meters.

I acquired a can of M-60 linked ammo destined for a Huey door gun that was 173-gr Lake City National Match.

The US experimented with a bullet of sharp-pointed and taper-tailed design in 1894, the Farley. This fact was later used in defending DWM's lawsuit regarding the (really quite blatant) copying of the Spitzegeschoss design in the bullet adopted by the US in 1906.

The Farley bullet was produced in steel, with a copper driving band at its widest diameter. BTW the US and others also tested a myriad of different designs in these first years of smokeless, including saboted, fin-stabilized, tubular and and other shapes, in a range of materials.

Here is what I posted on the earlier thread on this subject. The Balle D was c.1901. Mule Deer also posted that it was some other "J.B." that Mr. Scovill quoted. A correspondent told me that the cannon cockers knew about boat-tails as early as 1870, but it took a while for the knowledge to trickle down from artillery to small arms.

jim
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My Handloader #252 arrived and lo and behold, Dave Scovill used something I sent him in his column, "Chicken or the Egg" (p.8).

In HL 248 he had asked if any readers knew the primary reason for boat-tail bullets, to improve ballistic efficiency or to facilitate loading? I would be the "J.D." he quotes. Also I presume the "J.B." he quoted is Mule Deer.

I can get back to the French Balle D and the Swiss service bullets which were boat-tailed with the references I have in my library, but I don't have any European references (other than English). I am wondering if any readers can illuminate how the French and the Swiss came to their choices.

I have asked some Europeans I know. One person did suggest the artillery guys got there first, and they were after longer range. But he did not have a reference.

If any of you can help, please fire away.

jim

FWIW Desaleux, the "D" in Balle D, was an artillery officer. As well, many of the designs tested at around this time (roughly 1890s) were quite clearly about aerodynamics, as a result of the substantial leap in velocity possible with smokeless. Farley's bullet was one early product, as were the tubular Krnka-Hebler designs, which were also tapered at both ends: