Need explanation on bullet types
05-25-2004, 02:23 PM
#1
Typical Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: SE Wisc
Posts: 677
Need explanation on bullet types
I am looking for real world views and explanations of bullet types.
Boat tails, Nosler, partition ???????
can someone explain what these are good for and when to use these instead of just standard core-lokts or XP2's?
i am wondering if this stuff is just marketing hype and if not, when to use each type in what situation?
currently shooting a 7mm-08 and 30.06. Hunt mostly white tail deer, but may hunt bigger and better game in the up coming year.
Boat tails, Nosler, partition ???????
can someone explain what these are good for and when to use these instead of just standard core-lokts or XP2's?
i am wondering if this stuff is just marketing hype and if not, when to use each type in what situation?
currently shooting a 7mm-08 and 30.06. Hunt mostly white tail deer, but may hunt bigger and better game in the up coming year.
05-25-2004, 03:59 PM
#2
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Michigan
Posts: 3,476
RE: Need explanation on bullet types
If you hunt with only a 30/06 and a 7mm/08 you can be well served(in most normal scenarios) by standard bullets. Premium style bullets of various constructions can give you a huge edge when you are pushing the limits of...the size of the game you are after, the bodily construction of the game you are after, the distances you are shooting, and the velocities you are shooting. That said, there are many other reasons to use premium grade bullets...even if they are of a standard construction. Consistency of quality is a big one.
A standard soft-type mushrooming bullet (cor-lokt and their ilk) would take care of average sized whitetail at average distances at average velocities......but hunters sometimes find themsleves outside those parameters and that is why the premium bullets have a market. I'd suggest that you start by logging on to the websites of as many bullet manufactures as you can...and read their own descriptions and summaaries of their different bullet lines and their uses. It is actually way too involved to be described in a singel post-answer here.
Sierra, Hornady, Winchester, Remington all make a variety of bullets for various stated uses...then Nosler, Swift, Barnes..just to name a few of the "other" makers.
A standard soft-type mushrooming bullet (cor-lokt and their ilk) would take care of average sized whitetail at average distances at average velocities......but hunters sometimes find themsleves outside those parameters and that is why the premium bullets have a market. I'd suggest that you start by logging on to the websites of as many bullet manufactures as you can...and read their own descriptions and summaaries of their different bullet lines and their uses. It is actually way too involved to be described in a singel post-answer here.
Sierra, Hornady, Winchester, Remington all make a variety of bullets for various stated uses...then Nosler, Swift, Barnes..just to name a few of the "other" makers.
05-25-2004, 04:07 PM
#4
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Gypsum KS USA
Posts: 1,289
RE: Need explanation on bullet types
Nosler is a manufacturer, they put out several different types of bullet, kind of like Winchester-they put out several types of gun...Check out www.nosler.com
"Partition" is a bullet type, it is a jacketed bullet with basically a soft-point construction (bullet tip isn't closed-jacketed), however it has a "partition" connecting across the body of the bullet, a cross section of the bullet (if you cut it in half "hot dog" ways) would show basically an "A" of copper with it's top snipped open with lead in the two cavities.
www.nosler.com/partition.html
A boat-tail bullet has a beveled "heel", instead of being truncated (flat based like you just cut it off flat)...this helps with long range accuracy, however you need to be careful with this, beveling the heel also reduces your foot-print or bearing surface==how much of your bullet contacts your rifling, short boat tail bullets can have problems in overbored rifles. The idea of this, from what I understand, is similar to semi-trailers, the flat tails create a suction zone behind the tail, which increases overall drag, stream lining the tails helps prevent this suction zone.
Here's an example of this, check out the bullet heels
http://www.nosler.com/balltiphunt.html
This stuff is very far from hype, but it depends on what hunting you do as to whether it would actually make a difference to you or not...i.e. if you only hunt deer with your high powered rifles to about 150yrds, you aren't going to need supreme long range accuracy nor exceptional bullet performance...any bullet (other than highly frangibles) will do the job well, but when you hunt like some of us here do, like hunt bear or elk, or any hard bodied heavy animal, or hunt game at long ranges, you need improved performance.
It's kind of like your car, if you just drive back and forth to work, you don't need 18" of shock travel and 24" of body clearance, and you don't need to run nitromethane or ethanol through your 4-banger you just need a car to get you to work, but off-road challenge runners or funny car racers DO need these things. If you hunt deer at 100yrds, a vital zone shot is going to be about 8-12MOA, not very hard to get CHEAP ammo in a turd of a gun to shoot this well, and with a .30-06 or 7mm mag, you've got well over a ton of power, literally. If you push your shots out to 200yrds, now you've got 4-6MOA, still pretty easy with most rifles at 200yrds, but your energy has dropped about 20-25% in the last 100yrds, with poor bullets keeping this accuracy is more difficult, and keeping this energy is harder still...Push it out to 400yrds, and you're looking at 2-3MOA, VERY impressive accuracy from ANY factory rifle at that range, and with a .30-06, you're sitting on about half of your original muzzle energy.
When you're talking about hunting deer, pretty much any bullet is going to push through their meat, maybe varmint bullets won't penetrate enough, but pretty well any soft point bullet will punch through a deer at 200yrds or less-assuming you get it in the right place...when you start talking about hunting buffalo, bears, or elk, you're going to be punching through some thick, hard muscle before your bullet gets to the vitals, and hitting hard bone is NEVER good for bullets, you want a bullet that will retain as much weight as possible but still expand enough to be damaging.
"Partition" is a bullet type, it is a jacketed bullet with basically a soft-point construction (bullet tip isn't closed-jacketed), however it has a "partition" connecting across the body of the bullet, a cross section of the bullet (if you cut it in half "hot dog" ways) would show basically an "A" of copper with it's top snipped open with lead in the two cavities.
www.nosler.com/partition.html
A boat-tail bullet has a beveled "heel", instead of being truncated (flat based like you just cut it off flat)...this helps with long range accuracy, however you need to be careful with this, beveling the heel also reduces your foot-print or bearing surface==how much of your bullet contacts your rifling, short boat tail bullets can have problems in overbored rifles. The idea of this, from what I understand, is similar to semi-trailers, the flat tails create a suction zone behind the tail, which increases overall drag, stream lining the tails helps prevent this suction zone.
Here's an example of this, check out the bullet heels
http://www.nosler.com/balltiphunt.html
This stuff is very far from hype, but it depends on what hunting you do as to whether it would actually make a difference to you or not...i.e. if you only hunt deer with your high powered rifles to about 150yrds, you aren't going to need supreme long range accuracy nor exceptional bullet performance...any bullet (other than highly frangibles) will do the job well, but when you hunt like some of us here do, like hunt bear or elk, or any hard bodied heavy animal, or hunt game at long ranges, you need improved performance.
It's kind of like your car, if you just drive back and forth to work, you don't need 18" of shock travel and 24" of body clearance, and you don't need to run nitromethane or ethanol through your 4-banger you just need a car to get you to work, but off-road challenge runners or funny car racers DO need these things. If you hunt deer at 100yrds, a vital zone shot is going to be about 8-12MOA, not very hard to get CHEAP ammo in a turd of a gun to shoot this well, and with a .30-06 or 7mm mag, you've got well over a ton of power, literally. If you push your shots out to 200yrds, now you've got 4-6MOA, still pretty easy with most rifles at 200yrds, but your energy has dropped about 20-25% in the last 100yrds, with poor bullets keeping this accuracy is more difficult, and keeping this energy is harder still...Push it out to 400yrds, and you're looking at 2-3MOA, VERY impressive accuracy from ANY factory rifle at that range, and with a .30-06, you're sitting on about half of your original muzzle energy.
When you're talking about hunting deer, pretty much any bullet is going to push through their meat, maybe varmint bullets won't penetrate enough, but pretty well any soft point bullet will punch through a deer at 200yrds or less-assuming you get it in the right place...when you start talking about hunting buffalo, bears, or elk, you're going to be punching through some thick, hard muscle before your bullet gets to the vitals, and hitting hard bone is NEVER good for bullets, you want a bullet that will retain as much weight as possible but still expand enough to be damaging.
05-25-2004, 05:04 PM
#5
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: dedham massachusetts USA
Posts: 1,361
RE: Need explanation on bullet types
i have always had good results with the federal premium sierra gameking's boat tail soft points. 165gr. out of my 30-06sprg/ best results for the shots i have taken under 50yds.
if you are gonna hunt bigger game use the regular bullets in your 7mm-08rem and sight in your rifle in the 30-06sprg for the bigger game.
if you are gonna hunt bigger game use the regular bullets in your 7mm-08rem and sight in your rifle in the 30-06sprg for the bigger game.
05-25-2004, 05:58 PM
#6
Boone & Crockett
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 10,679
RE: Need explanation on bullet types
To be honest the easiest way to figure all of this out is to visit all of the manufacturers web sites and view their each of their bullets descriptions and sectioned pictures.
It would literally take up a page or two to list all of the different types of bullets and what they are designed to do. There are also a lot of similarly designed bullets from numerous manufacturers tat are designed to do the same thing.
Here are most of the more popular manufacturers........ Barnes, Hornady, Speer, Sierra, Nosler, Swift, Winchester, Remington, Berger, Lapua.
It would literally take up a page or two to list all of the different types of bullets and what they are designed to do. There are also a lot of similarly designed bullets from numerous manufacturers tat are designed to do the same thing.
Here are most of the more popular manufacturers........ Barnes, Hornady, Speer, Sierra, Nosler, Swift, Winchester, Remington, Berger, Lapua.
05-26-2004, 02:53 PM
#7
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: E. Washington State
Posts: 1,045
RE: Need explanation on bullet types
Mostly it depends on what you hunt and where. If you just plan to hunt deer and smaller game inside of 200 yards just about any bullet and caliber will work fine. It's when you start chasing the tougher critters that bullets make more of a difference.
Elk, Moose, Bears, etc. really should be hunted with a premium bullet (Partition, Accubond, Interbond, A-Frame, X-bullet). They are designed to hold up better on these bigger, tougher animals and perform better.
Elk, Moose, Bears, etc. really should be hunted with a premium bullet (Partition, Accubond, Interbond, A-Frame, X-bullet). They are designed to hold up better on these bigger, tougher animals and perform better.
