I was reading this article http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/gun-nuts/2013/06/treat-your-tips-kindly about how deformed soft points can cause bullets to fly awry. Has anyone experienced anything like this in practical use? My hunting rounds (American White Tail, Sierra Game King) both have soft points and some of them did come slightly deformed from the factory so should those be considered burners or is this just over-thinking?
Deformed soft points
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The guy who wrote that isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Beating the crap out of them did alot more than deforming the tips.
Meplat inconsiatancies have zero affect on a group at 100m. My guess is that his "smashing them on a steel plate" affected neck tension and alignment to bore, and seating depths thus causing the grouping abnormalities.
Even on very high end bullets like Matrix have meplat inconsiatancies. Bullet tipping only starts to help grouping at 600m plus....and this is very fractional.
Beating the crap out of them did alot more than deforming the tips.
Meplat inconsiatancies have zero affect on a group at 100m. My guess is that his "smashing them on a steel plate" affected neck tension and alignment to bore, and seating depths thus causing the grouping abnormalities.
Even on very high end bullets like Matrix have meplat inconsiatancies. Bullet tipping only starts to help grouping at 600m plus....and this is very fractional.
One should worry a lot more about the base of the bullet than the softpoint deformation or minor meplat differences.
I think Petzal is full of baloney. He based all the bones on one group, and undoubtedly did more than just deform the lead tip, IMHO.
I conducted an experiment for my own interest several years ago.
I took 20 - 180 grain Sierra Pro-Hunters [.308, flat base, soft point spitzers]
Loaded them in my 30-06 @ 2800 fps and shot 4 groups, two at 100 meters and two at 300 meters.
10 of these had the softpoints mangled in various ways [bent, flattened and partially smeared off.]
The other 10 had the points carefully selected for perfection.
There was no measurable difference in the group sizes at 100 or 300 meters between the perfect noses and the wrecked ones.
IIRC, the 100 M groups were both sub-moa, and the 300 were as well. [so under 3.0" at 300]
I no longer worry about those Partition noses flattened in the magazine from recoil. Just shoot and get ready to dress that Elk! [or deer, moose, etc.]
Regards, Dave.
I think Petzal is full of baloney. He based all the bones on one group, and undoubtedly did more than just deform the lead tip, IMHO.
I conducted an experiment for my own interest several years ago.
I took 20 - 180 grain Sierra Pro-Hunters [.308, flat base, soft point spitzers]
Loaded them in my 30-06 @ 2800 fps and shot 4 groups, two at 100 meters and two at 300 meters.
10 of these had the softpoints mangled in various ways [bent, flattened and partially smeared off.]
The other 10 had the points carefully selected for perfection.
There was no measurable difference in the group sizes at 100 or 300 meters between the perfect noses and the wrecked ones.
IIRC, the 100 M groups were both sub-moa, and the 300 were as well. [so under 3.0" at 300]
I no longer worry about those Partition noses flattened in the magazine from recoil. Just shoot and get ready to dress that Elk! [or deer, moose, etc.]
Regards, Dave.
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Well, the results may seem skewed but it is known that even jacket thickness variations will increase group sizes.
How much? Depends.
Some competition shooters are running their bullets through tipping dies (like these http://www.bullettipping.com/)
One of the explanations is that the mass of the bullet is not perfectly concentric to the rotation axis when the bullet spins at about 200000rpm.
Will this impact you?
Do some testing. Shoot groups with good bullets and with deformed tips and compare.
I did ... http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/foru...ng-Bullets?p=10364132&viewfull=1#post10364132
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it would have been useful to measure some groups
The issue is that inside the bore, the bullet spins about its geometric axis but when it leaves the muzzle it begins to spin around its longitudinal weight axis. If those two axis are not the same then the bullet will experience some wobbling in the transition, which can affect the accuracy.
