6mm bullet pointing

[Bluto65]

Yeah well I shot 18 cartridges of each at six 3/4 inch black pasters on brown paper, 3 shots at each paster.

I do think the loads were consistent [up to a point]. Neck sizing was on the money, OAL with a sinclair comparator was dead on at 2.740 +0.000 to +0.005 [just in on the rifling] for all cartridges. The bullets were randomly measured for ogive to base, not so much on the regular ones, the pointed pnes were all
measured to ensure the die was not distorting the diameter at the ogive.

Typically when I go to the 200yd range for sighting in and practice I shoot 40 t0 50 rounds at
a 2 3/4 ring, it does get a bit boring because the rifle shoots very well, I do not but I find out where I am messing up. My 30gr Varget was selected as best load with ladder and groups. I will try to get a "magic wand" for consistency on the cartridges. Magic wand = sorting everything, even the primers heh heh heh.

Keep you posted I dont think I am giving up on pointing, I will talk to Whidden for advice.

 

[queen_stick]

Bluto... Sounds like you have luck like mine... nothing ever works the way it should the instant it touches my hands. I'll never understand it. Drives me insane!

Definitely keep us updated, I'm curious what's going on to create those big groups after pointing.

 

[Bluto65]

All the bullets were from the same BOX [yellow Berger]. I dunno if all the bullets in the box were from the same lot though.

I have a couple of High Master buddies that will help me out. One of them
points his 6mmBRX bullets and they shoot fine. I showed him the actual
targets this morning and he told me something was wrong. we will do an
investigation of die settings etc etc.

Let you guys know what happened. Live and learn!!!

 

[queen_stick]

Was doing some research on why the Hunting VLD's have a higher BC than the Target VLD's, and came up with some interesting information about pointing...

The following article is from Berger's blog post in January, about their die changes, and the effect the new dies made on the new Target VLD bullets (6mm).

According to Berger in their blog post :

"Effect on BC
Since the new bullet nose is shorter and has a wider meplat, the drag is higher. The result is a lower BC for the new bullet. How much lower? Figure 2 shows that the G7 BC is reduced from .272 to .251, a reduction of 8% from the previous value.

This new bullet stands to benefit a great deal from aftermarket bullet pointing which will close up the meplat to a finer point. Pointing the new 105 VLD will yield a greater improvement in BC than it did for the old 105 VLD, but you won’t be able to re-claim all of the BC by pointing because the new ogive is shorter. Note that it is not recommended to close the points on bullets used for hunting because it may have adverse effects on the terminal performance."

Reading that gives me the impression that if you're shooting unpointed Target VLD's, you could get about a 10% BC increase if you switch to the Hunting VLD AND point them. The only reason they recommend not pointing the hunting bullet is for terminal effects, which has nothing to do with punching paper.

This statement from that article is interesting:
Pointing the new 105 VLD will yield a greater improvement in BC than it did for the old 105 VLD, but you won’t be able to re-claim all of the BC by pointing because the new ogive is shorter.
That means a pointed Target VLD will NOT equal or exceed the BC of an un-pointed Hunting VLD.

link to the article - http://02b0516.netsolhost.com/blog1/?p=81 (be patient, it takes a min to load)

My conclusion... It's doubtful that my 6BR can push these bullets to the point of separation (exploding). If I switch from the Target VLD's to the Hunting VLD's, then start pointing, I would then gain quite an advantage in terms of BC.

Maybe I'm thinking about it too much? What do you guys think?

 

[TonyR]

I think you are exactly right; however, I'm going to revisit the 107 SMK which has a very competitive BC and the tough Sierra jackets.

 

[queen_stick]

Tony,

I haven't tried them yet in my BR, but I do believe they don't get enough credit for what they are. I've seen them print very small groups at 1k matches. It's in my plans to test them in my gun this spring.

 

[TonyR]

My 6mmBR was originally throated for them when I bought the gun from a friend. He used Varget with the SMKs and I shot very well with them. I wanted to try some alternatives so I went to the 105 VLD, either Berger or JLK, and N540 with the CCI-450. For whatever reason, this combination gave me much higher velocities that the Varget with the SMK so I stayed with it and did a lot of experiments with pointed bullets. My results were very much in line with some work Jason Baney reported on the Home Page for this site so I just stayed with the pointed 105 VLDs.
FWIW, I am a big believer in bullet pointing, and I have pointed thousands of them. I hate tedious repetitive activities so you can be sure I wouldn't be doing it unless I was sure it helped me, but don't expect it to instantly cure all vertical problems. I did a lot of work with bullet sorting, neck tension and barrel tuning before the effects of the pointing were really noticable in my vertical. I also have found the the effect of pointing is most noticable with the 6mm bullets than the 7mm or 30 cal bullets I have pointed, I believe because the meplat is larger relative to the bullet diameter with the 6mms than it is relative to the 7mm or 30 cal bullets. With the larger calibers, pointing definitely reduces fliers, but it really reduced my vertical from 300 to 1000 yards very noticably in the 6mm. I point every bullet I shoot in load development testing and in matches at any distance.

 

[queen_stick]

Thanks for the reply Tony.

I think I finally convinced myself to try pointing. (with assistance from you, and a few others in our discussion.)

Now, what would you recommend? Whidden, Hoover or ??? (are there any others?)

 

[TonyR]

I have the Whidden and I know people with the Hoover. I chose the Whidden after about 40 minutes on the phone with John himself. Great sport we have! Can you imagine getting 40 minutes one-on-one with Jimmy Johnson talking about tire pressures?? Anyway, John explained it in a way that made sense to me based on a lot of measuring I did before we talked. Think of it as a two part process: Part One- Meplat trimming uniforms the BC and Part Two-Pointing Improves the BC. I had already observed that sorting Bergers by bullet OAL improved my vertical but it was also obvious that trimming the meplats made them all bigger so pointing essentially gives back the BC lost in trimming. Theoretically, you could skip the pointing but I had tested trimmed but unpointed bullets and did not like the results. The end mill used with the trimmer leaves a burr around the tip that can cause big problems and pointing gets rid of it without creating new problems. So my process is trim-point-trim-strop. I trim them all to uniform length, point them, trim them again, then strope the tips on a scrap of leather. I get nice clean uniform tips and my best accuracy that way. Other systems differ in the way they trim the meplats. Hoover and Montour County Rifles both make a trimmer system that indexes off the bullet ogive. I haven't done any tests, but I would be interested to know if the bullets all end up the same length as with the Whidden, and I believe that it is important that they all are. Otherwise, I believe that the Hoover and Whidden pointers work essentially the same although that is all second hand info. It would be worth checking.

 

[johara1]

Tony, I had a little trouble trying to trim the 115's due to the tuff jackets,they will tend to tear.I would think the 107's would be the same,i went to a 4 flute cutter it seemed to help.
I just saw where your from, i was there a few months ago,visiting Naval Academy......jim

 

[TonyR]

Jim.
I think you are right about the jackets. My 7mm Cauterucios can be hard to trim. I wish they made a carbide cutter for the trimmer.
I hope you enjoyed Annapolis. It is a great town.

 

[johara1]

Tony, I was a R&P instructor at the Naval Academy in the 60's The cutters for the trimmers are nothing more than end mills,you can get them any place that sell that stuff, like MSC. or ENCO. i have great success with pointing now that i learned how to do it right. and cut the vertical and group size but that is just one piece of the puzzle ........jim

 

[queen_stick]

I have the Whidden and I know people with the Hoover. I chose the Whidden after about 40 minutes on the phone with John himself. Great sport we have! Can you imagine getting 40 minutes one-on-one with Jimmy Johnson talking about tire pressures?? Anyway, John explained it in a way that made sense to me based on a lot of measuring I did before we talked. Think of it as a two part process: Part One- Meplat trimming uniforms the BC and Part Two-Pointing Improves the BC. I had already observed that sorting Bergers by bullet OAL improved my vertical but it was also obvious that trimming the meplats made them all bigger so pointing essentially gives back the BC lost in trimming. Theoretically, you could skip the pointing but I had tested trimmed but unpointed bullets and did not like the results. The end mill used with the trimmer leaves a burr around the tip that can cause big problems and pointing gets rid of it without creating new problems. So my process is trim-point-trim-strop. I trim them all to uniform length, point them, trim them again, then strope the tips on a scrap of leather. I get nice clean uniform tips and my best accuracy that way. Other systems differ in the way they trim the meplats. Hoover and Montour County Rifles both make a trimmer system that indexes off the bullet ogive. I haven't done any tests, but I would be interested to know if the bullets all end up the same length as with the Whidden, and I believe that it is important that they all are. Otherwise, I believe that the Hoover and Whidden pointers work essentially the same although that is all second hand info. It would be worth checking.

Tony, great info there. Given that the pointing dies work the same, and moving on to the trimmers... Are you saying that the Whidden trimmer indexes off a different part of the bullet than the Hoover? Didn't quite follow yah on that last part!

Walt

 

[TonyR]

Walt. The Whidden Trimmer indexes off the base of the bullet. He has adapted the standard Wilson case trimmer to trim meplats. He makes up bullet holders for each caliber that go into the trimmer just like the caseholders do and replaces the standard Wilson endmill with one that will trim the much smaller diameter meplats. So you have a bullet in a sleeve with the adjustment bolt limiting the movement away from the cutter just like the case trimmer. Once adjusted, there is a fixed distance between the face of the adjustment bolt and the face of the endmill so all of the bullets end up the same length just like the cases do. Pointing the bullet squeezes the tip in which reduces the diameter but also causes the tip to lengthen slightly which is corrected with the second trimming. I think that it is important to start with bullets of uniform overall length because you could over-point the long ones and under point the short ones and best case end up with bullets with different BCs and worst case buckled jackets on some of the longest ones. I have found up to a 0.020 inch difference between the longest and shortest bullets in a box of 100 Bergers and I think this is too much variation to expect uniform BCs to come out of the pointer. In my experience, the uniforming of the BCs of a set of bullets is the real advantage of the pointing/trimming process, not the minor gains in BC.

 

[queen_stick]

Tony,

Sounds like you have the process down pretty well. Now I'm curious how you sort your bullets...

Last year I started sorting bullets for the first time, and noticed significant improvement. I use a Hornaday gauge to measure from the base of the bullet to the ogive (sorting the length of the bullets). I thought it worked well, but others had pointed out that you should use 2 comparator bodies and measure from the boat tail to the ogive (basically sorting by bearing surface length). I think that argument is somewhat valid, but I'm not sure. I believe, but am not sure, that measuring with 2 comparators will give you bullets that have the same bearing surface length, but different weight distribution (the measurement from the base to the ogive could be different, though the bearing lengths are the same). Which one makes the most difference? Do you sort by measuring both ways (sort all the bullets twice)? I think this is one of those questions that has many answers because we're talking about such a small part of the 'big picture,' but would like to hear your thoughts on it. (and anyone else in the forum for that matter).

Walt

 

[TonyR]

Walt.
I sort by Bearing surface length using a JB Comparator which works the same as two comparators back to back but is more consistent. Unless you put exactly the same pressure on the caliper everytime, you can get a different measurement on the same bullet everytime you measure it. The JB is repeatable. I sort them into groups with the same BSL to the 0.001 inches. I think grouping by 0.003 inches works fine but i save that step for after weight sorting. If you start off with 500 Bergers, you will probably get large groups within plus or minus 0.002 inches and some additional outliers that can be off by almost any number but it would be rare to see anything more than an extreme spread of 0.015 inches in a box of 100. I think that sorting is well worth doing just to get rid of those outliers because they can and will cost points at just the wrong time. I don't bother sorting by base to ogive because I have sampled and never found any out by more than 0.001 inches in a group already sorted by BSL. I weight sort them after I sort by BSL and I will combine groups from different BSL, extreme spread 0.003 inches, if I can make match sets with a tighter extreme weight spread. I can't say that I have exhaustively tested these procedures but they are doable with the tools and bullets I use and I am usually very pleased with my vertical, particularly at longer ranges when i do all of this. Now if someone will just make a Wind Doping Die, I'll be at the front of the line because I really put the "Dope" in wind doping.

 

[queen_stick]

Now I have another question...

If you choose to sort by BSL (by using 2 comparators or the JB), then why did you choose to go with a metplat trimmer that that indexes off of the base of the bullet?

You may have answered that in your previous post already, because you stated the base-to-ogive measurement is typically very accurate, whereas the BSL is the part of the bullet that varies within the same lot.

Wind doping Dies... I need those too!!!!!!

 

[johara1]

Tony, I was given my wind reading info. at a little town around D.C. by the U.S.M.C. by it's starting to get fuzzy.
I use a Tubb BSC. and Hoover Stuff and it works very well the only thing i do different is i hold .001 on the bearing surface and i weigh and hold a tenth.
With the dasher with 115's i can get single digit ES. and SD..........jim

 

[TonyR]

Jim.
I was shooting at Quantico last weekend. 40mph gusts and I doubt the temps got above the mid thirties. It was a QSC practice and we were trying to help get new shooters on the paper at 1000 yards, one of whom was shooting a hunting rifle with hunting ammo and a 7X scope. Great fun and very challenging conditions.The Tubb BSC looks to be exactly the same device as the JB and I try to be about where you are on bullet weights, ES and SD except most of my shooting for the last two years has been a 7mm of some kind. I can hold to the thousandth and the tenth if I am sorting 1000 or more 7mm bullets. I end up mixing the BSLs when I have an odd box of 100 for testing. The 6BR barrel is on the self for a while but I did shoot some 115 VLDs with it. I think I would have done more with the 115s if I had a Dasher but the BC gain was offset by the velocity loss compared to the 105 VLDs. They did hold good vertical though.

 

[queen_stick]

Tony,

You ever shoot at Williamsport?

I was thinkin about trying to get down to Quantico this summer for a match just to try a different 1k range. Williamsport is the only range I've shot at so far, but I've only been messing with long range competition for a year now.

Walt