Why is it called a "Boattail"?

[Ledd Slinger]

Reminds me of the other hot thread on here titled “not a hunter”. OP is a non-hunter making outlandish comments and statements about hunting when he really doesn’t have any experience with hunting at all.

Here it appears we have an engineer designing bullets with no shooting experience. I run into this in the electrical field quite often. You can always tell the difference in device and lighting design concepts that come from engineers who have worked in the field, and thru trial and error, devised devices and solutions to making installations easier and more efficient. Then you have the desk jockey engineers who design things with no forethought on how difficult installation and servicing might be because they’ve never actually installed anything themselves

 

[jelenko]

Reminds me of the other hot thread on here titled “not a hunter”. OP is a non-hunter making outlandish comments and statements about hunting when he really doesn’t have any experience with hunting at all.

Here it appears we have an engineer designing bullets with no shooting experience. I run into this in the electrical field quite often. You can always tell the difference in device and lighting design concepts that come from engineers who have worked in the field, and thru trial and error, devised devices and solutions to making installations easier and more efficient. Then you have the desk jockey engineers who design things with no forethought on how difficult installation and servicing might be because they’ve never actually installed anything themselves

And refuse to listen to feedback.

 

[HappyHellfire]

And refuse to listen to feedback.

I sure am trying. Sometimes it's difficult to filter out the good feedback from the vitriol.

What I have so far:
Work with a competitive shooter
Win some competitions
Provide long range grouping data.

Anything else?

 

[Bill Norris]

WOW !!!

 

[HappyHellfire]

Reminds me of the other hot thread on here titled “not a hunter”. OP is a non-hunter making outlandish comments and statements about hunting when he really doesn’t have any experience with hunting at all.

Here it appears we have an engineer designing bullets with no shooting experience. I run into this in the electrical field quite often. You can always tell the difference in device and lighting design concepts that come from engineers who have worked in the field, and thru trial and error, devised devices and solutions to making installations easier and more efficient. Then you have the desk jockey engineers who design things with no forethought on how difficult installation and servicing might be because they’ve never actually installed anything themselves

The amount of assumptions in your statement is staggering. Are you reduced to personal attacks because I show up with a new idea and want to talk about my favorite subject?

 

[jelenko]

The amount of assumptions in your statement is staggering. Are you reduced to personal attacks because I show up with a new idea and want to talk about my favorite subject?

When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

 

[Rat Rifle]

Not yet. My radar only can track out to about 100 yards. I've been focused on getting them stable and fully characterizing the drag curve. I'm hoping to catch the interest of a few competitive shooters to try them out form me.

I agree. I've shot a bunch. I'd like some of y'all to shoot them and give me some feedback.

A 100 yards ? At 100 yards you don’t even need a boat tail. Or any other kind of tail. Im done here.

 

[Dave M.]

I'll find another shooter. Thanks for the offer.

I figured as much. Why have someone that is skeptical to do an honest comparison of your bullets when you may still be able to find someone that is willing to drink your Kool-Aid without tasting it first?? My offer still stands and honestly, I’m half tempted to order some to settle this discussion for all the good folks on this site, but I don’t even get the impression you are ready to ship product yet.
Dave

 

[Dave M.]

Sorry. From the perspective of a competitive shooter, my reaction is 'WTF?'.

Someone asks you if you used wind flags and you quote a description of the physics?! Your response is a) meaningless to the vast majority of members on this forum and b: seems like another example of little to no actual shooting experience. Without that experience, you're going to have a very difficult time connecting with people on this forum.

Assuming you need/want feedback from real world competitive shooters, you need to team up with someone who is known in the competitive world. A fellow named Brian Litz comes to mind - he is pretty familiar with ballistics and might appreciate your technical side.

Other options would be to identify top competitors in a discipline that you think your design would provide a competitive advantage. PRS comes to mind as their course of fire is designed around targets at various distances. A bullet with significantly flatter trajectory could be a competitive advantage.

All you need to do is to convince one top competitor to try your bullets [at your cost]. If there's an actual competitive advantage, guaranteed he will use some in an upcoming match. If he wins that match, word of mouth will drive buyers to you.

I could not have said it better.

 

[Dave M.]

Hard to believe he knows nothing about tuners with as much education as he claims in the bullet/shooting field.

I still think English is not his first language, I’m trying to be patient and I’d gladly shoot his 6.5mm bullets up against 140 Berger hybrids or Hornady ELD-M.
I starting to think that one of the guys on this site has created the new Hellfire profile and he is laughing his ass off while we all get PUNKED. Possibly the longest April Fools Day joke in preparation for 4/1/2025??
Dave

 

[Bill Norris]

I still think English is not his first language, I’m trying to be patient and I’d gladly shoot his 6.5mm bullets up against 140 Berger hybrids or Hornady ELD-M.
I starting to think that one of the guys on this site has created the new Hellfire profile and he is laughing his ass off while we all get PUNKED. Possibly the longest April Fools Day joke in preparation for 4/1/2025??
Dave

LOL. Right.

 

[Dave M.]

Now if I can just figure out who has such a wickedly diabolical sense of humor to go as far as creating the Hellfire profile just to punk us……

 

[Dave M.]

By the way, I have to admit that these threads are way funnier than the joke threads I have read on this site. More please, more.

 

[Bill Norris]

By the way, I have to admit that these threads are way funnier than the joke threads I have read on this site. More please, more.

Yea I agree.

 

[spike-55]

must be Bart LOL!!!!! who else would have the skill and sense of humor to pull this off????
just kidding - butttttt mayyybeee????
stan

 

[dave@aDave]

Now if I can just figure out who has such a wickedly diabolical sense of humor to go as far as creating the Hellfire profile just to punk us……

Has Mr. Guffey made a return?
Maybe to seek revenge?

 

[Wild Bill IV]

I think they eventually will. Or maybe I just hope they will. About 50% of rifle bullet drag is due to the base flow problems. About 120 years of study has gone into the nose design but I'm the first knucklehead to attack the base flow with math.

Less drag means a flatter trajectory (less drop) and less wind error. IT also extends the effective range of the weapon. I estimate that I could extend the effective range of the M4 out to over 500m with a aerospike tail.

The Scandinavian countries called the boat tail bullets torpedoes in their native tongue!!!

The military ballistic testing labs did research on various shapes of boat tails on bullets!! They also tried different fluted boat tail designs too!!! I remember reading a couple reports from the Aberdeen lab in Maryland, if memory serves me right!!!! This information, plus other types of research, is available to the public on line!!!

A little food for thought!!!! Would letting the spike fall out of the center cavity and allow air to pass through eliminate the drag wave on the base!!!

Here is a report of wind tunnel testing at the from Aberdeen!!!!

 

[Ledd Slinger]

The amount of assumptions in your statement is staggering. Are you reduced to personal attacks because I show up with a new idea and want to talk about my favorite subject?

Not trying to offend you. Tho I am a little upset that you got us worked up on a a different bullet design with big claims and provided a web link to a site that states the bullets have been “fully tested”, yet you cannot provide any tangible evidence of actual testing in firearms.

It’s starting to remind me of conversing with Open AI and I’m leaning towards this being an elaborate scam. Open AI learns as it goes and some of your responses are eerily similar to that platform. We are having to tell you things that should be fairly common knowledge with someone who has a decent amount of shooting experience, let alone enough experience to dive into bullet making. I’m sorry if you find my comments offensive, but something doesn’t smell right here.

 

[dellet]

Your website touts exrensive tests in 300 Blackout. That grabs my interest.

With an exceedingly long tail, low density material in a cartridge case that is powder capacity challenged, it would seem a recipe for a low velocity, heavy for cartridge bullet, that is light for length.

A good handload with an average 150 grain billet, is roughly 2000 fps. Certain flatbase bullets will net 2200 fps in a 16” barrel.

How does this bullet compare in velocity and drop at 300 yards?
Comparing to say a 150 Berger flatbase.

What is the max length it can be loaded to?

Are basic bullet dimensions available?
Over all length and boattail would be enough.

Answer by PM if you would rather not publish some answers

I was hoping for a reply that might sway my opinion, sadly still waiting.

I don’t know if this bullet was designed intentionally for 300 Blackout, but here is where the lab and life part ways.

A 145 grain copper solid will be around 1.400” long, with the longer boattail it’s just a good guess. But that length makes the math easy. 1.4” bullet + 1.36” case = 2.76”- 2.260” max cartridge length and you have .500” bullet in a case only about 1.160” (1.360-.200”) deep, you’ve lost better than 30% case capacity.

Load data and ballistic tables are on the op’s Website. Max velocity is about what I thought, 1800 Fps. I hope it was a 16” barrel, but it’s not disclosed.

As I stated earlier,(had to answer my own post), normal velocity for a 150 grain bullet would be closer to 2000 fps, with a flatbase 2200 fps is not uncommon.

The Arrow spike bullet better have some very cutting edge design to make up for 400 fps when it comes to drop.

Published data from Aerospike



Berger 150 flatbase using JBM and Speer Gold Dot at the same velocity. These numbers are close enough to my own verified drops to work for this conversation.




What happens when we load the Berger and Speer to max velocities





Again most will be familiar with JBM, it will be off by a couple inches at 300 yards, unless you really fine tune the data, compared to using defaults.

But the difference of a radical new design vs a cupped base Gold Dot at the same velocity, or worse max velocities in the same cartridge. This is the difference about .250” of lost case capacity makes.

Edit to add
I need to be fair to the OP, this isn’t so much to say his bullet is no good, but that his thinking is off. Lab vs Life. There’s almost no legitimate reason for a boattail inside 500 yards, certainly not 200. So why put it in a cartridge that is limited to that range?

You have indicated the bullet has some stability issues below Mach 2, so why use it in a cartridge that isn’t much above 1.6 at the muzzle?

You need data beginning at 500 yards

 

[jimmymac]

@HappyHellfire

This site is frequented by many shooters in various disciplines who are the top of their chosen games. We have state champions, national champiuns, world team champions, hall of famers and record holders here at your disposal. If you are confident in your bullets, put those projectiles in the right hands and things will sort themselves out in short order. Basically, put up or shut up. Snake oil salesman need not apply.