Backward boolit question

[Starvnhuntr]

has anybody here ever tried seating boolits backwards to create a kind of flat point boat tail boolit. It seems to me if this would work you would have the widest meplat available. and it seems that it would be one heck of a way to get a nasty wound channel.

[Echo]

Just use a wadcutter. They are available in about any caliber you wish. I would be afraid that the long ogive on a boolit would lead to gascutting. And don't figure on any more than 100 yards out of them.

[olafhardt]

Just use a wadcutter. They are available in about any caliber you wish. I would be afraid that the long ogive on a boolit would lead to gascutting. And don't figure on any more than 100 yards out of them.

Wadcutters are not all that aviable. A lot of us load hollow base and minie balls backwards. A boolit that will knock the stuffings out of close up targets has its uses. Try it and see. Let us know the results. Startt low and work up. Reversed boolits can use up a lot of powder space.

[Lead Fred]

I have a gizmo that cuts the tips off of boat tails to uniform the lengths OR enlarge the metplat.
Got no reason or want to ever stuff one in backaswards.

[bobthenailer]

Seating SWC nose first was covered by Verl Smith (LBT ) in one edtion of his books.
I personaly & some women friends have shot a few thousand 38specials loaded that way , there accurate and you dont need hearing protection , i belive i used 1.0 to 1.5 gr of BE & a 158 gr swc @500 fps
if you have a 180 gr bullet it will be even quieter also dont load up alot try a few first to see if they stick in the barrel and use a short barrel of at least 4" or less i used a 2.5" S&W 66.

[jaysouth]

Seating SWC nose first was covered by Verl Smith (LBT ) in one edtion of his books.
I personaly & some women friends have shot a few thousand 38specials loaded that way , there accurate and you dont need hearing protection , i belive i used 1.0 to 1.5 gr of BE & a 158 gr swc @500 fps
if you have a 180 gr bullet it will be even quieter also dont load up alot try a few first to see if they stick in the barrel and use a short barrel of at least 4" or less i used a 2.5" S&W 66.

I am curious. At that level of pressure/velocity, what advantage do you gain from seating backwards?

Having no other projectiles to play with at that moment, I once seated some M-80 ball rounds backwards in a .30-30 at standard velocity for a 30-30. It shot OK and fed OK in a lever action but was not as accurate as the other end up.

[Jack Stanley]

Many years ago I had an H&R break open rifle , the "Topper" I think it was with a nasty chamber . It was supposed to used 30WCF but it must have been done with a bad reamer because though the cases looked like 30 WCF . They weren't close enough to what came out of an old Marlin and Remington that I'd call normal .

To make some surprisingly accurate short range loads I loaded M-80 ball backwards into a partially sized case . If I remember the powder was unique and I wasn't trying for full power . The bullets seated out just off the rifling and it worked real well I imagine it would have been rough on woodchucks had I found one to test it on .

Jack

[dragon]

It does work and is interesting. Elmer Kieth wrote about loading mil surp FMJ backwards for hunting when other bullets weren't available. There is an interesting article on The Box-O-Truth (http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot50.htm). It does test FMJ and not cast though. I would also be concerned about gas cutting and leading on cast, but with a good fit it might not be a problem. Try it and watch for leading :)

[Jupiter7]

I believe the .50 Alaskan was developed this way. With a 50bmg fmj cut I'm half and loaded soft side out. I've read of other doing it in 300blackout with 147gr pulls.

[groovy mike]

has anybody here ever tried seating boolits backwards to create a kind of flat point boat tail boolit. It seems to me if this would work you would have the widest meplat available. and it seems that it would be one heck of a way to get a nasty wound channel.

Yes, its a very old idea. Accuracy suffers though.

[dragon]

The couple of tests that were done at the link I posted above showed very little degradation in group size... far more than acceptable for hunting purposes. Expansion in water wasn't too bad either, but a few broke apart.

[Harter66]

I read an artical about a fellow using double ended wadcutters seated out as far as the throats allowed in revolvers ,or nominal lengths. 50yds was about all they'd do before tumbling. I explored a double ended SWC for a minute but the cost to try what may have been a fools errend and the heckling soured me on it.
The point would have been to keep the Keith like nose and get a rebated boattail.

[rmatchell]

I have loaded a lyman 452460 backwards in 45 colt using unique. they tumbled rather fast but still hit paper.

[Echo]

Loading HB WC's backwards is a bad idea - Stout loads will tend to blow the base out through the hollows, leaving a bbl obstruction - not a good thing. They look great, but . . .

[Starvnhuntr]

the reason I asked this question is because I was casting some boolits out of a saeco mold # 017. It is a 350gr. round nose flat point with a gas check. when I was inspecting them as they came out of the mold I noticed that the base kind of resembled a wad cutter and thus the idea of a backward loaded boolit with a heck of a meplat and a boatail.

[bobthenailer]

I am curious. At that level of pressure/velocity, what advantage do you gain from seating backwards?

Having no other projectiles to play with at that moment, I once seated some M-80 ball rounds backwards in a .30-30 at standard velocity for a 30-30. It shot OK and fed OK in a lever action but was not as accurate as the other end up.

The advantage is to have the quiest load in a pistol and still have good accuracy to at least of 25 feet
Like i said you don't need hearing protection outdoors as there is no crack just a bang

[oldpapps]

Over the years I have loaded several bullets backwards.

Hollow based wad cutters in .38 Spec - case volume is reduced and the loading must be adjusted for this. 'Dem demn thangs is soft laid, da gona slick de berrel!' I also found that stability was poor and they actually are not as nasty on target as one would think.

110/111 grain .30 cal GI carbine bullets, FMJ and hard - I ended up with a lot of these at one time. I tried them in several weapons, both normal and with the bullets reversed. The only usable cartridge, I was happy with, was in 30-30s at low to mid velocities. Reversed they would open up a little, hard nose forward, just punch through.

Overall, bullets were designed with a profile for a reason and work better that way. Other than just playing or trying to over come a deficiency in the bullet like the wrong bullet for the job, loading properly will work best.

Load with care,

OSOK