Aerospike 300 BLK 146 Lulu adventure begins

[LVLAaron]

Is it just me or does that look like it has about 100 thou of runout?

 

[TylerFromMS]

Is it just me or does that look like it has about 100 thou of runout?

Slight gangster lean.

 

[dellet]

Haven’t measured for out of round, but other than some of the nose/tip and tail, nothing obvious. I think the tool marks and photo angle probably make it look worse than it is.

I started to sort bullets and found some other issues, nothing that would be a catastrophe, but might lead to a high rate of culls.

It would be a shame to have the benefits of a new design, canceled by poor machining. Time will tell.

Again the real proof will be on paper, easy to nitpic, but I’ll hold off any real judgment until live fire results are in.

 

[JLT]

Haven’t measured for out of round, but other than some of the nose/tip and tail, nothing obvious. I think the tool marks and photo angle probably make it look worse than it is.

I started to sort bullets and found some other issues, nothing that would be a catastrophe, but might lead to a high rate of culls.

It would be a shame to have the benefits of a new design, canceled by poor machining. Time will tell.

Again the real proof will be on paper, easy to nitpic, but I’ll hold off any real judgment until live fire results are in.

@HappyHellfire, this is an excellent point. What @dellet is doing amounts to proof of concept and this would argue strongly for slowing the lathe down to produce the most consistent dimensions and finish you can for this phase of testing. Give the design the best chance, worry about production questions later. Just a thought.

 

[Stumpy1]

Honestly, those bullets (if the pictures are typical) look like they were turned by an angry beaver on meth.
You might want to look at some pictures of Warner Flatline bullets -yes, lathe turned finish will be different than a typical drawn cup bullet, but come on. Precision is precision.

Also, note that the Warner bullets have pilot bands and driving bands, and not just a straight shank.
I wonder about the pressure effects of driving a straight shank solid copper bullet through the bore.

.30 155.5gr FLAT LINE PALMA | Warner Tool Company

The WTC .30 155.5gr Flat Line Palma Bullet is a CNC lathe-turned copper solid, designed to boost speed and BC - farther, faster, flatter.

www.warner-tool.com

Frank

 

[HappyHellfire]

Honestly, those bullets (if the pictures are typical) look like they were turned by an angry beaver on meth.
You might want to look at some pictures of Warner Flatline bullets -yes, lathe turned finish will be different than a typical drawn cup bullet, but come on. Precision is precision.

Also, note that the Warner bullets have pilot bands and driving bands, and not just a straight shank.
I wonder about the pressure effects of driving a straight shank bullet through the bore.

.30 155.5gr FLAT LINE PALMA | Warner Tool Company

The WTC .30 155.5gr Flat Line Palma Bullet is a CNC lathe-turned copper solid, designed to boost speed and BC - farther, faster, flatter.

www.warner-tool.com

Frank

Look at the pictures of my bullets on my website. The most critical people are doing honest reviews. Of course they are going to show the worst case images.

Judge the bullets on how they fly and and I will figure out how to make them pretty.

 

[HappyHellfire]

@HappyHellfire, this is an excellent point. What @dellet is doing amounts to proof of concept and this would argue strongly for slowing the lathe down to produce the most consistent dimensions and finish you can for this phase of testing. Give the design the best chance, worry about production questions later. Just a thought.

I hear you. I think there might be another step like washing the bullets in an acid bath to keep them shiny. I'll look into it.

The current surface finish is what I used for all of my testing and they flew great. I think it is just an aesthetic thing.

 

[John Beauchamp]

I wish the developer well and success in his goal to make superior long range bullets.
I do have some question though. What is the logic in spending time and materials shooting these in a short range cartridge like the 300 blackout. Is a bullet that is not flying true at 100 yards going to magically correct and be accurate at 1000?
Since it seems that the long range goal is to produce these in jacketed lead it might be good to see if that's even possible based on the shape. One days lathe time plus the materials would about equal the cost to make a set of steel dies. You would then know if your additional tweaking would be worth doing.
As for marketing, not every superior product is successful. You can only expect a percentage of the market and that might not pay your development costs.
There is a thread right now asking why Hornady doesn't make match grade bullets competing with Berger or others. They don't need to, they are running full out making lessor bullets for people who don't require the best match grade.
His web site shows a price of $70 per hundred. That's gonna slow the average guy down.
Ammerman bullets is a newer bullet maker. They came to the UBR nationals last year and gave away probably 10,000 bullets. They didn't ask for anything except to try them.
These are not meant as criticisms just things to think about. Hope you get the help you need.

 

[jelenko]

What is the logic in spending time and materials shooting these in a short range cartridge like the 300 blackout.

I've been wondering the same.

 

[dellet]

Look at the pictures of my bullets on my website. The most critical people are doing honest reviews. Of course they are going to show the worst case images.

Judge the bullets on how they fly and and I will figure out how to make them pretty.

You can call me critical, but you can’t argue the critique.

I blind ordered off your website for a reason. Got extremely lucky with the bullet that shows the worst of your machine work. It was the first one i grabbed from the box. The others seem mostly better, but here will be a high rate of cull for reasons I’ll get into later when I can post more photos.

You’re completely missing the point of the critique. I don’t care about pretty, I care about results. The reason I spend this amount of time checking the bulllet before loading or firing is because I save a lot of grief that way.

The bullet in question that I showed in photos yesterday, is a perfect example of why you look at everything. At 10 yards, it was wobbling, by 100 it likely would have key holed. I don’t know yet if it was due to the deformities, or the high twist rate.that bullet was spinning around 240,000 rpm. More or less 1600 fps.

I don’t know for certain if that was due to piss poor machining, or too fast of spin. Most likely a combination.



The biggest problem is not your bullet design, or your machining skills, it’s your ego. I’m talking obvious construction problems, you want to fix that with acid wash and a spit shine. It’s a clear disconnect.

In one of the few times you were gracious enough to answer one of my questions, you told be your rely on statistics. Let me throw one out there for you to consider.
Roughly 2-3% percent of your bullets currently on the market will cause baffle strikes. Those will $1000 shots each.

One more time I ask
What happens to the stability of this bullet in a 1/5 twist from Mach .9-1.5?
Spin rates as high as 300,000 rpm

Tell me again how much bearing surface of you bullet was in the case at 2.260”.

Edit to add photo

 

[dellet]

@John Beauchamp @jelenko

The question of why waste good components on an inferior velocity cartridge really is quite easy to answer, why not make the best of what you have, no matter what that is?

If you compare the 300 BLK to some other reasonably popular 30 caliber cartridges it starts making sense. 30 carbine, 30-30 Winchester, 308 Winchester.
Compared to
30 carbine, it’s ballistically superior
30-30 Winchester, if compared using similar barrel lengths. Based on superior bullets being available, again it’s a superior cartridge.
308, this one is tricky if you use the same bullet, run both through you ballistic calculator. If the 308 is good to 1000 yards, the Blackout will be good to 6-700 yards. Simply drop down your 308 chart to where the blackout muzzle velocity intersects and that’s the yardage you need to fire from.

Not arguing the velocity challenge the cartridge carries, but puts a different perspective on the question. A 175 SMK at 2200 fps from a 24” barrel, doesn’t do to bad.

 

[jelenko]

@John Beauchamp @jelenko

The question of why waste good components on an inferior velocity cartridge really is quite easy to answer, why not make the best of what you have, no matter what that is?

If you compare the 300 BLK to some other reasonably popular 30 caliber cartridges it starts making sense. 30 carbine, 30-30 Winchester, 308 Winchester.
Compared to
30 carbine, it’s ballistically superior
30-30 Winchester, if compared using similar barrel lengths. Based on superior bullets being available, again it’s a superior cartridge.
308, this one is tricky if you use the same bullet, run both through you ballistic calculator. If the 308 is good to 1000 yards, the Blackout will be good to 6-700 yards. Simply drop down your 308 chart to where the blackout muzzle velocity intersects and that’s the yardage you need to fire from.

Not arguing the velocity challenge the cartridge carries, but puts a different perspective on the question. A 175 SMK at 2200 fps from a 24” barrel, doesn’t do to bad.

Ah. I think the question is for HappyHellFire. If the bullet's advantage is in flatter trajectories at long distances, then that should be the area to focus his efforts.

As a user, why not experiment [or, ahem, play] with the bullets?

 

[dellet]

Ah. I think the question is for HappyHellFire. If the bullet's advantage is in flatter trajectories at long distances, then that should be the area to focus his efforts.

As a user, why not experiment [or, ahem, play] with the bullets?

Well if we go back to my direct question of what exactly the 40% increase in performance was based on, it gets confusing.

He makes no claim of flatter trajectory, less drop over distance or even less drift. The 40% increase is in retained energy. If bullet X has 100 pounds of energy at a given distance, the Aerospike will have 140 pounds.

Not exactly sure how you retain energy, without also retaining velocity, that in turn should equate to a flatter trajectory, but figured it would be some complicated equation with a bunch of symbols my abacus doesn’t have. That’s when I decided to just buy some and see for myself.

 

[rebel]

It has been awhile since I watched dellet on a mission. Gird your loins sir! I will sip homemade brandy and watch the fun.

 

[Konocti's Wigwam]

It has been awhile since I watched dellet on a mission. Gird your loins sir! I will sip homemade brandy and watch the fun.

I'm having some popcorn myself.

 

[muleystalker]

I certainly hope the actual machined finish on those bullets is better than the pics make them look. If not, then wow.

Those things look like they were turned on a lathe with a Rat Tail file! The profile finish looks about as consistent as carrots. I woulds be pissed off if I paid money and thats what was received.

 

[Big_Daddy]

Judge the bullets on how they fly and and I will figure out how to make them pretty.

I would love to however you must have plenty of testers since there was zero response to my offers to test.

I am interested in the verified test results!

 

[jelenko]

how you retain energy, without also retaining velocity,

Well, if it does, many people would like to know.

 

[HappyHellfire]

You can call me critical, but you can’t argue the critique.

I blind ordered off your website for a reason. Got extremely lucky with the bullet that shows the worst of your machine work. It was the first one i grabbed from the box. The others seem mostly better, but here will be a high rate of cull for reasons I’ll get into later when I can post more photos.

You’re completely missing the point of the critique. I don’t care about pretty, I care about results. The reason I spend this amount of time checking the bulllet before loading or firing is because I save a lot of grief that way.

The bullet in question that I showed in photos yesterday, is a perfect example of why you look at everything. At 10 yards, it was wobbling, by 100 it likely would have key holed. I don’t know yet if it was due to the deformities, or the high twist rate.that bullet was spinning around 240,000 rpm. More or less 1600 fps.

I don’t know for certain if that was due to piss poor machining, or too fast of spin. Most likely a combination.

View attachment 1574515

The biggest problem is not your bullet design, or your machining skills, it’s your ego. I’m talking obvious construction problems, you want to fix that with acid wash and a spit shine. It’s a clear disconnect.

In one of the few times you were gracious enough to answer one of my questions, you told be your rely on statistics. Let me throw one out there for you to consider.
Roughly 2-3% percent of your bullets currently on the market will cause baffle strikes. Those will $1000 shots each.

One more time I ask
What happens to the stability of this bullet in a 1/5 twist from Mach .9-1.5?
Spin rates as high as 300,000 rpm

Tell me again how much bearing surface of you bullet was in the case at 2.260”.

Edit to add photo

I think the disconnect between our cultures is part of the problem.

Being called critical is a complement. It is the foundation of critical thinking. People lie all the time to save feelings. Being honest is in your opinions is a virtue. You have shown remarkable willingness to evaluate the bullets regardless of your prior criticisms. I meant no offense.

As to the question about bullet stability, I have only shot them out of a 1:7 twist in the transonic range. That being said, they showed good stability from the 1:7 twist in that range and the stability formula derived from linear projectile theory shows that increasing twist increases stability. Some lead core bullet explode out of the barrel due to over spin but as a solid copper I would not expect that to happen.

I did not measure the amount of bearing surface in the case before firing. I only seated them, measured the COAL, and fired them. I will make some up and see what I measure tomorrow.

I think that there is a significant cultural barrier between me and a large portion of this forum. I have seen this over the years with the shooters I have worked with but it is exaggerated in the forum. I honestly don't know how to fix it.

 

[Konocti's Wigwam]

Judge the bullets on how they fly and and I will figure out how to make them pretty.

Who's the customer, me or you? How about you make them pretty to convince me to buy some from you and shoot them in my rifle?

Your $70/100 doesn't sound bad price wise, but you're competing with Barnes and Hornady in monolithic bullets. That might not matter if you only plan on selling a few hundred bullets. The Barnes and Hornady bullets I get look nicer.