Can we please reserve judgement on the Nosler solids until someone shoots one!

I suspect that Nosler designed a solid that would function reliably in many off the shelf bolt action rifles. And that had alot to do with the profile of its ogive and meplat.

The most important thing is that your rifle goes bang every time!

I certainly prefer the look of the Nosler to the FN Round Nose of the new Barnes which looks alot like an old 255 grain 45 caliber Long Colt.



Note length of engraving on the original Barnes.

I think Will and 500 grains were trying to explain that the NF, whether solid or bonded soft point, only engraved the full diameter "driving band" portion of the bullet, and no rifling marks can be seen between the driving bands.



As you can see there is no rifling on the majority of the bullet, just the driving bands.



If you copy the picture and zoom in on the driving bands you will see that the rifling does not engage anything but the driving bands themselves.

This differs from the highly influential GS which does engrave rifling between driving bands.

This is best close up pic I have (2nd from left). If you copy this photo and then zoom in on it you will see that the rifling goes all the way through the driving bands and into the bearing surface underneath except for the very upper driving band. At least it did in my rifle. May not in others?



The Barnes Tripple X dispaces copper into the grooves of the driving bands and in my experience "lead" the bore alot less than the original X bullet. But they engrave full length below the bands.



Pictured, Barnes X, Tripple Shock, and NF.

While the bullets made from free machining brass like A Square, TCCI and Barnes have alot of surface area engraved the metal itself is pretty soft and they all show less pressure in my 450 Dakota than alot of FMJ and other monometal bullets including the NF.

Gerards 450 grain moly coated TC-FN has about 50 fps less velocity than the Barnes with the same powder charge in my rifle. (That is less pressure). Moly coating or driving bands?



Gerard, did you determine those pressures at engraving yourself?

I would much rather hunt with your truncated FN that an A Square, TCCI or Barnes, but in my rifle these bullets show relatively low pressure despite having alot of bearing surface.

Andy

The Barnes solids definitely show less pressure and velocity in my .416 than do the North Forks. I believe Andy is right.

Andy,
The engraving pressures I have were determined from an average of three sources. Quickload, pressure testing at Somchem and measurements taken on a test rig consisting of a barrel and a hydraulic press.

For individual assessments of a particular barrel with a particular bullet, two factors must be considered. Often the engraving pressure data can be obscured by over and under size bullets. The variance in barrel sizes, from minimum to maximum CIP/SAAMI and also barrels that are simply out of spec must be taken into acount.

quote:

This is best close up pic I have (2nd from left). If you copy this photo and then zoom in on it you will see that the rifling goes all the way through the driving bands and into the bearing surface underneath except for the very upper driving band. At least it did in my rifle. May not in others?

Take a good look at that bullet. What appears to be engraving of the shank is mostly the driving band material that is displaced to the rear. Remember that the bullet shaft is at barrel bore diameter and that it effectively varies from a running fit at the front to a press fit at the back. That is a first generation drive band bullet and it has a 10micron taper on the shaft. If the section between the first two drive bands is not engraved, then the engraving at the rear of the shaft cannot be deeper than less than 10 micron. It may have the appearance of being engraved but the material that is displaced is confined to the volume of material removed from the drive bands and smeared over the shaft.

To put the above into perspective, consider that a human hair is 64 micron in diameter and, for those who wonder why GSC sweats the details at this level of measurement, yes, it makes a difference.

See this post where I said:

quote:

In a separate test, after the above one, we wanted to determine if an experiment was moving in the right direction:

500gr .458 GSC Drive Band Bullet - S321 76.5gr - 2182 fps - 61 355 psi
500gr .458 GSC Drive Band Bullet - S321 76.5gr - 2192 fps - 60 175 psi

We felt that maintaining speed and dropping more than 1 000 psi off the pressure was an improvement.

Clayman,
Almost $100 per 25 is for the 800gr .585" bullet. That is the price including airmail on our website. The smaller bullets are considerably less and, if you go to the pricing of our USA distributors, you will see the advantage of bulk shipping. It drops the price of that particular bullet by about $30.00 a box.

quote:

Originally posted by Kwan:
OK

Let the South Africans sing,

375 Fanatic, ? did you price the Hornady at VLT,

I have worked and been in that shop since I was 12, and have shot and tested more bullets than what anyone could have dreamt off,

I know Kobus from Rhino very well, and when I wanted a solid turned for the 50 cal balc powder on buffalo we did a couple of years ago, he not only produced but for free as well, Ken Stewart same story excellent guy and a true gentlemen in my opinion,

Claw bullets from down south, also gave me 300 g 338 bullets in SN and I still use them everyday,

but then some manufacturers could not keep up with demand and supply, and a lot of jigging up and down,

So VLT started , with the support of course that Mauritz Coetzee provided too stock only Rhino ?? because they delivered , always and dependable,

The imported Hornady's has , and I must admit that I have no idea what the prices are now always been cheaper that local made, but I will give Roald a call today, and confirm

And they ar coming out with a " NEW DANGEROUS GAME BULLET " halleluja a solid cup once again

I have bought all my bullets from VLT so far in 2006 we paid R260 per 50 for hornady interbond in 375 cal in 2007 it was over 500 per 50. when you look on the hornady website there is a one dollar difference between interlock and interbond i still pay R240 for interlocks but the interbonds is over R500 why ?who is naaiing who and its not the exchange rate or tax that causes the big price difference in that case i will rather buy a better product for the same price local.

I use hornady interlocks in my 375 and 308 and they do the job in the veld and its economic on the range its just the pricing of the interbonds that blows my mind because you can not compair it to a rhino or a gsc

Dont take me wrong im not bad mouthing anybody in this case 1+1 does not = 2

I am just moving to local products that does the job and is availeble at all times 3months without bullets for my 243(sierra game kings) is not fun.

i believe its going to get worse

Gerard,

Here is a close up of one of your original 450 grain .458 bullets fired from my 450 Dakota into water.

The one pictured above was recovered from wood stop box.

Both look like the bearing surface of the bullet has been engraved. I will look at some others to compare. These were manufactured 4 or 5 years ago now?



Here is a close up of the NF bonded 450 grain soft point fired from the same rifle. As you can see the driving bands are engraved only about 2/3 of the way.



I do appreciate how small a 10 micron taper is. I have published quite alot of research using scanning electron microscopy.

I did not know you could hold tolerances that small on relatively soft copper!

Andy

Hi Andy,
The photo of the 450gr FN is a good example. At "A" you can see that the shaft was not in contact with the lands. The displaced material from the drive bands ahead and behind, has almost bridged the gap. At "B" you can see that the drive band material could no longer be displaced inwards towards the bullet shank and formed ridges trailing to the rear. This gives the appearance of shank engraving. The tell tale that it is not, is the fact that the marking that is left by the lands end in line with the joint between the shank and the boat tail. If the engraving was to any depth of the shank, the end of the engraving would have extended beyond the boat tail / shank joint, as in the second photo below.




If we further consider the displaced material on the two photos that you show and calculate the volume of displaced material, it is easily seen that less material is displaced on the FN compared to the NF.

I have some 370gr .416 NF softs and, comparing it with a .416 GSC FN and assuming a 416 Rigby, I calculate as follows:

NF Soft
3.8mm of the ogive will be engraved, 2.6 mm of it to full land/groove depth.
The grooves in the shank are 0.6mm wide and 18 of the bands are 0.4mm wide. The 19th band is 1.2mm wide.
Given a four groove barrel with a land face width of 2.25mm and a land stand off height of 0.105mm, the volume of displaced material is 10.188 cubic mm. Bear in mind that some portion of the 10.188 cubic mm (on the rear of the ogive) is displaced into the shank as there is nowhere for it to go other than compression into the body of the bullet.

GSC FN
8 drive bands with a total width of 5.6mm for a displaced volume of 4.914 cubic mm, all of which is simply wiped to the rear.

All this assumes a barrel which is exactly on specification, of course but, for looser or tighter barrels, the relative proportions would remain very similar.

Regarding holding plus or minus 5 micron in copper, it is not easy and to maintain control of the process this is what we do.

Gerard,

Here is a close up of one of your bullets fired from my freinds BRNO 602 in .458 win mag.



The other two were from my AHR 450 Dakota which has a 6 groove barrel.

This picture clearly shows the bearing surface engraved.

You can even feel the engraving with your fingernail as you run your finger over the bullet.

This was one of your earlier bullets.

Notice the lower velocity from the .458 WM caused alot less deformaiton on the bullet.

I looked at the bullets that I posted pictures of earlier. You will be amused by this.

One of the bullets actually had alot of free machining brass residue on it. I probably fired your bullet after several of the Barnes, TCCI, or A-Square.

This bullet from the BRNO 602 is unblemished by soft alloy!

Andy

I like the GS FN bullets. Last year I shot a elephant with my 458 win mag, using the 500gFN,2100fps, loaded bt Superior Ammo and got all the penetration needed: Side shot through the shoulder/lungs thru and thru; head shot behind right ear thru brain lodged under the skin in left side of head. what more penetration is needed?

Bryan,

My 450 Dakota had 60 inches penetration with similar 450 grain NF Truncated Cone FN solid and about 39 inches with 465 grain TCCI (A-Square) RN.

What was your powder and barrel length?

Andy

I shot my test round yesterday with the 375 200gr GSC first shot went over 3200 feet/sec it showed no signs of pressure i stopped shooting and pulled the rest and downloaded by another 2gr we will see what happens on friday

Andy,
The shaft of the bullet you show is turned to a diameter of 11.435mm rear, 11.425 front, plus or minus 0.005mm. Check it with a blade micrometer between the drive bands. The CIP spec for a .458" barrel is 11.430mm bore and 11.630mm groove diameter plus 0.020mm. So unless your barrels are under size, it is not possible for the shaft of the bullet to be engraved.

You can see this on your photo. At "A" rear the shaft is a press fit to CIP bore sixze and at "A" front the shaft is a running fit to CIP bore size.

At "B" and further back, you can see that the nub of wiped drive band material initially does not connect between the drive bands. As the bullet tapers to 10 micron larger at the rear, the nub becomes more elongated until it is completely displaced to the rear behind the last drive band.

At "C" you can see that the displaced first and second drive bands are wiped to the rear and has formed a nub of material on top of the surface of the shaft. It can only do this if there is space between the shaft and the face of the land, in this case 5 to 10 micron.

At "D" the line formed by the shaft becoming the inclined surface of the boattail is clearly visible. The wipe of copper from the drive band does not extend into the boat tail. This means that as the diameter decreases, to form the boat tail, the face of the land does not contact it. Therefore the shaft is not engraved to any depth because, if it were, the engraving would show on a portion of the boat tail, as in the second picture.




The only time a GSC drive band bullet shaft can be engraved is if the barrel is out of spec smaller than it should be. Given that we work to a tolerance of plus or minus 5 micron and CIP states a minimum size plus 20 micron, GSC bullets are more accurately made than most industry standard barrels.

375fanatic,

Why download? 3200fps is not at maximum and that is where most guys are running the 200gr 375 HVs. This PH has been using the load for more than three years.

Is $7.40 to $15.00 a shot expensive or is that what ammo costs in the USA?

quote:

Originally posted by Rat Motor:
Is $7.40 to $15.00 a shot expensive or is that what ammo costs in the USA?

Commercial loads are going off the scale, and my gut feeling is that there is a lot of profiteering ocurring. The big houses like Cabelas and Midway, as well as Dillon Reloading are blaming it on the smelters selling high-demand copper to the Chinese and to a lesser extent, the Indians.

But if you compare the bulk bullet retail price increase between .375 Hornady Interlocks and .300 gr. Swift A Frames, the premium bullet has only increased in price marginally during the last 18 months, whereas the Hornady is at about a 45% increase.

Cabelas lists a 20 round box of Remington factory 300 grain .375 Swift A Frames at $84.00, while Midway lists them at $78.00 and has them on sale at $71.00. In December 2005, both Cabelas and Midway were pricing them around $51.00. I think some in the industry are engaging in an orgy of price gouging. JMHO. Meanwhile, we are taking it in the shorts.

Did anyone notice they are claiming 2240 fps for the .458 WM with their 500 grain solid???

Andy

North Fork softs were "grooved" bullets.

North Fork "FP" solids were a knock-off of the GSC "FN" with true driving bands.

The North Fork Cup Point "expanding solid" was a GSC FN with a John Buhmiller "cup."

That's the facts.

Gerard,
After you make that batch of .395 bullets for prof242 and I, maybe you could start offering a "Fifth Type" of bullet.

Pick the most popular weight in each caliber, whether HV, FN, SP or HP, and start offering a corresponding "BUSS" bullet. NO BS!!!

Buhmiller Universal Soft Solid!!!

Or you could call it the GSC OJ bullet: Oom Janie

GSC CPU? "Cup Point Universal." A soft-solid, or a solid-soft.

You really do need a "Fifth Wheel" bullet.
You already make more bullet types than any maker in the universe. Why not expand number of offerings by 25%? No maker will ever catch up.

Since North Fork quit making the CP you really do need to become the supplier of the "CP-Universal" to the universe now and future.
North Fork borrowed from the FN and from John Buhmiller's Cup Point from over half a century ago. The CAVITY POINT SOLID of John Buhmiller is fair game.

GSC CPS
or GSC BF ... "Bullet Five." Type Five From GSC.

What?

GSC Cavity Point, thanks be to Oom Janie.
GSC CP, bullet type five.

It is a soft point that retains 100% of weight at all impact velocities.

It is a solid that delivers more energy to the quarry.

quote:

Originally posted by 375 fanatic:
I shot my test round yesterday with the 375 200gr GSC first shot went over 3200 feet/sec it showed no signs of pressure i stopped shooting and pulled the rest and downloaded by another 2gr we will see what happens on friday

i got to the range on tuesday . i kept the load that gave 3200feet/sec and seated the bullets like Gerard suggested i got a 1moa group on 92mm col and on 95mm col. So far im very impressed it shot spot on at 200m i zeroed 1/2" high at 50m and just have to see what happens at 300m