Why I think we take the perfect bullet too seriously

[jonk]

You know, thinking about frosting and wrinkles and failures to fill out and everything... I got to wondering, does it make a bit of difference for the average day shooting?

So I took some otherwise well formed nice 180 gr. 311 diameter pills that were seated and ready to go in my nice and tight and good shooting .303 British. And I went at them with an exacto knife! I did everything from just nick them to literally hacking off half the bullet.

Guess, what it didn't matter worth a damn. The gun shot the mutilated bullets just as well as it shot the rest of the loads, about 2" at 50 yards.

So from now on, to hell with it, if it is wrinkled or has a little hiccup where a band didn't fill out, I'm shooting it anyhow.

[felix]

I shot nasty looking boolits for years, in guns that didn't shoot good to start with. Perfect boolits only count when you have a gun and eyeballs that can actually see the difference at the target. ... felix

[cbrick]

In HandLoader # 88, Wayne Blackwell did an article "Defects Affect Accuracy" in which he tested various bullet defects on grouping potential. In a nutshell he determined that the closer to the base of the bullet the defect is the more affect it has on accuracy, or, the same defect closer to the nose had less affect.

As Felix said, it all depends on your eyes, your goals, type of shooting and the accuracy your willing to accept for the type of shooting your doing.

Rick

[Dale53]

I was once asked why I bothered to make perfect bullets for handguns. I simply told him I did because I could. After you learn how, near perfect bullets are just as easy as poor quality bullets. And, THEY make YOU feel SO-O-O much better

Dale53

[joeb33050]

I did some experiments with damaged bullets and wrote it all up in
3.3.6 DAMAGED BULLETS in the book at http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/CB-BOOK/
At the end I shot 2 groups of 64 shots each at 100 yards, one group with perfect bullets, the other with bullets with filed bases. I expected the filed base group to look like a doughnut, and it didn't. I don't understand the mechanism that makes damaged bullets sometimes shoot less accurately than perfect bullets, and I don't understand why the damaged bullet group doesn't look like a doughnut.
joe brennan

[Lloyd Smale]

I think it means alot more in a rifle your shooting at 200 yards then it does at 25 with a handgun. I used to throw all my rejects back in the pot till my buddy laid claim to them. He shoots more then i even do and proved to me one day that even at 50 yards with a handgun it takes a pretty messed up cast bullet to open up a group.

[1Shirt]

johk, Agree with you up to a point on less than perfect blts, and that point is for casual plinking and offhand practice to 50 yds. After that, there is a difference. I have played with both, and to 50 even benched, not a great deal of difference. BUT, going out to 100 or more, there is an appreciable difference. Have played with accuracy with less than perfect compared to weighed, and visually perfect boolits in 308, 223, and 7x57. Difference at 100 in group size was from 3 to 5 inches different from the tighter groups of the weighed and inspected boolits. Think a lot has to do with how much time you have (it is nice to be retired), how interested you are in peak accuracy, and if you are a bench group shooter, or just satisfied with keeping them all in the black at a given distance. Guess that's what makes this whole thing interesting.
1Shirt!

[monadnock#5]

This forum has inspired me to some research on my own. There's a nice article in the Lyman 48th on accuracy. It starts with the question of what your expectations should be for any given pill shooter. Are you loading for High Power, benchrest, prairie dogs, deer, formal/informal target shooting? Each discipline has its own requirements. It seems that knowing when to stop trying for more accuracy is as important as the quest for greater accuracy. If you're shooting 2" groups at 150 yards with your deer rifle, it's time to stop, and move on to finding out why the woodchuck rifle won't shoot better than 2" at 150.

Ken

[Bret4207]

I'm with Dale, because I can. I'm just anal enough to try and make them nice.

[WHITETAIL]

Jonk, There may be a differance when you shoot a perfict boolet, and one that is not perfict. But than how good does the person behind the gun shoot? I do cull my boolets and do reject some. But thats my Q.C. . I like the boolets frosted, if they are good enought for Tony the Tiger they are good enough for me.

[BruceB]

The rationale for making the boolits "as perfect as possible" is the same as any dedicated competitive target-shooter's intense concentration on making or getting the very best equipment he can find or afford. That is, by making everything we CAN control as good as possible, we free up our minds to struggle with the things which are more difficult. That usually boils down to ...ourselves!

Of course, there comes a point where the 'finicky factor' becomes excessive, and that point varies greatly from one person to another.

This is particularly true in the case of our beloved cast boolits. These days, my competitive target-shooting is done with. I shoot to enjoy using my guns, and I dabble with searches for the best accuracy I can achieve WITHOUT EXCESSIVE LABOR.

So:

-I rarely trim brass

-I NEVER turn necks

-I NEVER clean primer pockets (except on my occasional rare blackpowder excursions)

-I NEVER weigh bullets with a view to making "lots" of various small weight-spreads

-I NEVER reduce my pot temp below its maximum 870 degrees for normal casting

-I NEVER worry about making "lots" of ingots from a single big melt: if it's wheelweight alloy, it gets used , period.

...and my rifles still shoot with considerable accuracy, and with great satisfaction for their owner. I turn out a lot of boolits at high speed, and measuring and weighing occasional runs of these boolits show very small weight and measurement variations. They are amply good for my purposes, and those of my rifles and handguns, and the purpose is shooting enjoyment.

As long as we all, individually, enjoy what we're doing and the products of our endeavors, in whatever degree of refinement and precision we prefer, what more could we ask from our hobby?? It's a grand feeling, to be friends with such a widely-assorted group of genuine folks with similar interests.

[sundog]

We need Sailman to weigh in on this thread. He did some rather extensive 'testing' shooting 'perfect' boolits against what he calls 'prunes' (wrinkled boolits). IIRC he said he couldn't tell much difference at 100 yards.

I usually use the best culls for barrel warmers in the mil bolt matches. Ocassionally I'll shoot up a bunch of them in a target because I have more than needed. Other than an ocassional flyer, they're not much different than my matches boolits. But, that's why I weigh match boolits - reduces flyers of almost zero percent.

My take on not so perfect boolits is that if everything else is a go, then less than perfect boolits are not going to reveal themselves close in - out to a hunert. Get out to two hunert and you'll see them exposing themselves for what they are. sundog

[9.3X62AL]

I might start weight-sorting boolits--when I can consistently stay even with Buckshot and Glen at the Burrito Shoot. Until then, I'm afraid it's the operator error introduced by yours truly that remains the tallest hurdle when firing on Tuesdays.

Or any other flippin' time..

I do strive for visual consistency while casting. Once in a great while, I'll gather a sample of the castings and scale them--they are pretty weight-consistent, often around 0.5% extreme spread. With stats like those, blaming boolit inconsistencies for 8-ring hits is bogus.

[Bent Ramrod]

Perfection is a nice thing to strive for, and I do so. I go with the best casting speeds and the temperatures that make the best work for any given mould. For load development, or my rare attempts at competition, I select the perfect castings, worry about hardness and all like that there. But the main reason for boolit casting for me is economical shooting on a much larger scale than I could otherwise afford, and here is where the human element overwhelms any minor imperfections in the castings I am willing to let through.

If I was competing regularly in CBA benchrest shoots, or perpetually trying to "shoot cast bullets HOT!!," or trying to break the 123,456-rps (or whatever it was) limit and still be under 1 MOA, or trying to load the perfect black-powder cartridge to win the Quigley, then only the best would do. I would also have experience with only a relative handful of expensive custom rifles, custom moulds and match equipment and have robbed myself of a lot of fascinating experiences messing around with a much larger selection of various factory offerings along these lines. And I'd also probably hire a shaman in a reindeer suit with one of those whizzy things on the string to dance widdershins around my loading bench, if I thought I absolutely needed it. Top-drawer performance in any sport has that mental component which is always enhanced by everything from bespoke equipment, extra care in preparation, gimmickry, right down to outright voodoo, and the line can only be drawn by the competitor himself. However, most of this stuff would raise the cost of the sport to levels I could neither afford nor benefit by.

Worse than the perfect boolit, I need better eyes, steadier, more consistent stances, a more phlegmatic disposition and much more practice.

[NVcurmudgeon]

I stand with one foot firmly planted in each camp. For most of my shooting, plinking, offhand and kneeling practice at 100-200 yards, and rock busting at any visible distance, perfect boolits are not worth the trouble. This is because of the wobbles, mental woolgathering, and aging eyes of the gun director! However, the little not very serious competition that I engage in, as well as load development, has satisfied me that only the best will do when it matters. I really hate asking myself, "was that a flyer or is the load bad?" Therefore all rifle boolits intended for postal matches, NCBS, and load development are weighed, after passing visually perfect inspection. I have a PACT elctronic scale for only this purpose. I don't weigh to the tenth of a grain. Boolits are sorted in lots ranging from 200.0 to 200.9 grains, for example, as long as they are from the larger middle weight groups of the bell curve that any casting session produces. I believe that this procedure has kept me (mostly) free from flyers. But weighing rifle plinkers and any pistol bullets? That's just plain silly considering who's going to shoot them!

[Sailman]

Sundog is correct. I was doing some testing shooting my good bullets and my prunes ( wrinkled bullets ). One time I had better results with the prunes vs. the good bullets.

When you factor in all the vairables, age of shooter, poor eyes, wind conditions, light conditions, and just plain statistical distribution, it is a wonder why we can get good results.

There is no doubt in my mind that weighed perfect bullets will give better results. However, you have to live with what you got and the conditions you have. The question we have to answer is " how much additional effort do you want to put into the equation ". Like one of the gentlemen said, I shoot to enjoy my gun and loads. I have learned to accept the fact that Sundog and his nephew are going to kick my butt at the monthly match, but , I sure have a good time and every once in a while I get to kick his butt. It sure beats looking up at the guy cutting the grass.

Sailman

Sailman

[454PB]

Isn't it sort of like going out to get the morning paper with "bedhead"?

I don't want some guy pulling one of my cast loads from the box at the range and seeing wrinkles!

Whenever I see a guy at the range plop down a sandwich bag full of cast boolit loads, I figure he doesn't take a lot of care with his boolits or his loading.

[fecmech]

Whenever I see a guy at the range plop down a sandwich bag full of cast boolit loads, I figure he doesn't take a lot of care with his boolits or his loading.

OMG, I resemble that remark!! That's not all of it, at any given time I have 4000+ rds loaded and the last thing I'm going to do is box them. They go straight from the bag to the gun. BTW with the exception of the 9MM ammo everything in the pic will stay well inside the 10 ring on a 50 yd bullseye target. Don't get hung up on the packaging, no offense taken or intended. Nick

[Diamond-City-Bob]

Using BruceB's method I can keep my boolits within 1% weight variation, I can't shoot better than the boolits I make so I don't worry about them. That said I do try to cast as perfect a boolit as I can. While I don't meet my goals, having set high goals my results are good enough, if my goal was good enough the results would suck. If my eyes and concentration were what they were 30 years ago I might start weighing to the 1/10 of a grain
Bob

[Dale53]

I suspect that a considerable percentage of you here, do as I do. When a mould is "Running Good" I make hay. Lots of really good bullets at a good pace. I do NOT weigh pistol and revolver bullets. However, my visual check is pretty severe. I just LIKE good bullets.

However, when it comes to my schuetzen bench bullets, things are a bit different. They first pass serious visual inspection. Then each is weighed with a good digital scale. My standards for these bullets are pretty high - plus or minus .2 of a grain(these bullets weigh in the neighborhood of 200 grs and are .32 caliber).

When I was casting large bullets for BPCR (422 gr .40 calibers) my standard was + or- .6 of a grain (I couldn't do much better than that with those large bullets).

ALL my bullets are pretty and I have the confidence to KNOW that an off shot is ME, not my bullets. That, in my carefully considered opinion, is the path to good shooting (eliminating things that I CAN eliminate, that adversely affect good scores).

Dale53