Keith SWC vs. RNFP

[StrikerHayes]

Just thought I would pipe in. I didn't see anyone mention the reason Keith designed the bullets the way did and that is simply to help misaligned cylinder throats with the barrel.

In that fact alone these bullets have a tremendous advantage over the LBT. I shoot both. I like both, but if you ever have trouble with an LBT style bullet shooting well , it may very well be you have slightly off centered lock up/alignment. Just recover some bullets and you can easily see if you bullet is hitting on one side. The true Keith bullet ( not semi-wadcutters) will align itself without deforming one side, the nice thing about that driving band.

Whether it cuts a full caliber hole or not I think is a not worth fighting over. As a bullet slows it will no doubtly start to cut on the driving band, but in reality velocity is what
will determine tissue damage and not the meplat. I've done a great deal of testing
with black powder using 45 Colt balloon head cases and 300 WFN's. I can achieve 975-1000fps with 40 gr of Swiss 3fg, a real boomer. However on a pig hunt, it took 4 solid lung shots to drop a 200 pound sow. But out of my Ruger with the same bullet at 1300 fps, the damage is extensive and immediate. But so is a 315 Keith at 1300 - 1400 fps.

Even Veral Smith will admit you need to shoot over 1400 fps to get his style of bullets to stabilize properly. And they will. A 265 WFN at 1800 from my Marlin will
drop those stubby's right into an 8" plate at 200 yards all day. But not from a Ruger Blawkhawk at 1200, they go everywhere. That same Blawkhawk will with a Keith bullet.

I like them both and use them both, but the reality is Keith did not design the bullet
to cut full caliber holes in either game or paper.

By the way Brian Pearce is as honest as they come and cut from the no nonsense
cloth Keith was. You all need to give him the respect he deserves.

Adios

[Cayoot]

By the way Brian Pearce is ... cut from the no nonsense cloth Keith was. You all need to give him the respect he deserves.

That's a pretty tall statement Buddy. I don't mean to impune your knowldge, nor Mr. Pearces' character, but by your making that statement, I get the strong impression that you have never read the story of Elmers' life.

I personally don't believe that any one in our generation was cut from the same cloth as our fore-fathers who grew up in the early to mid 1900's.

They are not refered to as "The Greatest Generation" lightly.

My respect for my Grandfather, Elmer Keith, and all the other men and women of that generation is far too deep to allow me to sit by and let your statement go unchallenged.

[35remington]

Striker, your claim for Keith bullets aiding in cylinder/barrel alignment in revolvers doesn't necessarily hold water. .

It's true the front band can rest centered in the cylinder throats when the round is chambered and this was a design feature, but the front band doesn't necessarily align square with the barrel after coming out of a misaligned cylinder.

A wide front band does engage the rifling and helps the bullet turn rather than try to ride straight ahead, but this is a characteristic that addresses the momentum of the heavy bullet, not poor cylinder alignment. Poor cylinder/barrel alignment will hurt Keith accuracy severely. As it will any bullet. It is claimed that the LBT designs have considerable surface out of the case and also have positive cylinder throat alignment.

Interestingly, I've heard the inverse being claimed - a bullet with a rounded ogive and no shoulder will align more positively in the misaligned cylinder/barrel because there's no prominent, sharp square shoulder to catch and snag - the smoother shape, it was claimed, guided into the forcing cone like water through a funnel. This makes as much or more sense than the "SWC shoulder centering theory" as the smooth surface of the rounded ogive bullet would appear to be more conducive to being guided by the forcing cone even if off center, but I ain't having any of it.

All I know for sure is that poor cylinder/barrel alignment makes accuracy suck, and a Keith ain't a cure.

[Gohon]

I personally don't believe that any one in our generation was cut from the same cloth as our fore-fathers who grew up in the early to mid 1900's.

Every generation makes that statement about their parents generation. Keith probable swore the same thing about his fathers generation. I suspect also that Keith would shake his head and have a hardy laugh if he heard some of the things he is credited with doing. I certainly wouldn't want to tell those kids patrolling the streets of Baghdad that they are not from the same cloth as those that landed on Normandy. I think we have a lot of people cut from the same cloth as Keith and most likely Keith would be the first to admire their knowledge and accomplishments.

[Cayoot]

Every generation makes that statement about their parents generation.

You may be right Gohon, but more likely the truth in your response is based on the fact that each generation has had their lives made a bit easier by the generation preceding it. From the big stuff like discovering the new world, conquering the wild west, invading Normandy etc, to the small stuff, like not having to hunt for each meal, not having to cut and chop fire wood to stay warm and cook (just a bit harder than turning up the thermostate and turning on the microwave eh?), to haveing modern communications and medicine.

"The metal of a man is purified only in fire" they say.

Well, the fires burn pretty low these days, modern day-to-day life is very easy when compared to life only 50 or 60 years ago. Now we don't even have to get out of our easy chairs to change the channel!

[Heavy lead]

Read this thread again. Interesting, I like all boolits, they are all cool. Basically all of us our wimps, the whole lot of us for the last 2000 years plus. Imagine the struggles of the neandrathal, using spears to kill mastadons. As for Brian Pearce, I don't know him, or obviously Elmer, so I only can give them the benefit of doubt as far as character, but I do know I like to read both of their stuff, and enjoy Brian as much as any other modern writer and much more than most.

[Cayoot]

I agree, I really enjoy Brian's writings.

[loosecannon]

Ross Seyfried did a test years ago for G&A mag that compared the effect of the WFN to the Keith bullets in balistic gelatin that was mixed with some sand. The purpose was to shine the part of the bullets that were moving the gelatin aside without changing the gelatin's reactive characteristics significantly. They determined
(right, wrong, or indifferent), that the shoulder of the Keith was not doing this, but rather that the widest part of its nose was. Because of this, and the penetrating qualities of the WFN, they thought that the WFN was a superior projectile. This is not shooting critters, but was at least somewhat scientific. I like to design WFNs about twice their caliber in length, based on the tests and work of other shooters much wiser than I. But I dont necessarily expect them to be superior to Keiths.

[cajun shooter]

Growing up in the 60's I would read every thing I could about guns. Using that word "GUN" got me in trouble in 1965 with a very p-off drill sergeant. I had the honor of meeting Elmer Keith at a huge gun show in Baton Rouge,La. After shaking his hand I was so star struck that I forgot everything I wanted to say. This man along with others such as Lee Jurus and others are the reason that we have something different to shoot. When I first started, if you bought a box of 38 spl at the store the salesman would hand you a box with the 158 RN. That was it, if you told them you wanted something different they would hand you a box of 200gr RN. It's nice to have all the choices we have. Even so many that we can have a forum about which is best.

[Boomer Mikey]

The steel critters I hunt at the silhouette range don't care what style boolit I use as long as I hit them hard enough.

I like the Keith's for anything in 357, 44, and 45 caliber at close range... 100 yards or less. No messing with gas checks and forgiving in the casting, loading and load development departments at reasonable pressures.

For me... the long range attributes of the LFN & WFN designs 45 2.1 created for us with Keith features (large meplate, deep square lube groove, and 3 driving bands) are absolutely the best boolits available. The 640 series molds with their large meplate and round nose radius feed better, fly better, and hit harder. Gas check versions let us extend pistol cartridge power levels to rifle level ballistics providing amazing versatility.




The Keith designs are excellent; however, I like the LFN/WFN designs with Keith design features best.

BTW... the first picture is the 413640 225 grain 41 Magnum bullet.

Boomer

[pls1911]

Lots of good commentary here, but the bottom line is that the critter won't care... .44 or .45 big bullet fast or slow, placed properly will drop 'em in their tracks. Period.
I've shot .357's .41s, .44s and .45s, heavy or light, fast or slow.

Give me a something easy on the body, and fun to shoot well.... say, a Blackhawk in 45 colt with a ww or softer 255 RNFP with 9-10 gr. unique at 900-ish fps, and you have a slap-dead critter, whatever you're pointing at. Life is that easy.
Boom plop. Done with fancy, it just works. I love it.

[curioushooter]

The edge of a semi wadcutter is useless for anything but paper.

You want to see some SWCs I've recovered from being caught in sand? The shoulder is still there, and after passing through 1/2" of plywood, too. I'd love to show some from gel, but I've never recovered a solid 44 bullet of any weight or velocity I've tested...even SAMMI spec 44 special loads put a solid through 28" of gel block every time!

My gel testing has consistently demosntrated that at normal handgun impact velocites (<1400 FPS) solid bullets regardless of shape basically make a caliber sized hole in gel.

Flat nosed bullets seem to make a more impressive "temporary cavity" or impact zone, but nothing like a hollopoint does.

I think the difference between meplat size or RNFP vs SWC of the same caliber is almost immaterial inside practical parameters of, under 100 yards, under 1400 FPS MV, and made of lead-alloy solid construction. I like both and really I've not noticed that SWCs make a substantially nicer hole in paper. What matters more is what the paper target is backed with. I do think that for whatever reason SWCs seem to be more forgiving in the accuracy department. I've never had an Keith style SWC that isn't at least reasonably accurate (and I've done 38s and 44s). Then again Keith always specified standard or slightly heavy-for-caliber weights for his bullets and I think that has a lot to do with accuracy in revolvers.

[curioushooter]

Blackhawk in 45 colt with a ww or softer 255 RNFP with 9-10 gr. unique at 900-ish fps, and you have a slap-dead critter,

This is true...~900 FPS at IMPACT and you have a dead critter with a big bore solid standard weight for caliber bullet like you describe. Under 50 yards there is little difference I think. But if you are serious about handgun hunting you are at least practicing 100 yard shots and taking 50-75 yard shots. If you start out that leisurely of a pace the bullet is going at very unimpressive velocities at range and often drops a surprising amount quite abruptly making ranging and elevation compensation very difficult. There is a reason why Keith and others that were interested in long range handgunning liked to push things up to 1200 FPS or greater even though they definitely undrestood that such velocity didn't contribute much towards terminal efficacy.

I like MVs to be at least ~1050 FPS so that at 100 yards I am not aiming a foot above the deer and I have confidence it will push on through to the other side. I am just not good enough to go beyond that with iron sights, so I feel like 1200 FPS is a bit overkill. 1200 FPS will keep a Keith SWC, for example, nearly flat to 75 yards with about a half foot of drop at 100. It really starts to slide after that. Starting a 900 is flat to about 60 yards and then is almost a foot of drop at 100.