Why not?

[Harter66]

Hello. So I've been casting for a while and had some dismal failures and spectacular disintigrations at the muzzle now at least I can guess at why and know why thank you for that .

My question now is why are there no pointy 30cal moulds ? Something that looks like 1 of those abcX bullets tipping in around 200 grs.

[WHITETAIL]

66, Welcome to the forum!:redneck:

[WHITETAIL]

Yes, just get a Mid-Way book and you will see the many moulds.[smilie=w:

[cbrick]

spectacular disintigrations at the muzzle.

Harter66, Welcome

Please explain "spectacular disintigrations at the muzzle"

Thanks, Rick

[MtGun44]

There ARE "pointy" .30 cal molds, like 311413 and many others.

Flat nosed boolits are typically more effective when hunting and
also safer in tubular magazine rifles.

Bill

[Marlin Hunter]

Lee makes 2 pointed 30 cal boolits. Its .312 for the AK/SKS rifles, but you could size them down to .309.

They would/should also work in a 303 British rifle.

http://www.leeprecision.com/cgi/catalog/browse.cgi?1264576972.2777=/html/catalog/bullmol2.html

[303Guy]

They would/should also work in a 303 British rifle.The 303 Brit doesn't seem to like boolits that are too short. The shortest cast boolit that would fit my rifle's throat properly was a 160gr RN of my own making. Less and the bolit jump gets a bit much for good boolit alignment in the bore. Just my findings with my rifle. (And that's my tight chambered Lee Enfield!)

[Bret4207]

Spire point boolits typically are harder to get to shoot well than blunter boolits. It has to do with bearing length, center of gravity, concentricity, balance, nose fit/support and the lack thereof......in short they can be a real bear to get good accuracy from. But, they are out there.

[Harter66]

Well the muzzle blow ups were caused by the ignorence of the 1st shots of commercial cast bullets. Not fitted loaded way to hot and my 06' has a freakishly fast 1-8.5 twist at 2200 (now I have a chrono probably closer to 2400) they just poofed in a cloud of smoke didn't even mark the 25 yard target

[HORNET]

Well, there's the 311413 at about 169 grains, the 311329 around 185 grains, and the 311365 around 198 grains and that's just old Lyman numbers. Check the old Lyman mold listing on CASTPICS (see link at bottom of page). There was a buy on a .30 HBC that seems to pretty much be a clone of the 311365 that you might find somewhere. All have a tendency to shoot extremely well a lower velocities (~1300 fps or so) but performance degrades severely when pushed hard. Lee's pointier offerings will probably exhibit the same performance.

[Harter66]

Those have been better and more reason able answers than I have had else where. As to the center of gravity would hollow pointing improve that ? My 06' is by measure of the Greenhill formula and checking out Shilen bbl able to handle bullets of extrem length and weight. Is it possible to use boolit length to beat BC? Ie a 215grn 2r or spitzeer to get into the hi .300s.

[HORNET]

The more successful designs for the higher velocity heavies tend to have a good portion of bore riding nose and then a pointier nose. They usually don't have a very sharp point. Some of the better ones still available are the 311284 and 311299. The 311290 is similar but discontinued, I believe. There used to be a series of the 311332,311334,311335, and 311365 that ran from 168-206 grains that were fairly sharp-pointed but I don't have enough with them to make any serious claims. The fit of any nose-riding portion is critical for best accuracy when you start boosting launch speed. The really pointy ones that I listed in Post #10 don't really have ANY bore-ride section for support of the nose.

[303Guy]

Is it possible to use boolit length to beat BC? Ie a 215grn 2r or spitzeer to get into the hi .300s.Think more like 245gr. My 1-in-10 303 Brit stabilizes 247gr hollow points. (But being a two-groove it wasn't accurate with them but holes were very round! The problem was boolit base distortion).

[Bret4207]

Those have been better and more reason able answers than I have had else where. As to the center of gravity would hollow pointing improve that ? My 06' is by measure of the Greenhill formula and checking out Shilen bbl able to handle bullets of extrem length and weight. Is it possible to use boolit length to beat BC? Ie a 215grn 2r or spitzeer to get into the hi .300s.

Yes, the theory (and some actual evidence) say that HPing does move the CG and help with accuracy. You still need to be ruthless as far as runout and centricity goes. With any design that leaves the nose unsupported you run into the same thing and the bearing length becomes crucial.

Guys like Ben and Backasswards and Felix have a much more scientific understanding than I do, but suffice it to say that HPing helps.

[Wayne Smith]

Those have been better and more reason able answers than I have had else where. As to the center of gravity would hollow pointing improve that ? My 06' is by measure of the Greenhill formula and checking out Shilen bbl able to handle bullets of extrem length and weight. Is it possible to use boolit length to beat BC? Ie a 215grn 2r or spitzeer to get into the hi .300s.

I've forgotten who designed them but there are pointed wasp waisted boolit molds out there that attempted to solve this problem. NEI has some of them. I don't know if they worked, either.

[beagle]

Probably the reason there are no more really "pointy" designs is due to the fact that bacl during WWII the NRA tried to promote rifle marksmanship by selling 4895, primers and 150 FMJ bullets through the DCM. This was to promote practice with the M1903s released by the DCM. The next step in the evolution was that reloaders hated to pay for those expensive FMJ bullets and turned to cast and in particular the Lyman 311413 and clones of it made by various mould manufacturers.

Since these were used by reloaders who primarily used jacketed bullets and not bullet casters, they figured they could use the same load with the cast 311413 that they did with a 150 grain Ball, M2 jacketed bullet and thus obtain the same velocity and trajectory.

As you have discovered.....It ain't so and there were reports to the NRA of this. The NRA researched it and put out information on the problem. Supposedly, at higher velocities, the nose of pointed bullets slump (unless they're of a very hard alloy) and they go all over the place.

So, the pointy bullets got a bum rap from the gitgo and that stuck with them over the years until recently. No one wanted to buy a mould that wasn't accurate.

Personally, I like the pointy .30s and have several 411413s and a couple of 311329s. Shot at normal cast velocities of around 2,000 FPS or less I find the 311413 and especially the HP version to be very accurate out of my Ruger Number 1 in .30/06.

So that's why, until recently we don't have much enthusiasm for pointy bullets./beagle