pointing bullets?

[quartersnatcher]

Jim,
I have one of the point dies and press that Ferris made, purchased it from Ferris and June back in 2005 at the super shoot.
I also have one of John Whiddens point dies, this die is more user friendly design that will help you during adjustemnts and during set up.

I have similar results shooting at 1000' with pointed bullets impact changed 1.5 moa less elevation from non pointed.
Joel Kendrick

 

[JHardy]

Joel:

I knew you had a die. Did not know about the press. Ferris sold several, although I don't know how many. I know of certain shooters who visited Ferris at his home and walked away with a meplat closing die at a 'good bargain.'

I know at one time, Ferris was selling the dies for around $450. I saw one for sale on this board a while back for about that amount. Some may have got out his door for a much cheaper price.

Beyond getting Ferris in touch with a patent attorney, I never had any interest except for trying to improve my personal performance at 1000 yards.

I hope Ferris has made a little coin on these dies as he certainly deserves it. There will never be another Ferris Pindell.

Good shooting,
Jim

 

[TonyR]

I asked myself the $250.00 question before I bought my pointing die and I found a simple way to test the variation of BC within a box of bullets. Just buy yourself a Number Drill Gauge and use it to sort your bullets by tip size. Observe the number of different sizes in say 100 bullets. Then test bullets of the same tip size against a random group of bullets from the same box. The gauge I'm talking about is a flat plate with a hole in it for every drill number. I just assigned the drill number where I could just see the tip stick up on the other side of the plate. I did this with a box of Berger 105 VLDs and found four different 'tip sizes'. There was a noticable improvement in the sorted bullets versus my previous results. Enough to convince me to buy the die system.

 

[JHardy]

To alf: The process is not mine. I just paid for the R&D and the product. There is a lot of difference between closing the meplats and the meplats being closed to an extent limited to the punch out pin, i.e., large meplats. In real life, the big difference is process and the patent. A research of the patent will answer your questions.

To Slowpoke: I heard that Speedy had made some dies, but I thought they were post 2002. I have had work done by Speedy and he certainly had the skills to get it done. If what you say is true, that would change the history of the die. But, the 'case' is not closed as ALL of the patents were initiated by Harold,Bubba) Beal AFTER the development of the Pindell die in 2002.

I am not a patent attorney. However, I understand that one of the issues that a new 'inventor' has to be concerned with is selling the product before a pantent is pending. I believe -- could be wrong -- that if you sell before you engage in the patent work, you have queered your patent opportunity if others want to jump in on your work.

If Speedy got the meplat closing die going that long ago, he sure missed his opportunity to get a patent. As Speedy would say: 'Boss, just damn, what were you thinking?'

I would love to see a picture of Speedy's die,and the internals)as it would be interesting to compare the thinking, process and finished products between the Pindell and Speedy die.

Thanks for your response,
Jim Hardy

 

[SlowpokeRodriguez]

The die is at home in the die box. Speedy had many things he could have gotten the rights to but the process to do it was not worth the trouble for him. To my knowledge he only built 2 dies and I have one of them.

 

[GerryM]

I have the pindell die that was on the board.
It is really well made and by looking at it it was made quite a while ago.
I tried it out to see just how good it is and believe me it's good.
The only problem is I don't need it' I make my own pills and there is no meplet on mine. As was stated they are for a machine made bullet. A properly adjust point die with hand made match jacket makes a bullet with out a meplet

 

[JHardy]

Slowpoke:

Yep, Speedy is a great tool and die man. In fact, Speedy's work along with Jim Borden, Al Warner and Ferris ranks as the best I have ever seen. In that regard, you can spot their work from a distance as it is unique amoung the other stuff on the line.

You are correct about the patent process. 'Expensive' is an accurate word, not to mention the big PITA.

You need to hang on to that die! If I remember correctly, you are a man who keeps spotless performance vehicles -- just the kind of person who can appreciate great work.

Thanks for the info and update,
Jim Hardy

 

[JHardy]

Gary:

E-mail sent.

Jim

 

[ThunderDownUnder]

I have a Whidden pointing die and just recently tried it out on 6.5mm 130gr Berger VLDs. I set it up the same as I have with other projectiles but noticed on the 130s that the point depth,or length) varies visibly from projectile to projectile.

Berger make great bullets but the only thing I can come up with is there must be variation in length from projectile to projectile. I pointed up 6 bullets and gave it away without bothering to measure them as the visible difference in point length worried me.

I dont measure bullet length as I measure off the ogive for OAL using a comparator.

After thinking about this I am now wondering if the difference in point length would mean a slightly different BC for each bullet. I will now grab the bullets I threw in the bin and measure them for tip diameter. My reasoning is that if tip diameter is the same then BC should be too.

If length of point is important to be the same then it would be too much bother to adjust the pointing die for each individual bullet. This was my initial conclusion as the 130s have a pretty decent point straight out of the box.

I haven't had this point length problem show up pointing other bullets. Any ideas?

 

[LongRanger]

ThunderDownUnder...

When I was shooting Berger 130's I had the same issues with length variance so I pre-measured lengths and sorted into groups. Then, starting with longest group, I used the micrometer top on the pointing die and dialed down for next shorter group.

Pre-sorting not needed if you cut meplats with a uniformer first.

Frank

 

[TonyR]

I have pointed hundreds of Berger 6mm 105 VLDs and the overall length does vary by at least .006 within a box of 100. I always trim them to a uniform length before I point them because I believe that the tips are more uniform. I found that trimming and pointing reduces my vertical dispersion by about 1/4 inch at 300 yards with the 105 VLDs and it cut my vertical dispersion at 1000 yards by half. Bryan Litz at Berger said that this improvement would be less noticable with larger diameter bullets and some testing I did today at 300 yards with some unpointed 7mm 180gr VLDs showed just that.

 

[ThunderDownUnder]

Looks like I need to add another step to the process, either sort or trim. Thanks guys!

 

[edpmedic]

I was looking at the new Sinclare catalogue I got a couple of days ago and was wondering the same about the Whidden system. Every time it seems something new is coming out. My question is after you use this do you have to Meplat? Does pointing bullets take care of this.
Sinclare shows $210.00 for the system and $40.00 for each sleeve. Then if you have to meplat about $50.00 and $15.00 additional housings. If you guys say it really helps then it is worth buying. It is just I wonder what the next thing is going to be that they come out with. After all you look at how Sierra and Berger talk about their bullets. It is like you take them load them and you don't have to do anything to make them shoot better.
Maybe they better think of lowering their price if they don't perform has good has they say.

________
Marc W.

 

[RDavies]

I have one question, what have you found happens if you squeeze it down too much and bulge the tip a bit, did it make much difference?

 

[GerryM]

Let me explain why a meplet is on the bullets.
I make my own with custom dies and know why they are present.
The dies are set so that enough material is pushed into the ejection pin hole. It's not a lot but enough to make sure that the machine will eject the bullet without jamming up.
Remember they are made on automated equipment.
I have shot many many Berger and sierra bullets.
Both are excellent along with Hornady, Spear etc.
There may also be two or more machines making the same caliber and weight bullet. They are ejected from the machine and sent to the next step by a conveyor belt.
They are inspected by eye. If the die gets out of alignment the operator shuts down to find the problem and then the die is readjusted, Making bullets require's a lot of automation and be thankful that they are the quality that they are.
The bullet companies are literally Bending Over Back words to accommodate us the shooters.
We are very lucky to have what we have.
Yes they sound off their horn once in a while but take a good look at what your getting.
The only reason I make my own on Detsch Dies is that one that slips though .
I shoot for groups and that's where the difference is.
The pointing system is very useful for the long range shooting with factory bullets.
The only other way to solve the small problem is to make your own. That my friends get's expensive, But if you want
The very best you will have to make your own.
The die i have bought made by pindell makes a very small cone on the very top of the bullet, The pointing hole is closed almost completely The Varring on the ogive is due to the different setting on the machines, and an occasional short jacket Maybe Just a few .001 of and inch.

 

[Bob3700]

CR500,

If you close the tip too much, you just put that bullet in a box marked practice.

If you sort your bullets by bearing surface, you can set the pointing die and do all the bullets that are the same bearing surface.

Makes pointing a little more consistent not to be adjusting the die for each bullet.

Bob

 

[eddyverhoeven]

CR500,

If you sort your bullets by bearing surface, you can set the pointing die and do all the bullets that are the same bearing surface.


Bob

Sorry for being blond but what's the wright technique to do so,what gear to use?

Eddy

 

[Bob3700]

Eddy,

Tubb markets a bearing surface comparator, it lets you measure the bearing surface length. Each green box of bullets has several different bullet lengths.

Once you have them measured, you can set your point die for each length. That will keep you from bulging the tip of the bullet.

Bob

 

[TonyR]

I trim my bullets to a uniform length from the base to the tip using Whidden's meplat trimmer before I point them. I have not had problems with bulging bullets since I started trimming but I did before.

 

[GerryM]

Yes with factory bullets you measure the ogive'
If you seat them into the lands they are pretty close.
If you do the rapid fire thing in high power your stuck with a magazine length, unless you modify it or the receiver.
Sorting by ogive will get the small differance out.