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Meplat trimming and Bullet pointing

DennisH

Life Time NRA member
Meplat and bullet pointing:

I am curious to see if these steps are critical in reloading and produce results that are worth the effort.

I would be interested in your personal experience.
 
Meplat and Bullet pointing

It doesn't make sense to ask broad questions like that. Is there an actual/specific question behind this?
Instead of requesting that EVERYBODY expend all the energy once again, you should search the subject.
Here, enter 'meplat': http://forum.accurateshooter.com/index.php?action=search2

Otherwise, you're just burning out the board.
 
Meplat and Bullet pointing

Is there an actual/specific question behind this?

Yes, there is! I am curious to see if these steps are critical in reloading and produce results that are worth the effort.

I will also search the subject, and if I find the info I am looking for, I will delete the post

Thanks,

PS: I did search the forums and found very little information on these subjects! The below post are very informative, Thanks
 
Meplat and Bullet pointing

Anything you can do to improve the quality and consistancy of loaded ammo does help make the rifles shoot Better. IE weighed charges, Better bullets by design, shape or quality Better brass by brand and consistancy, Neck turning, meplet closing, weighing bullets, checking ogives and lengths to bullets, Best loads along with best primers, powders etc.
It all comes together after a while. I hope this helps some
 
Meplat and Bullet pointing

While those two steps will decrease wind deflection and vertical dispersion incrementally, I feel they are really only valuable after you have your shooting technique perfected. If you are a High Master shooter, then one or both may help you with a missed point here or and X there. We are talking about a 3-5% increase in accuracy. With a 10 mph wind at 1000 yds. that boils down to about 1.5" or so. You will gain much more than that by putting your efforts into load development and nailing down your hold and trigger let off. Once everything else is good then consider adding the time and expense of pointing and/or meplat trimming (most folks I know point only when using quality bullets to start with).
 
Meplat and Bullet pointing

Thanks Watercam & GerryM, this is the exact information I am looking for.

;D
 
Meplat and Bullet pointing

I also performed a search on meplat trimming and found little in the way of quantifiable experience. I do not think Dennis or his question were in any way out of line or repetitive. His treatment by another forum member however is questionable at best.

Scott Parker
Bakersfield CA
 
Meplat and Bullet pointing

I've found that meplat trimming increases accuracy while bullet pointing increases ballistic performance (bucking the wind). I agree with GerryM and Watercam the more you can do to be consistant the better your gun will shoot and more importantly is the shooting technique. In my opinion the shooting technique is the most important thing you can focus on. What happens sometimes is that because someone doesn't have their meplats trimmed or bullets pointed or whatever else we shooters find as excuses we will blame flyers on those excuses instead of poor technique or poor wind reading. Good shooting, Brian.
 
Meplat and Bullet pointing

Dennis

Here are a few links to some about bullet prep including pointing and meplat trimming. I hope they help!



http://blog.sinclairintl.com/2010/02/19/bullet-prep/

http://blog.sinclairintl.com/2010/03/24/bullet-prep-giving-you-the-long-range-edge-part-ii/
 
Meplat and Bullet pointing

DennisH,
I tried to do the meplat trimming on the 190 seirra's and it didn't do a good job, so I gave up on it. Due to your thread I think I may know why now, I will order the proper trimmer for the style of bullet I have and try it again. Thanks for the informative thread, I have always said a question isn't stupid as long as your seeking understanding of something, I don't care how simple of a question it is as long as when all the explanations were put out there for you to read, and you were able to get a understanding and safely accomplish your intended goal then it is never a stupid question or a waste of anybodies time explaining it, thanks again.
Wayne.
 
Meplat and Bullet pointing

How many products are out there to start this?

So far ive only seen the Sinclair trimmer and the Whidden pointing dies.

I would like to give this a try but it really seems spendy to start, i would rather start trimming first then maybe, maybe, shell out the big bucks make my bullets a little pointier.
 
Meplat and Bullet pointing

If you don't plan on doing both, I would not bother doing anything.

Hoover and Benchsource also makes pointing dies.
 
Meplat and Bullet pointing

If you shoot a .308 try the Sierra 2156 projectiles - they are already pointed, then measure the group against a separate group of "unpointed" projectiles.
 
Meplat and Bullet pointing

Putting an accurate shot into a LR target is an act of synergy of multiple variables, and while changing any one may have minor value by itself, consider how much it takes to accomplish and what the benefit is.

In the case of meplat trimming and/or pointing, while there is a cost to buy the equipment, the time to conduct the operation is negligible. I was able to point 500 bullets in about an hour with the Hoover bullet pointer. It cost a couple of hundred dollars, but discounting the value of my time, I was effectively able to affect a change in group size of 1.5 inches at 1000 yards according to WATERCAM's calculations. That is an advantage that is quite cheap, and not a one time deal. Those 500 bullets will last me a whole season, and the tool will provide years of service. I say, "why not?"
 
Meplat and Bullet pointing

Dennis,

You didn't state what sort of shooting you are doing. The results will vary with your application.

If you are a short range benchrester or casual varmint hunter, don't waste your time. If your shooting is 400 yds or less, I think you will not get the benefit of the money and time spent to perform these tasks.

At 600 yds, the results of bullet pointing and trimming are beginning to show up. You can actually see your groups getting more round. Wind drift is worth about half the vertical gain when pointing ( a generalization as caliber will affect the result, bigger bullets benefit less from pointing than small ones).

Once you pass 600 yds, the effect is quantifiable. Just shoot unpointed vs pointed and see how your POI is affected.

I guess a bit more info is needed about your application, caliber and such.

Bob
 
Meplat and Bullet pointing

Anything out to 300 we don't necessarily do this, but beyond that range we do.

This is our process. Your's may vary, but this has proven itself for us.

Projectile prep:

We only use Berger VLDs, but Sierra SMKs work really great too.
Our method is to begin with meplat trimming. We use the Hoover. Buy the sort that indexes on the ogive, not the base of the bullet. That's going to be very important when you cross reference/compare actual seat depth from the ogive to COAL, cartridge to cartridge later.

Untrimmed

Moly001.jpg


Trimming process.

Moly003.jpg


Trimmed

Moly005.jpg


We then use a Hoover Pointer to reshape and center the hollow point and we taper it down to an opening that's approximately twice the thickness of the jacket wall.

Pointing

Armoury2003.jpg


Moly006.jpg



Pointed correctly

Moly002.jpg


This is only the beginning of our overall case/projectile prep process.

Latigo
 
Meplat and Bullet pointing

DennisH said:
Meplat and bullet pointing:

I am curious to see if these steps are critical in reloading and produce results that are worth the effort.

I would be interested in your personal experience.

I have meplat trimmed and pointed thousands of 6mm and 7mm bullets and I will make a couple of observations:

1) It is better to do both or none at all because the pointing die gets rid of the burr left by the trimmer and the pointers all work better if the bullets have been trimmed to the same length overall before pointing.

2) Trimming and pointing are more important if you are an F-Class shooter than if you are a prone shooter or a BR shooter because the prone targets are twice as big as the F-Class targets and BR shooters can just sort bullets by length to get the same effect.

3) Trimming and pointing seems to be more important with smaller calibers because the meplats are roughly the same size but a smaller proportion relative the diameter of larger bullets. With my 6mm, the whole group shrank where I feel that I just get rid of the one flier in every 10 shots with a 7mm. I am undecided about the benefits with a 30 cal.

4) The biggest benefit is uniformity of BC rather than improvement of BC. I wouldn't bother if all I was doing was improving the average BC.

5) If there is an A-Max bullet that has the BC and caliber you want, use that instead. There isn't one that I would use in 7mm for F-Class, so I trim and point.

6) It is hard to see any benefit at less than 300 yards.


I use the Whidden Pointer and the Montour County Rifles trimmer. I have also used the Whidden trimmer.

I hope this answers some of you questions.
 
Meplat and Bullet pointing

zfk55 said:
Tony, you sort bullets by length and not weight?

Latigo

I sort first by bearing surface length, then trim and point, then sort by weight. Pretty much everything makes nice F-Class (20 round plus sighters) sets if I start with a sleeve of 500 Bergers but I prefer to do 1500 at a time. This may seem like a lot but it's not hard to shoot 2000-3000 a year if you're doing long range prone matches regularly. I'll also check them for diameter before I do anything in some cases. I have been amazed at what shows up in a box of 100 bullets that are supposed to be the same. There are times when I believe that the sorting just catches things that shouldn't have been in the box in the first place.

BTW, those are great pics of the process you posted. How do you like the Hoover tools??
 

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