I am new to reloading so my facts are a little short. I am reloading .303B for my Lee Enfield and I ordered some Hornady 174g FMJ-BT bullets. I bought these because they are the closest to original military bullets as i could find. But I read that boat tailed bullets can increase the wear on the bore, is this true?
Boat-tail increasing barel wear?
- Thread starter LeeEnfieldNo.4_mk1
- Start date
No...
never heard of that before. Cant even come up with a good reason as to why they would. It would be logical to assume a boat tail would be less wear seeing as the rear of the bullet doesnt make contact with the rifling at all.
All my bullets are boat tails, much more accurate than other types I have tried. I wouldnt worry about wear, just make a decent bullet that you are proud of.
cheers,
All my bullets are boat tails, much more accurate than other types I have tried. I wouldnt worry about wear, just make a decent bullet that you are proud of.
cheers,
The rebated boat tail is an attempt to produce boat tail bullets using Corbin equipment. Their equipment, while very good quality, is not capable of forming an accurate convential boattail like the heavy commercial units used by the major manufacturers.
For paper punching, the 150 gr flat base bullet will do very well. Don't load it or any ammo full power, or else case life will be very short.
When you re-size your fired brass, size only enough to make case easily re-chamber. Do noty run sizer die down to hitting the shell holderlike you would for normal full lenght sizing. back the die out so it onoy sizes about half the lenght of the neck. See if that works. if not, move it down in quarter turn incrments until case rechambers easily or with just slight resistance.
When you re-size your fired brass, size only enough to make case easily re-chamber. Do noty run sizer die down to hitting the shell holderlike you would for normal full lenght sizing. back the die out so it onoy sizes about half the lenght of the neck. See if that works. if not, move it down in quarter turn incrments until case rechambers easily or with just slight resistance.
The theory was/is that the boattail would direct the high pressure, erosive gases, at the throat(to the sides) more then a regular flat base, causing more erosion. While the idea makes sense, it has not been proven, one way or another, in the many years it's been out there.
I'm going to take the opposite side. Leaving out whether the boat-tails cause more erosion, they do tend to be more sensitive to distance to lands and tend to go sour sooner on a worn barrel. Flat bases aren't as touchy about worn throats as boat-tails and might provide useable accuracy for longer. This is as much because of their longer cylindrical area as anything else. You can take that a step farther, and shoot round nose in old iron that won't shoot anything else. Berger even has a line of bullets that they promote for worn barrels that get a lot more bullet against the bore than their more traditional offerings.
So whether boat-tails cause erosion or not, I wouldn't bet against flat-bases providing a longer service life. For most people, shooting out a barrel is just a fantasy so it doesn't matter much.
So whether boat-tails cause erosion or not, I wouldn't bet against flat-bases providing a longer service life. For most people, shooting out a barrel is just a fantasy so it doesn't matter much.
FWIW - Flat base Hornady SP's generally shoot better at 100 m than any boat-tails I have tried, in 303, 6.5, 7, and 8 mm. This may be moreso true with the 303 Hornady boat-tails, which dont seem to enjoy the same dia as the SP's. I recall they are a few thou less than 0.312 in.
It was a theory at best.
Correct.
Not true.
True. Corbin may have tried it but I had a box of Lapua 185gr Rebated Boattail bullets given to me in the early '80's and they were more accurate than most bullets today.
