By George...

[Lead pot]

Acceleration is setting it back. You can see it more with bullets patched less then bore diameter.
I will bring some samples to Lodi next spring so you can examine them yourself.
Some call them the wasp waist effect

[BrentD]

There is only one force working in that barrel, and it is coming from the rear. Inertia retards the nose, but nothing sets the nose backwards.

Anyway, I'm not sure what this has to do with nose shape so far as that bullet is concerned. I shot bullets like that for far, far too long before I figured this out on my own. Paper patching benefits hugely from more slender noses.

[Chill Wills]

It's just a guess on my part, but that Hoch is way too blunt. That puts too much pressure on the nose and the base tries to pass it by. Paper patch bullets are pretty sensitive to this, having no groove drag to straighten them out. If you shot that bullet at 1000 yds target half of them wouldn't make it within 200 yds of the target, dropping low in the dirt.
Brent,
It's pretty much the opposite the nose gets setback more then the base gets pushed forward.

Leadpot, I can't speak for Brent but I think his underline quote refers to the instability of exterior bullet flight at long range - not nose set back in the rifle at the time of firing.

That would be my first thought when looking at those very short nosed - blunt bullets. Nose form IS (almost) everything in LR when choosing a bullet.

Case in point, Many years ago Mike Lewis played a joke on me. I asked him to make me a bullet mold the next time he was making a batch. I described that I wanted a two cavity mould to be cut for one 38 cal mould and one 40 cal mould with this and that design in it. We drove to matches together and had a lot of time to talk. Mike never writes things down. Ya-ya, I'll do it he said. A month or two later I get a call, he's making moulds but I was not there and missed it. He called so I could remind him what he was going to make. Well, he cut the 40cal cavity correctly from memory and the 38 cavity.......... well???? he just cut a cylinder nose on the 38 and put a hemisphere on the front. A hemisphere like the front half of a round ball !
I shot some of those and they grouped well at 200y! By the time those bullets were at the pig line they would only hold the berm and at turkeys they were headed for the moon! Blunt bullets go unstable at range.

Later, when I told him how they went unstable in a big way he just laughed and laughed!

[Lead pot]

Michael I was just commenting on Brents statement "That puts too much pressure on the nose and the base tries to pass it by"

I'm not going to get to deep into this because these kind of threads seem to start arguments and I don't like getting into P***** matches with anyone. So this will be my last on this.
I have looked at to many bullets no matter what the ogive designs are hat show little signs that there is more getting pushed aft then forward. Here is a recovered bullet I patched purposely to find out what moves more, base or nose. I had this one in the bucket and I can get more out of my backup files where the base is just 1/8" engraved then a space that has no land cuts then the a greater area on the shank below the ogive with deep land cuts. (Wasp waist) It does not make to much difference if it is a elliptical or a postel. type nose but the postell by average sets back more

[dave roelle]

I'm still mystified by the looks of some of these elongated bullets, i can understand Brent's statement, i'm an M.E. and have understanding of the base physics involved.

Some difference in forces has to be acting on front and back of the bullet to cause this "stretching" but i'm still puzzled how an explosive event at the base can accomplish this force differential. Gas leaking around the base pushing the nose forward ?????????????? hard to comprehend for me--------------i hope a bit more discussion will help me understand.

Dave

[BrentD]

Kurt, there is no form of energy acting on the nose of the bullet to set it back. So, I don't know what caused the strange rifling marks in your picture, but it wasn't from something pushing the nose breechward.

In all occasions where I have recovered bullets in sawdust or when I have picked up patches from bullets that were fired with light loads, it is obvious that the rifling marks cut deeper on the back end of the bullet and sometimes fail to cut all the way through the paper up near the ogive. I have seen this many many times.

But to stick to the OP's original issue, those bullets are too blunt for long range work.

[Lead pot]

Dave.

My curiosity of what happens to a bullet started when I was a kid and I have spent a bunch of time working with alloys and what ever it takes to hold the integrity of a cast bullet shot with black powder.
It makes no difference what the ogive of a bullet is they all come out of the muzzle different then they started before the powder drove then down the bore. (To a point.) Just a year and halve ago I melted down a whole five gallon bucket full of recovered bullets that I shot into snow banks in less then ten years because I am also mystified with what happens with bullets of different alloys and the way they are shot.
I don't have any Phd's or Doctors certificates hanging on the wall or much of an understanding about physics but I do see what goes with the bullets I shot and recovered.

In the years the ODG's shot the Creedmoor matches bullets where the "blunt" designs unlike what is mostly used these days an they did quite well back then using them as what now days shooters are using now.
I did quite well a couple years ago at Lodi shooting the original cartridge with an original copy of a blunt nosed bullet used back then and I was in first place at the end of that first day and lost out the second day when the clouds dropped down with a misty fog and lost the target.

Well I have my rifle packed and I have to head out to shoot. It quit raining
Y'all have a Merry Christmas.

Kurt

[BrentD]

Kurt, I fully agree that bullet noses will change shape upon ignition. How much depends on lots of things. But all the force on the bullet to make that change has to come from the back. There is no other source of energy available.

As you know, I shot ODG bullets for a long time before I got smart and tried something different, and better. The exact replica of the Sharps Long Range bullet, swaged out of 16:1 was just okay and, thus, I did okay with them. Sometimes even pretty well. But I could not count on them. And so the quest for a better bullet began. I found what works well for me and everyone else that tries it. Bullets that start out blunt, get more blunt and less aerodynamic, less stable, and less accurate. So starting with something that has a sharper nose will result in a more aerodynamic bullet leaving the muzzle. And that's probably not a bad thing.

I don't believe the ODG had all the answers back then. I don't believe we have all the answers now either. But we are closer to optimal now than they were.

I hope everyone has a great holiday and new year better than the last one. Perhaps we will find the "ultimate" target bullet in 2015. If not, the search for it will be just as fun as it was in 2014.

[Lead pot]

Someone once said "for every action there is an opposite reaction" When my truck got rear ended I think my head came back on the head rest as fast as the truck went forward
Well the ODG's had a shorter learning curb then the shooters of now days. I shoot a bullet like you use and it shoots quite well, no denying that! in fact I had Brooks make a mould like it for the .44-100 and it shoots better then the .45 does so I wont say these bullets used now days don't shoot as well.

Brent have a great Christmas.

Kurt

[dirtman45]

This has been a very interesting post.Just picked up a .50 cal front loader for round balls and would also like to pick up an old Sharps or Remington. Have not researched enough of the pros cons of which caliber.I had read they also use paper to play with the patching thickness to gain accuracy.The article I had read was using paper to roll cigarettes between ball and cloth patch.I also read paper 101 here on the site about the various papers and their characteristics and wear potential.Great info. Thanks for all the comments.

[dave roelle]

Hi Kurt:

I have seen some of your posts on some the oddities that happen to bullets when we launch them---------they have been a valued insight !!!!!!!

I haven't the experience nor have i done the bullet research that you have -----i have found that "pointier" bullets perform better for me than "blunt" ones of common designs----i have an order with Brooks now for a "pointier" Paper Patch bullet that i hope to shoot at silhouettes, so far my Paper Patch experience has been limited to the "Creedmore" design 45 caliber 520 grains" and it has performed pretty well hopefully the new bullet will improve my efforts.

It still mystifies me to see a "stretched" bullet

Hope you have a nice trip to the range !!!!!!!!!

Keep well and stay safe

Dave

[BrentD]

Kurt, it wasn't your head coming back to hit the headrest, but the head rest rushing forward to hit your head.

Watch this video and focus on the dummy's head relative to the background. Or put your cursor on the dummy's ear before the impact. You will see what I mean. The same applies to bullets.

[bigted]

ill be danged! thanks for the link on the crash. I had it wrong as well. the head of the test dummy did not move a fraction till the seat stopped moving backwards in relationship to the cars mass and THEN shoved the test dummy forward from reaction to the rear of the force shoving it forward.

very interesting stuff.

[Bent Ramrod]

Went out to sight in my new MVA scope with the RRR 524/K&E paper/80 Swiss 1FG load. I made a bore pig out of a nylon bore brush, a stack of discs out of that fibrous spongy stuff you clean Teflon ware with, and a plug of Nylon rod. Got this group (4-1/2" vertical, 5-1/2" horizontal) at 300 yards after adjusting sights from the shot to the upper right.



Then I moved to 600 yards. Adjusted the sights from the one on the upper left and got four hits in the lower right, 5-3/4" vertical x 9" horizontal.



After 4 shots the homemade bore pig started sticking in the chamber. I tried to go on by cleaning in the old way, but either my rhythm was thrown off, the water soluble oil on the wiping patches changed the impact, or I had come to the end of my good shooting mode for the day. I got two low misses and quit. I think some reworking of the bore pig should cure the sticking. Thanks, Brent, for the idea; one pass through and the bore is clean like unfired. The washer keeps the goo from coming back into the action.

I have ten more of this load to try on the next good day I can make it out. Then I'll try some more easily accessible paper and make sure I can maintain the accuracy. This gun and loads look like they're really trying to shoot, despite my randomly variable shooting abilities on any given day.

I checked the patch paper shreds on the ground. Some are small strips, a few are larger inside pieces. The parts that are cut by the rifling are even. I didn't see any of that triangular burning effect along the cuts.

[Bent Ramrod]

Still getting indications that when paper patching is just right, it has an edge on grease groove boolits. Kind of like all that finicky stuff the benchrest people do to get that last tenth of an inch shaved off the grouping. I mounted a MVA scope on the Sharps and I think getting used to it has resulted in some retrograde progress in my shooting. When the end of the scope is cranked up for extreme elevations, it seems like my cheek pressure on the stock starts varying. It should be the same with iron sights, but I guess I was used to iron sights.

Here was the best I've done recently with the Red River Rick mould. I'm using a tracing paper from Hobby Lobby, which is 1.5 thousandths thick. The patched boolit is a loose fit when I slide the cartridge home; I can't feel any resistance at all. Got a "publishable" group at 300 yards, but the 600 yard target had a few off shots while I was getting the sight setting right, and another guy put a couple on it with his rifle, just to confuse things. But the 300 yard looked really promising:



A little breezy, which accounts (maybe) for the 5" horizontal spread. But I'll take the 3/4" vertical any time.

The Steve Brooks mould with an erasible bond paper called NU Ultra, at 2.5 thousandths thickness, is a sliding fit in the chamber. Didn't get a really photogenic group at 300, but this one at 600 isn't bad. Vertical was 13-1/2" and horizontal 18-1/2" in a variable breeze, which got pretty stiff at times. I was using my home made bore pigs and it looked like after 5 shots I needed an extra wipe with a wet patch. I noticed that after those verticals in the white seemed to associate with a heavier carbon smear on the dry patch. Once I'd wetted everything down and got all the carbon out again, the last shots dropped back into the original group. Or maybe I just got my game back on the holding. Discounting the highest one, the 9 shots went into 8-1/2" vertical.



The paper patch boolits are kind of like the little girl with the curl in the center of her forehead. When they're good, they would do credit to a modern rifle, and when they are bad, they are a ring-tailed wowser to sort out. But they sure are addictive!

Both boolits were in the 8-10 BHN range by my SAECO and LBT Testers. I used a cork wad of about 1/16" thickness, which seems to work better than harder card type wads. The sheet cork stock is also available at Hobby Lobby.

I can only view the rear end of the boolits that go through the paper into the sand bank, but they seem to take the rifling very well. No snow to shoot into here in sunny Southern California, so an undamaged boolit is not possible. The paper comes off in small shreds from the rifling layer, and two larger pieces from the wrap closest to the boolit.

[Bent Ramrod]

I decided to take the Paper Patch loads to the Quigley this year, to see how they did in a formal shooting setting. I figured a low score wouldn't ruin anything; how can you "ruin" the Quigley, anyway? The Quigley isn't so much a shooting match as it is Woodstock for elderly wannabe Buffalo Hunters, with enough prime specimens and youngsters there as well to offer hope that the future won't be all video games, social media and government dependence.

I fired 110 shots total while I was there. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were sight setting and practice, and Saturday and Sunday were the 48 shots of the Match. My home range now is on the Metric System, so I only had a set of WAG interpolations based on 300 and 500 meter zeros, plus the old Ridgecrest 600 yard setting. I was delighted to find there was only a minute of angle difference in one of my informed guesses all the way out to 805 yards. The load was 80 gr Swiss 1F with the 520 gr or thereabouts RRR boolit, patched with Strathmore Tracing paper, 0.0015" thick, and it seemed to knife through the wind gusts and maintain elevations very well.

I used Brent's suggested technique of the wet-with-water bore pig followed by a dry patch. Plain water worked as far as cleaning, but the technique did require wiping some "drool" off the bottom of the barrel at the muzzle, and if I couldn't do that in a timely manner after the relay, it dried out into a crust, and on one occasion formed some rather alarming colored stains on the crown. These cleaned off with the Ballistol/water mixture, but it might be that soluble oil would eliminate them entirely. I may have used the pigs wetter than Brent does, as I wanted all the crud out of the barrel for the next shot.

The first day of the match proper was a disaster score wise, but I was breaking in as a Rangemaster and may have been a little distracted. The next day was quite breezy with strong gusts, but I had apparently gotten some of my mojo back, and the Range duties were now a matter of routine, so I shot as well as could be expected, since I fired at the wrong target at least once. The paper patch load was again performing like on the practice days, with the misses all being windage mistakes, generally over corrections; elevations very consistent. The cleaning routine did not hold the rest of the line up, so I think I will continue with this load and see how I do in the next Silhouette match at home.

The Quigley was huge this time; almost 700 shooters registered. I was impressed with how efficiently the shooting was organized and carried out, given the numbers. Being a Rangemaster was kind of fun after I'd learned the ropes; I got to observe up-close a lot of elegant rifles and study the positions and techniques of the shooters, good and not-so-good. Lots of things to cogitate upon until the next one.

I asked the man and the lady at the GOEX booth on Vendor's Row why they didn't make Olde Eynsford in 1F granulation, and got the impression that it had never occurred to GOEX that it might be salable. Mostly, they were after the Swiss 1-1/2 market. The lady said 16 people had asked that same question, and she would pass it up the corporate ladder. I'd love to try some OE 1F in this loading.

[semtav]

Glad it all worked out for you BR

[Lead pot]

BR.

What squad did you shoot? I was on red F.

the Q conditions are always interesting. LOL. The only thing I have not seen at the Q is a driving snow storm since 05 that I have shot it.

It sure has been a education.

Kurt

[Bent Ramrod]

Lead Pot,

I was on Yellow C. We started on the Buffalo and proceeded to the Buckets, reaching them as the winds got strong the second day. We had to take down the scorekeepers' tents before they could blow down.

This was my sixth Quigley. Even without the unpredictable weather, weird things happen shooting across that coulee. I wouldn't be surprised if the force of gravity changes down there, as well as the air movements.

I'm especially impressed by the way the wind dies down after the horn blows for repainting the targets, and picks back up when the range is cleared for firing. Can't figure out how they do that.

[Lead pot]

The Buff was my last target Sunday and missed the last shot. I knew I was in trouble when I broke the shot as a wind gust pushed me and I saw my sight just in front of the hump over the neck when it went off. The bucket killed me with only two hits. I just could not keep up with the timing with the gusts pushing me all over the place. A lot of right and left misses LOL.

Still finding dust under the wood Next year it will be better
Kurt