I'm new to shooting, and I've noticed that pretty much every hollow point bullet has a crooked tip. Is there some reason that the manufacturers can't make those things uniform? Considering that the other tolerances for each round are down to one-thousandth of an inch, you would think that the bullet tip would at least LOOK symmetrical. Am I supposed to file those tips?
Do all hollow points have ugly tips?
- Thread starter clunker
- Start date
read about the effect of the meplate (which is what you are speaking of) and it's effect on accuracy.
yes you can trim it and you can point it but unless you are a competitive 1000 yr shooter i don't believe it belongs in your need to's
yes you can trim it and you can point it but unless you are a competitive 1000 yr shooter i don't believe it belongs in your need to's
I can't even see 1000 yds, so I'm guessing that the meplate imperfections don't matter. It just blows my mind that an obvious imbalance has little effect when a twist rate has such a great effect.
I can only assume its hard to get the jackets to form pretty on the vld angles. Bugged me at first until I read about it and all peripheral info... My fatter 90gr hollow points with a relatively giant hp are all perfectly formed to the naked eye. So no, not all are ugly, just the bullets angled to tiny hollow points. imo also, doubt you will need to trim your bullets until you are further into the rabbit hole, a lot further. Concentricity is more important. also imo
Take a look at Nosler RDF bullets. They're absolutely beautiful......................... problem is they don't shoot as well as Bergers.
Ned Ludd
Silver $$ Contributor
Although meplat imperfections can be pretty ugly and may seem like they would cause obvious imbalance issues to the eye, not all things are as they seem. In fact, as meplat imperfections get closer to the axis of rotation, their effect on balance decreases and approaches zero, which is likely part of the reason they don't have a greater impact.
I have on some really bad ones. Makes a difference .
That really makes sense to me. Also the tiny point is copper not lead. No weigh.
Not being a BR shooter, I've never felt the desire to trim and point. Quite a few yrs ago we were getting 55gr Sierra Blitzkings in 3000 ct boxes. In every box would be at least 10 with the most deformed tips a guy could imagine, most looked like the nose of the Concorde jet. They always got set aside till one day they got stuffed in 223 rds.
I suppose LR is a subjective term, but for a 55gr plastic tipped bullet 400 yards is getting there. I had a 20 rd mag loaded up, told guy with me to watch a 10" plate at 400 yards and let the circus begin. I was expecting wild fliers, diving in, way high, and spinning off to the right. I started off not too serious, expecting the worst, I never missed the plate, and as I fired a few and bore down the grouping just got better. Not sure what I learned that day, but the results were far from my expectations.
I suppose LR is a subjective term, but for a 55gr plastic tipped bullet 400 yards is getting there. I had a 20 rd mag loaded up, told guy with me to watch a 10" plate at 400 yards and let the circus begin. I was expecting wild fliers, diving in, way high, and spinning off to the right. I started off not too serious, expecting the worst, I never missed the plate, and as I fired a few and bore down the grouping just got better. Not sure what I learned that day, but the results were far from my expectations.
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Liven The Dream
Gold $$ Contributor
You could Buy Berger or Sierra HP the ones I have been getting are very nice.
One other choice Plastic Tipped Bullets ?? Then you need to have a newer seating Die that won't make the ugly ?
In the long run buy better bullets and shot more...
One other choice Plastic Tipped Bullets ?? Then you need to have a newer seating Die that won't make the ugly ?
In the long run buy better bullets and shot more...
Not all of them. It seems like rifle bullets are not as trim as one should think they should be. Now handgun bullets on the other hand many of them are what one would consider perfect. Some are actually made then trimmed to uniform the HP. Then something like the Gold Dot look perfect with out any extra trimming.
MEPLAT. It's French for "flat".
Thanks for the info everyone. With my .223, I generally shoot ballistic tip Nosler bullets because that's what my rifle likes. But I'm still trying to figure out what my Creedmoor likes, and that verdict is still out until I get the rifle back from Tikka. On my first outing with the CM, I took a box of Norma Match HPBT 130gr. One of the bullets looked like they filled it too full of lead, so the point was not hollow anymore. I wrote to the company and asked if this was normal, and they sent me new box. All of the metplats are still crooked, but none of them were overfilled. Anyway, this will definitely not be my hunting ammo, but why not practice with some Norma ammo and save that beautiful brass for reloading.
Lead is more dense than copper of course, but not all that much. Copper is 79% as dense as lead.
The back end is more important for accuracy. If it has a nick or ding, it will be a flier. Matt
KMart
Gold $$ Contributor
It seems that we sometimes worry a lot about the sizes and shapes of the bullets we see coming out of the factory boxes. Once a loaded round is fired, all dimensions of the bullet is changed as it is swagged going down the bore of the barrel. After the powder charge is ignited, we have very little control of the changes made to the bullet.
I always liked the 52 gr. Speer Hollow Points, they had ragged edges on the tips and shot like lasers out of my 222! The BC wasn't great but they were deadly on squirrels out to 400 yrds
This^
The meplat can be manipulated to increase the potential of the bullet, but those manipulations are a can of worms in and of themselves.
It is very easy to ruin a very good bullet or batch of bullets when you start pointing and trimming those meplats.
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