Why no pointed bullet molds ?

[Wolfdog91]

Hmm this is all expreamy interesting

[quilbilly]

I have had only one spire style mold. It was in 257 caliber. The accuracy of that boolit was underwhelming compared to a semi-pointed or round nose boolits of nearly the same weight at the same MV.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

So I've been looking at various moulds to buy and u was curious ,why isn't there any pointed molds in certain calibers ? Like seems all the .224 molds are semi wad cutters. Why is that ?

Lots of good comments so far.
Bottom line is, there are pointy molds out there in all calibers, you just have to look. They aren't popular, so they aren't numerous.

[Iowa Fox]

Lyman 429303 and its 357 counterpart are pointed. They made sizing stems to fit them to use in their 450 and seating stems for the Lyman seating die. I have the set ups for the 44 & 357. I don't shoot many but cast hard they give good penetration when I need it.

[bigjake]

I have a NOE 311-199-SP-K5 It is a really sharp bullet. I PC it, gas check it and dip the bottom half in 45-45-10 lube, then load them pretty hot for an ar 10. they shoot plenty good for any battle someone could be in for sure. they shoot better than 7.62x51/.308 ball ammo.

[redhawk0]

I have an OLD...Ideal 225450 mold that produces 48gr pointed boolit. I have sent them down the barrel of my 22-250 on occasion. I have to admit though...I don't use them much. I prefer 55gr pointed jacketed better.

redhawk

[WinchesterM1]

Attachment 259803

I shoot this a lot out of my 300blk

[Win94ae]

There's different types of pointed bullets, in this thread there's several different things going on.

In the quoted post above, that bullet has an extremely strong pointed bullet design being only 3r which is actually called a round nosed bullet.
The bullet has a short tangent ogive not the typical long spitzer style secant ogive.

Yes, I use the 160gr pointed round nose in my AK at 1800fps with great results, I also use the RCBS 7.62-130-SPL in my 30-30 at 2300fps. They are pointed, they work passed transonic flight with no problems. I've never had a problem with any cast bullets, that wasn't actually a problem with twist, or jump, or whatnot. Shot the AK at 600, the 45-70 at 350, and the 30-30 at 350; no problems whatsoever.

[John Boy]

Who made these 224 molds. All the Ideal molds ever made, there was not one 224 nominal mold made

[Texas by God]

In the OP semi wad cutter .224” moulds are mentioned. Other than Some Remington .22 LR styles( Yellow Jacket) I’ve never seen a .224” SWC.

[Forrest r]

Yes, I use the 160gr pointed round nose in my AK at 1800fps with great results, I also use the RCBS 7.62-130-SPL in my 30-30 at 2300fps. They are pointed, they work passed transonic flight with no problems. I've never had a problem with any cast bullets, that wasn't actually a problem with twist, or jump, or whatnot. Shot the AK at 600, the 45-70 at 350, and the 30-30 at 350; no problems whatsoever.

Nice, glad to see you like using 2r/3r bullets that are pointed.
Never thought of using an ak for testing the accuracy of different bullets/cast bullets.
If you can't tell the difference in the accuracy of your loads between supersonic and after they go transonic, that's called a clue.

[Good Cheer]

500 grains, swaged from soft lead, but cast could do the job. My brother's MOA load is 1800FPS.

[Dan Cash]

I shoot the Lee 500gr Spitzer, they shoot great.

Stretch that range out to 8 or 900 and your joy will probably be reduced.

[M-Tecs]

Stretch that range out to 8 or 900 and your joy will probably be reduced.

I've never really thought about this a lot other than I have never been able to get them to shoot at distance. It's been long enough since I did direct comparisons and I really don't remember how they performed at 100 and 200 yards but they must have shown promise since I did test them at 300, 600 and 1,000 yards. I do remember seeing a measurable difference at 300. At a 1,000 they were not close to being competitive to the Postell or Creedmoor designs. Same for everyone else that I was aware of that tried them for distance. Even with the better BC I opted to give up on them and followed the common believe it was bullet slump. Thinking about it now if it was bullet slump it should show at all yardages?

Just a thought. It might be as simple as what Hornady discovered with their Doppler Radar and plastic points. Might it be as simple as the pointy bullets tips get hot from air friction? Doesn't have to be hot enough to melt just hot enough to weaken the point and the spin does the rest.

Bottom line is I am not aware of any top competitors using them so the apparent lesser accuracy is offsetting any wind drift benefits. If they work well at longer ranges the competitors would be using them.

[Forrest r]

Raw accuracy, plinking accuracy, good enough for me accuracy, 1800fps

These seem to be the common theme in this thread. The op asked about pointed bullets/lack of pointed bullet molds. At the end of the day they are out there. It really comes down to what you want and what performance level you'll accept.

The 45/70 keeps coming up in this thread, excellent!!!! This proves the us didn't buy into a $600 hammer 100+ years ago when it adopted the cartridge for it's small arms. 1800fps & a 45/70 bullet: It's advantage is what's know and momentum, simply put it has mo mentum then smaller caliber lighter bullets. A +/- 500gr bullet in a 45/70 (1800fps) will have less drop (+/- 8") @ 200yds compared to a 224" cast bullet doing 1800fps. That same 45/70 bullet will stay supersonic out to 400yds+ while the .224" bullet is done at around 200yds.

+/- 1800fps keep coming up, more likely then not it's the threshold of the bullet design, the equipment, alloys. With careful casting, sorting, case prep, quality firearm moa @ 100yds is actually easy to do with cast bullets. I've showed this target before, it's the lee tl-160gr 2r bullet doing 2600fps+ 10-shot group ( 1 1/2").
[IMG][/IMG]

Same bullet slowed down to 1900fps + 10-shot group moa
[IMG][/IMG]

What both those targets have in common besides the same bullet/rifle is:
I only did a visual inspection of the bullets, used home made gc's made out of al, used mixed nato brass (+/-8 different head stamps). I'm sure the groups for both loads would be cut down in size if I did weight sorting and used brass from the same lots. Anyway MOA 1800fps 10-shot groups, big deal!!!! It's not hard to shoot 10-shot moa groups (+/- 1800fps) @ 100yds with cast bullets. Step up the velocity or shrink the groups down to 1/2 moa, now it's game on.

Heck 40 years ago Eagan molds were the rage. The designs were for raw accuracy & none of them had pointy noses/tips. A typical Eagan design that has a 5/32 flat nose
[IMG][/IMG]
Eagan designed a smaller version of that bullet .224" in diameter that has a 1/8" flat nose

A couple of years ago several members on this website got together and designed a bullet in 30cal with velocity/accuracy in mind. NEO makes the mold for that design & it has all the specs
http://noebulletmolds.com/NV/product...oducts_id=3244

Myself I've never did anything with cast .224" bullets, looked at the 22 hornet & 222rem, kicked the tires a little bit but never went down that road. Always stuck with the 30cals for some reason. There's a lot of good threads out there with casters doing excellent things with their cast .224 bullets. I wish there were more threads with .224" cast bullets.