I only trim long range bullets. However I sort into batches by overall length of .003 then use my Girard trimmer to trim them back to the shortest bullet.
Bullet Sorting
- Thread starter MN50Shooter
- Start date
I only trim long range bullets. However I sort into batches by overall length of .003 then use my Girard trimmer to trim them back to the shortest bullet.
Easy to tip your bullets, just be prepared to accept it will be close to impossible to prove the results on paper. I accept that tipping bullets is not measurable on paper, but so are other numerous “perfect” reloading processes that are close to impossible to measure the individual results on paper.
Ben
Ben
Dusty Stevens
Shiner
I believe theyre talking about trimming meplats. Tipping is a whole nother can of worms
I truly appreciate everyone's insight on the "Sorting" subject. I'm sorry if it started any arguments. I'm currently stocked with Sierra SMK 107's and plan to sort BTO and OAL, then see if I can work up a load that gets them to shoot decent groups.
Winter seems to have set-in here in MN and my shooting/testing days may be few and far between. I have instructed my wife, to get me out of hibernation when the temps are above 35°F and sunny, which I will actually get out and shoot in. I believe I'll have plenty of time, and enough bullets to test both methods, and figure out what my rifle likes. If I try everything and discover they won't group after trying all the variables, such as the sorting, powders, primers, jump, etc... then, I guess I'll start over with a different bullet. Hopefully, I won't wear out the barrel before I find a setup that will shoot.
One of the tv shows I enjoyed (until they ended it) had the now famous saying "Winter is coming"... they were full of crap...Winter is Here, in Minnesota. The home of Snow, Ice and Rust.
Winter seems to have set-in here in MN and my shooting/testing days may be few and far between. I have instructed my wife, to get me out of hibernation when the temps are above 35°F and sunny, which I will actually get out and shoot in. I believe I'll have plenty of time, and enough bullets to test both methods, and figure out what my rifle likes. If I try everything and discover they won't group after trying all the variables, such as the sorting, powders, primers, jump, etc... then, I guess I'll start over with a different bullet. Hopefully, I won't wear out the barrel before I find a setup that will shoot.
One of the tv shows I enjoyed (until they ended it) had the now famous saying "Winter is coming"... they were full of crap...Winter is Here, in Minnesota. The home of Snow, Ice and Rust.
Dusty Stevens
Shiner
i was up there working one time and saw a severely rusted out newer model truck. You could see into the bed. It had a “salt life” sticker on what was left of the bed side
I look at it this way. There are many things you can do that may be “impossible to measure on paper” alone but take the time to do them all, now you may have something that shows a large improvement.
This sport does not have a lack of diminishing returns processes, it’s all about what your willing to do to get those returns. As other have said, if it gives you a piece of mind or confidence in your loads then by all means do it.
Ned Ludd
Silver $$ Contributor
I have found the results of pointing (tipping) bullets to be quite easy to verify on paper. Years ago when I first started pointing bullets, on several occasions I loaded rounds for a monthly 300 yd competition with un-pointed bullets for one or two matches, and the remaining match(es) were loaded up otherwise identically using pointed bullets (i.e. one or two matches with one, the rest with the other, all fired on a single day). Without exception, the pointed bullets required one to 2 clicks (0.125 to 0.250 MOA) less elevation to center the group at 300 yd. I also found the groups fired using pointed bullets were generally tighter. I have done this with various .224" and .308" bullets and obtained the same results.
If less elevation is required to center a group at some distance for otherwise identical loaded rounds from the same rifle on the same day, I think it's safe to conclude that the BC of the pointed bullets has been increased. Further, if the BC has increased, I believe it's also safe to conclude that the resistance to wind deflection has decreased, although I agree that the windage factor is more difficult to directly quantify.
For kicks and giggles, I recently used velocity decrease over distance (LabRadar data) in conjunction with JBM Ballistics (https://www.jbmballistics.com/cgi-bin/jbmbcv-5.1.cgi) to estimate the BCs of un-pointed and pointed 215 Hybrids, taking the average of 5 individual shots for each. The results:
Un-pointed: G7 BC estimate = 0.351 +/- .010
Pointed: G7 BC estimate = 0.363 +/- .016
There are some certainly caveats to this approach, in particular, the LabRadar velocity decrease data used was from 0 to 55 yd, which is not ideal. A longer distance would likely be better, or at the very would least stretch the y-axis out a bit. The value obtained for the un-pointed bullets (0.351 G7 BC) was very close to the advertised (box) value of 0.354. The pointed bullets exhibited an apparent 3.4% increase in BC as compared to the un-pointed bullets, which is certainly well within the range of BC increase expected for bullet pointing (typically 3 to 5%). Further, simple statistical analysis suggested the likelihood that the difference between un-pointed and pointed values was not random at >90%. Clearly that is not an outstanding confidence value, as >95% or >99% would be preferable. Nonetheless, using a larger sample set (i.e. n>5) and/or increasing the separation between velocity readings to 75 yds might improve the reliability of LabRadar data for the purpose of comparing BCs.
Overall, using differential elevation (drop) at ranges of 300 yd or greater can allow the effect of bullet pointing to be observed directly. The use of velocity decrease over distance (LabRadar data) might also allow such estimates/comparisons to be made, but may require a minimum of something like 10 shots each (un-pointed and pointed) for reliability.
In more practical terms, whether one can reliably shoot a 3% difference in BC in terms of making a quantifiable improvement in score is clearly a different story. I absolutely believe that if all else is equal, even a small increase in BC will pay off over the long haul. But it's doubtful that a clear difference would be noticeable in a single match. For me personally, the more important question is how much time and effort does a given sorting step take? In other words, how painful is it? Frankly, sorting bullets by OAL for pointing, and the actual pointing process is pretty easy and I don't mind doing it at all. Likewise, weighing powder to +/- one half kernel, or weight sorting brass as a surrogate for case volume are also quite easy and don't take much time. Can I prove that any of those individual sorting procedures have made a clear difference between winning and not winning in a match? Absolutely not. Nonetheless, they don't take a huge amount of time and in F-Class, consistency of one's ammunition over the long strings of fire is critical if you want to win. The individual sorting steps may collectively make a noticeable difference when combined. Further, if the ammunition is as good as you can possibly make it, for me it frees my mind to concentrate on the most important factor in competition, which is reading the wind conditions. I don't believe that you can necessarily win a match at the reloading bench, but you can certainly lose one there. Confidence in the quality of the ammunition for me is a big deal when laying behind the rifle at a match. I may be required to spend more time at the reloading bench than someone else that doesn't carry out the same sorting steps, but I don't ever worry about the ammo at a match...all I have to do is point the gun in the correct direction for what the wind is doing
.
If less elevation is required to center a group at some distance for otherwise identical loaded rounds from the same rifle on the same day, I think it's safe to conclude that the BC of the pointed bullets has been increased. Further, if the BC has increased, I believe it's also safe to conclude that the resistance to wind deflection has decreased, although I agree that the windage factor is more difficult to directly quantify.
For kicks and giggles, I recently used velocity decrease over distance (LabRadar data) in conjunction with JBM Ballistics (https://www.jbmballistics.com/cgi-bin/jbmbcv-5.1.cgi) to estimate the BCs of un-pointed and pointed 215 Hybrids, taking the average of 5 individual shots for each. The results:
Un-pointed: G7 BC estimate = 0.351 +/- .010
Pointed: G7 BC estimate = 0.363 +/- .016
There are some certainly caveats to this approach, in particular, the LabRadar velocity decrease data used was from 0 to 55 yd, which is not ideal. A longer distance would likely be better, or at the very would least stretch the y-axis out a bit. The value obtained for the un-pointed bullets (0.351 G7 BC) was very close to the advertised (box) value of 0.354. The pointed bullets exhibited an apparent 3.4% increase in BC as compared to the un-pointed bullets, which is certainly well within the range of BC increase expected for bullet pointing (typically 3 to 5%). Further, simple statistical analysis suggested the likelihood that the difference between un-pointed and pointed values was not random at >90%. Clearly that is not an outstanding confidence value, as >95% or >99% would be preferable. Nonetheless, using a larger sample set (i.e. n>5) and/or increasing the separation between velocity readings to 75 yds might improve the reliability of LabRadar data for the purpose of comparing BCs.
Overall, using differential elevation (drop) at ranges of 300 yd or greater can allow the effect of bullet pointing to be observed directly. The use of velocity decrease over distance (LabRadar data) might also allow such estimates/comparisons to be made, but may require a minimum of something like 10 shots each (un-pointed and pointed) for reliability.
In more practical terms, whether one can reliably shoot a 3% difference in BC in terms of making a quantifiable improvement in score is clearly a different story. I absolutely believe that if all else is equal, even a small increase in BC will pay off over the long haul. But it's doubtful that a clear difference would be noticeable in a single match. For me personally, the more important question is how much time and effort does a given sorting step take? In other words, how painful is it? Frankly, sorting bullets by OAL for pointing, and the actual pointing process is pretty easy and I don't mind doing it at all. Likewise, weighing powder to +/- one half kernel, or weight sorting brass as a surrogate for case volume are also quite easy and don't take much time. Can I prove that any of those individual sorting procedures have made a clear difference between winning and not winning in a match? Absolutely not. Nonetheless, they don't take a huge amount of time and in F-Class, consistency of one's ammunition over the long strings of fire is critical if you want to win. The individual sorting steps may collectively make a noticeable difference when combined. Further, if the ammunition is as good as you can possibly make it, for me it frees my mind to concentrate on the most important factor in competition, which is reading the wind conditions. I don't believe that you can necessarily win a match at the reloading bench, but you can certainly lose one there. Confidence in the quality of the ammunition for me is a big deal when laying behind the rifle at a match. I may be required to spend more time at the reloading bench than someone else that doesn't carry out the same sorting steps, but I don't ever worry about the ammo at a match...all I have to do is point the gun in the correct direction for what the wind is doing
.
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Actually, it's quite simple to test. Load 5 pointed and 5 that aren't. Shoot a 10 shot string with 1 pointed, 1 not for all 10. You'll have your answer in about 20 seconds
Not likely....
Let's hear your method instead is discrediting others...
mikeeg02
Michael Glantz
The effects of elevation from pointing are much harder to detect in the short range, say out to 300 yards. You can still pick it out if you know what you're looking for, but it can appear much more like noise. If you want to see the dramatic difference, shoot them round robin like @gunnermhr suggested, and at 1,000 yards. Its not hard to show 4-6" of difference between the center of two groups from pointed vs untouched bullets. And if you shot trimmed vs pointed, its not hard to show 10"+, depending on how much you trimmed, and how much you pointed.
The further out you go, the easier it is to see.
Not necessarily. Positive compensation proves otherwise. Some of the top guys would have much more information on this than me though.
@Boisblancboy, you are spot on. At 1,000 yards over multiple round robin tests, I have seen a spread of as much as a 4” vertical difference between 2 different powder charges that were only .1 gains different. Yet both had an ES of 15 or less. Positive compensation can be seen if your brass is prepped correctly, your equipment is good enough, and if your rifle handling skills are calm enough.
Can’t support you on that one!
Lots of confusion in long range shooting between tune and low ES! Just because it goes out at the same velocity doesn’t mean
it’s tuned.
Bart
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