A discussion... Bullet weights and profiles and their affect on Accuracy

[Meroh]

Hi,

Always trying to shoot better (aren't we all). I shoot a lot of 9mm and .45 and have gotten much better over time, however my freehand shooting is not much different that my shooting from a rest at present. I am reloading both the 9 and the 45 and have been sticking with pretty standard round nose stuff: Campro, Barry's (Berry's? Sp?) plated and XMetal polymer coated stuff. All work fairly consistently (127 gr in the 9; 230 gr in the 45).

Some have told me that longer rifling engagement is a real help and cited Wad Cutters in 38/357 as being really good.

What do you advise, Truncated cone; SWCs; Hollow points that have voids and therefore longer bodies to engage rifling?

I want experience and free thinkers to respond. Theoretical bullisticians are welcome too!

Thanks guys!

Mark

BTW, I posted this on another forum, and a member there failed to read the whole post ant thought I was asking about using wad-cutters in my auto-loaders; that is why I highlighted the portion above.

 

[Longwalker]

In my handgun experience, mostly limited to .38/.357 revolvers, SWC profile has shot the most accurately. Hollow points generally don't enhance accuracy, they are only made to enhance expansion when they hit. The little bit of loading I have done for my 9mm revealed that the truncated cone was more accurate then RN and good for reliable feeding, but the SWC profile would not feed reliably.

 

[Ar180shooter]

Personally I wouldn't worry about it too much unless you're shooting fist sized groups at 25m freehand. I find 158gr .38spl SWC's out of my S&W 686 to be more accurate than my 9mm, but that is more likely due to both the tuned trigger on the 686, lighter recoil and longer sight radius on the revolver rather than anything to do with the bullet profiles. A quality swaged bullet will likely be more accurate, but the key is to be able to shoot well enough to tell.