Bullet design - what would Elmer think?

[mart]

It's wet and drizzly outside so I'm being a little lazy this morning, drinking coffee and cruising my favorite forums. I have been pondering for a few days where Elmer Keith would stand on some of the more recent bullet designs. His designs were and are great bullets and I cast and load them in 357, 41 and 44, but I wonder what he would have thought of some of the weight forward designs like the LBT WFN and my favorite the WLN. I tend to believe he would have liked them. This has probably been discussed before and if I'm rehashing old news I beg forgiveness. I don't recall if he wrote anything about the weight forward designs in his later years. When he was reaching the end of his writing career I was following him primarily for rifle information and didn't pay much attention to handgun stuff. It wasn't until several years after his passing that I became serious about handguns and casting for them and started reading his handgun material.

[44man]

I don't think it is a weight forward anything but an alignment issue. Remember Elmer was in a period when target shooting was very popular and they wanted a round, cut hole in paper. His design was for that AND hunting. It got almost away from wad cutter problems. It worked at the time until it was found a better fit to the forcing cone and better cylinder alignment was more accurate.

[Mal Paso]

I believe Elmer's claim was his bullets cut clean holes in paper and meat.

I think accuracy suffered when Lyman and others reduced the front band. Too much bother to fit the bullet to the throat. Elmer sized .429 so he was unlikely to encounter interference with the throats. I too think it's about alignment. I shoot the Ideal 503 with a .1" front drive band, boolit sized to fit the throats. The front band is just inside the throats. It seems to solve the hazard of a square shoulder.

I'm practicing on paper to shoot meat.

[MT Chambers]

Keith believed that the WFN and other similar designs became unstable in flight at longer ranges, as a wadcutter does, that's why he favored his swc design.

[GoodOlBoy]

My first thought when I saw this was Elmer Fudd, not Elmer Keith. And Fudd liked his shotgun, so I don't think he would care about the boollit design.

GoodOlBoy

[bhn22]

Keith believed that the WFN and other similar designs became unstable in flight at longer ranges, as a wadcutter does, that's why he favored his swc design.
And he would give you at least three valid reasons why his design was better. Keiths designs are never a bad choice. Now Veral Smith would give you at least three valid reasons why his WFN is a better choice at handgun ranges. The LFN is generally considered to be the most versatile of the LBT designs, but the WFN also has a big following because it's a short range HAMMER!

[W.R.Buchanan]

And he would give you at least three valid reasons why his design was better. Keiths designs are never a bad choice. Now Veral Smith would give you at least three valid reasons why his WFN is a better choice at handgun ranges. The LFN is generally considered to be the most versatile of the LBT designs, but the WFN also has a big following because it's a short range HAMMER!

I was going to comment on this fact as well. I never got to talk to Elmer. However I have talked with Veral Smith and it was about a 45 minute conversation with him doing all the talking. The above statement is pretty accurate. Both have their reasons why theirs is the best.

Both of these guys had/have extensive theoretical and practical knowledge on this subject.

Only empirical testing could show the differences between the two types of boolits. Those differences may only be minor.

Randy

[Bigslug]

Figure that everything Elmer did was prior to the '86 FBI Miami shooting that started applying the hard sciences to terminal ballistics in a big way, and prior to the aerospace propellerheads really getting involved with bullet flight characteristics. Considering he was designing effective long range pistol bullets at a time when we still weren't sure how many sets of wings a fighter plane should have, I'd say he did alright.

But science marches on, as do the shooting sports. Outside of Bullseye, not many care about perfectly round, full-diameter holes in paper, and more folks are playing that game with autos these days anyway. We know that the shoulder on a SWC is a non-entity when it comes to effects on meat. I think Elmer's contributions were to give us a REALLY GOOD foundation to build on, and to get others asking the right questions, and I certainly think that Veral Smithhas been asking the right questions. He trades the arguably excessive penetration of the Keith SWC for more wound channel width with extra meplat, but gets that penetration right back by moving weight forward outside the case making room for more powder. Which is better would become a topic for the target matches, and for somebody who has the resources and time to watch A LOT of game animals die from both of them.

Yeah, Keith might be a little butt-hurt for a while at the notion of anyone surpassing his bullet designs, but then, he might stop to point out "Hey. . .I've been dead for 30 years. I'd hope that y'all would have managed to improve SOMETHING!" A real pioneer in the sense of Eli Whitney paving the way for John Deere, but perhaps not a John Browning level force that the world is still struggling to find the equal of.

[leftiye]

I stopped being interested in SWCs a few years back with the advent of RNFPGC boolits. They don't cut nice circles in targets, but I don't shoot targets much. On the other hand they do center a boolit in the forcing cone of a revolter better with their tapered shoulder than the SWC's square wadcutter ring does, so better accuracy (and better BC).

[44man]

I stopped being interested in SWCs a few years back with the advent of RNFPGC boolits. They don't cut nice circles in targets, but I don't shoot targets much. On the other hand they do center a boolit in the forcing cone of a revolter better with their tapered shoulder than the SWC's square wadcutter ring does, so better accuracy (and better BC).
This is the answer!
My most accurate .44 boolit is the one I made with an ogive as close to my 11° forcing cone as I could get. My rounded ogives for my .475 and JRH are also a close fit to center best.
The Lee 310 also works in most guns. It is best to have the nose engage the cone and rifling straight.
If you take a Keith and stick the nose in the muzzle, you will see the nose wiggles back and forth and does nothing in the gun at all. You depend on the little shoulder to steer. Just putting the first band in the throats is not where the action happens and if you soften, you will form it by slump into a WLN anyway.140482
You need to ask if Elmer's boolits were actually reshaped from his soft lead?
I found a Keith for target must be made VERY hard to prevent the edge from skidding off at the cone, 28 to 30 BHN. Doing that let me shoot Keith groups at 50 yards the same size I was getting at 25.
As far as a WFN not doing the distance, can't prove it by me after I hit steel every shot at 500 meters with them.
This is a WFN from my JRH at 100 yards. It has done 1/2" too many times at 100 for you to convince me. 140483
It took me time to understand the revolver and some more with cast, it is the hardest gun but my babies will out shoot a lot of rifles.
Daydreaming and picturing what the boolit is doing when the fire is lit is better then shooting a million rounds that are like scuds.
I got to where 3 shots told me enough and I got to where I would tell you what primer was used.

[Thumbcocker]

If you look at some of the pictures of boolits Elmer designed in Sixguns he was very close to some of the current designs on his road to his bollits. His noses were a little too round but the idea of getting weight out of the case was there.

[44man]

If you look at some of the pictures of boolits Elmer designed in Sixguns he was very close to some of the current designs on his road to his bollits. His noses were a little too round but the idea of getting weight out of the case was there.
That holds no water since my boolit goes .480" into the case while a Keith goes only about .300".
The amount of boolit outside a case has nothing to do with balance at all. Balance is length to twist. Does not matter how much a boolit sticks out. A wad cutter can be very accurate if flush with brass and it is the alloy and impact to the cone that determines alignment.
Everyone shoots near pure swaged wad cutters. Take the suckers to another level and make them hard once. REAL hard.