Round nose flat point vs. Semi-wadcutter Question

[Dipperman]

If used in the same cartridge, at equal velocity, and approximately the same boolit weight, how does a round nose flat point compare to the semi-wadcutter (Keith type) in effectiveness on game?

Thanks in advance.

Dipperman

[JoeJames]

Per Elmer Keith, round nose zips right through; no stopping power.

[Conditor22]

Per Elmer Keith, round nose zips right through; no stopping power.

this may be true BUT --- he's asking about round nose FLAT point :)

[Wheelguns 1961]

I think it depends on the individual design, or size of the meplat. Bigger meplat, more damage.

[Outpost75]

My experience on deer and hogs has been that in soft 8-10 BHN alloy at subsonic revolver velocity in calibers similar to the .44-40 or .45 Colt, for bullets of the same weight and diameter of meplat, it makes absolutely no difference whatever.

[Tom_in_AZ]

My experience on deer and hogs has been that in soft 8-10 BHN alloy at subsonic revolver velocity in calibers similar to the .44-40 or .45 Colt, for bullets of the same weight and diameter of meplat, it makes absolutely no difference whatever.

I’d tend to agree. I doubt it makes a difference.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Larry Gibson]

My experience on deer and hogs has been that in soft 8-10 BHN alloy at subsonic revolver velocity in calibers similar to the .44-40 or .45 Colt, for bullets of the same weight and diameter of meplat, it makes absolutely no difference whatever.

My experience on deer with the 357, 41 and 44 Magnums with velocity in the 1200 - 1450 fps range it makes no meaningful difference with hard cast or HPs that properly expand bullet either.

[Outpost75]

Graphs generated using MacPherson WTI model for .38 Special+P 158-grain at 940 fps, for full wadcutter, SWC and LRN nose shapes, presuming NO expansion:

264087264088264089

[missionary5155]

The wider the flat the more energy transfer with all else being equal. But if there is only a very small diameter difference in the flats then the target probably will never indicate much difference.
The big overlooked advantage with the SWC is if you will look at it from the nose nearly the whole diameter is flat whereas the FN round nose only has that flat on the nose.
Plus the SWC has a structural advantage. That sub diameter nose sitting out there will expand more rapidly than a RN structure again all other factors being the same.
Mike in LLama Land

[waksupi]

The wider the flat the more energy transfer with all else being equal. But if there is only a very small diameter difference in the flats then the target probably will never indicate much difference.
The big overlooked advantage with the SWC is if you will look at it from the nose nearly the whole diameter is flat whereas the FN round nose only has that flat on the nose.
Plus the SWC has a structural advantage. That sub diameter nose sitting out there will expand more rapidly than a RN structure again all other factors being the same.
Mike in LLama Land

Considering the splash effect, I doubt the shoulder ever touches flesh.

[missionary5155]

Well somewhere down along that wound channel it has to start causing drag / damage.

[Larry Gibson]

"Considering the splash effect, I doubt the shoulder ever touches flesh."

That does seem to be the prevailing theory proffered by proponents of the WFN style of bullet. However, as i mentioned earlier I never have seen any real terminal difference between a hard cast SWC vs a hard cast WFN given the same cartridge, bullet weight and velocity. A quicker death will result from more damage to vital organs. I've read of "improved" terminal performance of the WFN, especially in handgun cartridges. However, as previously stated I have not seen it with numerous deer hunted and deer/livestock "put down" when injured.

Where I have seen a marked difference of improved terminal effectiveness [as in quickness of kill and lessor distance traveled after shot] has been with either bullet cast of softer more malleable alloy that gives proper expansion. Proper expansion provides for more terminal damage, that is a fact that is well known and proven.

[MT Gianni]

Get a copy of Veral Smith's little blue book. His claims are that putting grease on a swc's shoulder and shooting into recoverable material show the shoulder of a swc never even hit paper on a target.
For me the answer is that assuming equal meplates you would get equal results. Most swc's are smaller in the meplate than rf's. Are they enough to do the job? generally yes but it depends on the job you ask it to do. IME, an 80 lb whitetail takes less to kill than a 350 lb cow elk.

[megasupermagnum]

Get a copy of Veral Smith's little blue book. His claims are that putting grease on a swc's shoulder and shooting into recoverable material show the shoulder of a swc never even hit paper on a target.
For me the answer is that assuming equal meplates you would get equal results. Most swc's are smaller in the meplate than rf's. Are they enough to do the job? generally yes but it depends on the job you ask it to do. IME, an 80 lb whitetail takes less to kill than a 350 lb cow elk.

I've been trying to buy his book for 2 years. The guy refuses to answer a phone or email. I can promise you the shoulder on a SWC touches the paper. That's why the SWC exists! It cuts a clean, full diameter hole in paper just like a wadcutter.

Does it touch meat in an animal? I'm not so sure about that one. From what I'm finding, the nose on a RNFP and your Elmer Keith SWC are pretty much the same in all calibers. All being around that 65%-70% ish range. Of course there are thousands of variations of each, it's hard to generalize.

I have little experience hunting with hard cast, solid, non-expanding bullets. I wasn't impressed with them. Many disagree with me. Lots of proponents of the WFN, but when I saw what a 357 mag did compared to a 44 mag, both with Keith SWC's, I just didn't see much difference in the wound on a whitetail. That's a .250" meplat vs a .275" meplat.

[Norske]

When I showed a former muzzle loader and BPC shooter and hunter the slightly concave wide nose on the Lee 44cal 305gr bullet, he was impressed. He predicted that bullet's sharp edge at its nose would grab soft tissue for a bigger wound channel, and of course it is heavy enough to break bone.

[PositiveCaster]

Considering the splash effect, I doubt the shoulder ever touches flesh.

Back in the 1990s, Ross Seyfried tested this in one of the slicks (Guns & Ammo?). He mixed up pails of jello filled with sand and fired both LFN and SWC bullets (.45”?) painted with black paint into the gel. The photos definitively showed that the SWC shoulders had no abrasion, they were still covered with paint. The noses of all bullets were void of paint. At the test velocity, the SWC shoulder didn’t touch anything, indicating that wounding is performed by the bullet’s nose.



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[quilbilly]

My own terminal ballistics test showed that, while the RNFP penetrate slightly farther, the difference isn't meaningful.

[Dipperman]

I would like to express my sincere appreciation and thanks to everyone who responded to my question. Your responses have been very informative and helpful.

Thank you all very much,
Dipperman

[Chihuahua Floyd]

As the real answer is bullet placement, the rest is to close to argue about. Put either one in the right place, dead is dead.
CF

[Wolfer]

I too have always questioned whether the shoulder did any work. However I can say that my 454-424 cut a clean 45 cal hole at the entrance on deer.
The lee 452-255RF has the same meplat “.320 “ and cuts about the same hole just not as clean as the semi wadcutter.
Like others have said I can’t tell a difference in terminal performance.
With a small cup HP in either blood trails are better if/ when it exits but terminal performance remains about the same.

For the record I deer hunt with the NOE copy of the Lee with a cup Hp. Performance has been excellent on several deer. I see no reason to change.

[waksupi]

I too have always questioned whether the shoulder did any work. However I can say that my 454-424 cut a clean 45 cal hole at the entrance on deer.
The lee 452-255RF has the same meplat “.320 “ and cuts about the same hole just not as clean as the semi wadcutter.
Like others have said I can’t tell a difference in terminal performance.
With a small cup HP in either blood trails are better if/ when it exits but terminal performance remains about the same.

For the record I deer hunt with the NOE copy of the Lee with a cup Hp. Performance has been excellent on several deer. I see no reason to change.

There has to be a diameter size hole on entry, on game or paper. A bullet doesn't shrink as it flies.

[megasupermagnum]

There has to be a diameter size hole on entry, on game or paper. A bullet doesn't shrink as it flies.

Not true at all. I've seen 50 caliber bullets make about a 1/4" entry hole, and the exit wasn't much bigger. That was a sharp pointed spitzer bullet in a muzzleloader that failed to expand. Hide and meat are very elastic.

[farmbif]

with the 30-30 being responsible for probably a majority of dead deer in North America I would think its very likely that the 311291 will work equally as well as the 311041

[Piedmont]

Back in the 1990s, Ross Seyfried tested this in one of the slicks (Guns & Ammo?). He mixed up pails of jello filled with sand and fired both LFN and SWC bullets (.45”?) painted with black paint into the gel. The photos definitively showed that the SWC shoulders had no abrasion, they were still covered with paint. The noses of all bullets were void of paint. At the test velocity, the SWC shoulder didn’t touch anything, indicating that wounding is performed by the bullet’s nose.



.
So if you hunt pails of jello the shoulder doesn't matter. Think about what you aim to hit shooting at a deer. Are those areas homogenous and jello like? Ever hit a bone? What then?

By the way Brian Pearce firmly believes the shoulder cuts in big game and has both shot and butchered piles of game with both types.

[swheeler]

Not true at all. I've seen 50 caliber bullets make about a 1/4" entry hole, and the exit wasn't much bigger. That was a sharp pointed spitzer bullet in a muzzleloader that failed to expand. Hide and meat are very elastic.

Yep, I've shot deer with a 220 fmj hornady out of 06, in and out both looked to be less than 30 cal, nice clean eatin meat though.

[GLynn41]

deer I have shot with the 410459 left cookie cutter holes in hide and shoulder blade. Also in the messing around I have done the Saeco 230 .411 does not tend to cookie cut but the 410459 does, so it seems that the diameter of the first shoulder band might have something to do with the end hole. I love the Keith, but my biggest hole cutter is a two .33 meplat WLNGC-- I have now have a NOE keith with a .31 meplat and a good shoulder-- we will see how it does.

[curioushooter]

I take my observations from two sources.

1) I butcher deer semi-professionally with my wife during the season. Not only do I butcher my own, but from about a dozen other people every year. So I see a lot of wounds. Where I live pistol calibers are popular (they were legally required until recently) and so are muzzloaders. Friendship, Indiana is Muzzloader capital of the world, basically. Shotguns were popular too until the last few years.

2) From research personally conducted on calibrated gelatin.

There is very little observable difference between round nosed and flat nosed projectiles at normal handgun velocities, basically. On gelatin it is almost indistinguishable. I have a 158 grain RCBS SWCGC and a 158 grain SAECO roundnose. Using the exact same charges in both 357 and 38 special fired from my 4" model 19 I could hardly tell any difference. In both cases the bullets zippled straight through 28" of gel. The flat nose does seem to do a little more damage in the initial few inches, but it is really almost negligible. Hollowpoints are a different ball game.

On actual animals the difference is slightly more observable. Flat nosed projectiles seem to crush up a little more meat in the wound channel whereas round nose sort of "pushes" it out the way more. In both cases though it does leave a hole, roughly caliber sized, as these projectiles do not expand.

Now, I've seen wounds from 12 gauge lee slugs moving at about 1700 FPS at impact. Despite having an almost spherical nose, these things DO smash into a sort of fat pancake shape leaving an enormous 1" or so hole in the animal. I've never observed slugs impacting at lower handgun type velocities so I don't know what to about that. These are cast of nearly pure lead.

For me I prefer flat noses for other reasons. 1) flat nosed top punches have a lot more surface area on the bullet and don't mark it up when you lubricate/size. 2) Larger bullets can be loaded in revolvers since it wont go too far forward of the cylinder. 3) If you shoot paper the wadcutter or semi-wadcutter usually leaves a nicer hole.

[ddixie884]

Good info. I can see both sides. I have always used long SWCs as I am a definite Grey Beard. I haven't used WFN on game but many who have swear by them.

[curioushooter]

SWCs and RNFPs designs like LFN, WFN are basically the same except for the shoulder and the size of the meplat. The difference in meplat is usually less than 15% in a given caliber, so I am not sure why anybody would expect radically different performance.

Roundnose is a different profile, so I could imagine there would be differences, but my observations do not bear out much difference.

One performance difference I've noticed is flight.

Ketih type SWCs, RN, RNFP, etc...these a pretty good at maintaining stable flight at extended ranges and as they cross the transonic zone (which is an issue with magnum handungs which start off super sonic but often fall to below subsonic at practical ranges). Full-Wadcutters, though very accurate at short ranges, just fall apart stability wise at pretty near ranges. I've seen them start to tumble and keyhole at only 30 yards or so.

I like the solid Ketih-type SWC in larger bores probably best of all because it is so versatile. It cuts a nice hole in paper, has adequate weight to pass through basically any game, is not so heavy it is brutish to shoot, are usually accurate, have stable long range aerodynamics, and can be loaded to mousfart and magnum power levels and works well in both. Really, what more do you want? Gas checks are helpful sometimes, and especially with hollowpoints or when pressures get high, and thats where Ray Thompson designs come in.

I prefer RNFPs in medium bore handguns and rifles. The MP 359 hammer (which is basically a WFN pattern) with gas check is an outstanding bullet in both my M19 and Marlin.

I would never think of using a 30 caliber or smaller without a gas check. Cleaning lead from a barrel that narrow is a chore. All my 30 caliber molds are checked and RNFPs.