Possible to swage deformed Nosler partition tips bsck to pointed?

[Tripplebeards]

I’m sure it’s not going to affect accuracy that much or not at all but they bug me. I recently traded some bullets back and forth for these. They are .308, 180 grain Nosler partition golds. My gun shot them very well with an old box I had laying around so I grabbed theses up. When they arrived they were moly coated. I would have blamed the deformed tips on pin tumbling off the moly but ALL the tips looked EXACTLY the same before pin tumbling. My worry is AOL seating. The tips are all mushroomed so when I go to to seat them by rights they will be seated out further. I guess I can always keep one loaded cartridge laying around to adjust my seater doe down to? They were beat but pretty good in the box that was shipped to me and the Nosler box had been squished. I’m sure years of getting knocked around and shipping did a number on them. Any ideas how to fix or “swage them back to the original pointed tips?

https://i.imgur.com/xEBl3Y2.jpg

[JimB..]

Seating stem shouldn’t index on the tip, so OAL will be fine both in terms of case capacity and how the bullet engages the rifling. It’ll measure wrong from the tip, but not from the ogive.

Those kinda look like pulls to me.

[Tripplebeards]

I’ve pin tumbled these same bullets before with zero nose deformation and inspected all the noses before I tumbled them. They all were bent like this. That would make sense that they were pulled. I’ve dented a few noses with my kinetic bullet puller doing the same in the past. I measure AOL from the tip of the bullet when I seat my bullets. I do own a hornady comparator headspace kit. I might have to see if it’s possible to measure the OAL from the ojive with this kit and then mark down the measurement in my load book for future seating reference.

[ReloaderFred]

They look like pulled bullets to me, too. The mushroomed tips look like they were pulled with an impact bullet puller, with nothing to cushion the tips.

All my rifle seating dies contact the bullet on the ogive when seating, so I think you'll be OK as far as case volume. They won't be pretty, but they'll probably be alright, as long as you're not trying to shoot these at 1,000 yards...;-)

Hope this helps.

Fred

[Tripplebeards]

Well my gun was shooting a third of an inch group with the bullets without deformation. I wonder how the tips will affect the groups? Live and learn I guess. Traded with a guy from another forum. Getting traders remorse.

[JimB..]

The lines on the bullets below the ogive are why I think they are pulls. The damage to the tips seems too consistent to be from an uncushioned impact puller, maybe they were loaded with the wrong seating stem and that scrunched them.

I guess the “how” of it doesn’t much matter. Your buyers remorse seems warranted. Shoot a group and lets see if it’s so bad that you want to try adjusting them.

[Omega]

Can't you "sharpen" them? You know, shave the mushroom off? I would think the mushroom would affect the flight characteristics of each bullet differently spreading out your group.

[MUSTANG]

Yes, If they were mine I would run them through my 8s .308 swage dies; or through a Corbin .308 Nose pointing die to "Cure" the flattened points. Unfortunately for most they do not swage given the high cost of entry.

[Tripplebeards]

The person said the box was sealed....even though it was open. None of the regular partitions that were sent had deformed tips. He was thinking the moly process from nosler Might have caused it. ....So imo that means tuff luck. I l
Might try and rub them gently along a piece of cardboard to knock off the mushroomed edge. Wonder how a pencil sharper would do? Nosler told me there was a 2 to 3 grains variance in these so if I removed a little lead I'd be ok.

[Tripplebeards]

He just sent me a photo of some 7mm moly golds he has(unless he had a photo of mine before he sent them). They had deformed mushroom tips exactly the same as mine. So l would assume it was cause by the moly process because my “non” moly gold tips are not deformed.

[Omega]

The person said the box was sealed....even though it was open. None of the regular partitions that were sent had deformed tips. He was thinking the moly process from nosler Might have caused it. ....So imo that means tuff luck. I l
Might try and rub them gently along a piece of cardboard to knock off the mushroomed edge. Wonder how a pencil sharper would do? Nosler told me there was a 2 to 3 tenths variance in these so if I removed a little lead I'd be ok.
Yea, that is what I would do, at least to a couple and weigh the difference between before and after, then between the two after. One of the large pencil, hand held pencil sharpeners should be able to shave the tip without touching the copper.

[Winger Ed.]

I wonder how the tips will affect the groups? Live and learn I guess.

There was an article I read about tips somewhere years ago. I can't remember where it was.
They had photos of a rifle bullet exiting the barrel, and the Lead tip had sloughed back from the acceleration.
It looked like it had been cut off even with the nose of the jacket.

With that in mind, if your speeds are on up there in the mid-high 2000's or faster, the dinged up tips won't matter.

[Omega]

Sounds like a great range project, load a few as is and shave some and see if there is much of a difference and let us know. I did a simple test like that with some Barnes 110grn 300Blk seconds that had the ballistic tip seated wrong. Ended up finding out that, at 100 yards, the ones which I had fixed the tips shot a bit better than the ones loaded as is but both were within minute of deer. I just drilled holes into a block of delrin I have and used a small brass hammer to tap the back of the bullet forcing the tip into the hole a bit straightening it out. Worked like a charm, but very tedious doing 500 like that.

[Tripplebeards]

I grabbed a 2 pack of piranha pencil sharpers from the $1 store today. I had to push the bullet in an empty case to get it in far enouh to sharpen. Then I tried my finger nail to see of there were any high spots. Lastly, I rubbed it across some paper. About 5 minutes spent on 1.
Not perfect but imo turned out pretty nice. The one in the case below is done vs before on the right. Looks like I found a project while watching a good horror movie tonight!


https://i.imgur.com/Ky8IYYl.jpg

[Tripplebeards]

Little over an hours time but they are all done.

https://i.imgur.com/MVNSQ86.jpg

[Winger Ed.]

They're definitely worth saving. Last time I looked... The price on Partitians is higher than giraffe lips.

[Tripplebeards]

Yep, and these are the “golds” that have a steel partition in them. Wondering if the “line” is caused from where steel partition sits? I know it is more far forward than the normal partition. They were about a 25% higher in price, or more, way back on the day then normal partitions. Pulled out my old box of them I had laying around and got lucky with trying only “one” load with the first group shooting .3” at at 100 yards ...and the next group clover leafed with the same load. The guy I traded sent along 20 regular partitions of the same weight to try. I’m hoping they shoot as good so I don’t have to scramble to look for more discontinued bullets.

Here an old midway ad. You can see the same line through the bullet. I would say it’s where the steel partition is joined…

https://i.imgur.com/Q6TbjcG.png

And an old photo I found off the Internet of a 150 grain version recovered on a deer at 2800 FPS.

https://i.imgur.com/8EXcoNV.jpg

[Tripplebeards]

Here’s the article about the deformed bullet tips from Handloader magazine using .308, 180 grain Nosler partitions believe it or not….

https://www.handloadermagazine.com/does-it-matter

[wmitty]

I’ve used a battery op. Bosch drill to turn boolits while using a fine tooth mill file to chamfer uneven bases to uniform contours. I am sure the distorted lead bullet tips could quickly be uniformly turned in the same manner.

[BadgerShooter]

The Corbin tip forming die will clean them right up.

[fastdadio]

My Garand will deform soft points when chambering. After loading and unloading the same bullet several times in the dark on a hunting trip, I noticed the badly damaged soft point. I cut the lead point off flush with the jacket and buffed it smooth on the knife blade. Later, I shot a nice spike at about 75yds. with that one. Hit right to point of aim and the exit wound showed good expansion. After the hunt, I cut a few more off and shot them on paper at 100yds. and could see no real difference in the group when compared to my original sight in group. So I cut the rest of them. No more soft points for the Garand/M1a. I switched to Sierra Game Kings.