I was reading something by a guy named Paco Kelly and he said he clipped the tips on bullets so they would fit his clip better and take up less powder space. Noe my question is : would doing this keeep the bullet from opening as fast or not open at all ? I'm specifically thinking of trying this with the .225 grain sierra ,.225 grn nosler and the .250 grain speer in .35 cal. Has any one ever tried this ? I'm not concerned too much about vel loass or down range ballistics as I would only be shoot at most 50 yds.

Seat the bullets so the round will fit the magazine. If all your shots are gonna be at 50yds it won't make any difference. The powder space gained is not worth considering , even for shots at longer ranges.

I agree with Cragster.
But just for info, I read an article a while back, where bullets were purposely deformed at the tip. Made almost no difference to point of impact. Deformed bases on the other hand made a big difference. As to effect on game, did you ever cut an x into the end of a 22 as a kid? I bet the effect is similar.

Is trading what is most likley a cad design for a bubbas auto body style bullet worth a half a grain?.

It would probably knock your ballistic coefficient down quite a bit. Switch to a high tech bullet.

My son was given a sporterized Enfield that would not feed spitzers. Almost every one would hang up the lead tip on the chamber mouth. I cut the lead tips off with pliers and then used a file to square them up. I just filed down to the jacket tip. The modified bullets fed reliably.

We went hog hunting that summer. He shot a medium size hog that died in it's tracks.

The same day I shot one the same size with my 30-06 loaded with 180gr Nosler Partitions that ran about fourty yards before going down.

Maybe I should cut the tips off the Noslers to see what happens.

It seems this relates to the .358 Win where every tiny bit of space counts.

The problem as I see it is uniformity. I happen to have a lot of .35" 200 gr Rem Corelokts that don't group well for me so I put one in the lathe and ran a center drill into the nose making a hollow point. When I got a nice looking bullet it weighed 183 grains. It's still sitting there on the lathe bed waiting for me to make a stop so I can drill all of them the same.

I suppose one could file each tip and keep weighing it until it was the same as the others.

Or just shoot the 220 Speer FN. That bullet is not that long.

I've done some BIZARRE things to bullets just to see what the results were and I agree you can do pretty much what you wish to the point of a bullet and for normal hunting ranges there is no problem. I never made a bullet fail to "open up" but I sure made a bunch of them almost psycho explosive.

Another trick you can use in some cartridges is to select a bullet designed for a DIFFERENT cartridge. EXAMPLE: I sometimes loaded my 30/06 with the flat nosed 150gr 30/30 bullet.
It produced an UGLY 30/06 round but it sure blew the hell out of whatever it hit. Naturally it was going way faster than any 30/30 ever threw one.

I cut the tips of 250 gr. Speer spitzers for my .350 Rem. in a Rem. 700. I used these bullets without the tip because the action is short. I only used it on one critter, a black bear that was about 300 pounds. The bear was going away at about 25 yards, and hit about the back of the ribs, followed along below the spine, and stopped at the base of the skull. It still weighs about 170 grs.

I cut the tip off with sidecutters, and then file the remaining lead down to the jacket.

Try this link; www.hanned.com as they have a couple items for turning 22 Rimfire and centerfire FMJ rounds into flat points. I have the rimfire tool and it works as advertised. It looks like a Wilson case gauge and is hardened so a file can be used to get the "meplat".

Ben H

Some years back there was an article in American Rifleman about "converting" FMJ military bullets into "expanders" by cutting off the tips to expose the lead core. During the tests some of the bullets lost their jackets leaving them stuck in the bore. After reading that article I came to the conclusion that the poorman's expander might not be a real good idea. I know it's been done thousands and thousands of times before, but it only takes once.

Craigster
If I remember that article correctly, the bullets had exposed lead at the base fairly typical of WW2 issue FMJ and some today. I doubt there would be a problem with enclosed jackets at the base. It's likely that these rounds, never designed for open tips do not have the cores "bonded" to the jackets.

Check the Hanned site. See if you want to try it. I have tried the trim die style in 8MMx57 and .22LR. both look cool and the .22s are quite effective. I bought the .22 size because the sgb load from CCI was discontinued. People were silly not to try that load. It was more effective than any other small game load I used in my rimfires for squirrel. Aguilla has a subsoncic load I am going to try out next. It is a short case with an extra long bullet to be the length of a normal LongRifle load. I have flat-pointed some of those to see the difference in performance. I do like the performance of the various subsonic loads. I tend to take lots of time setting up my shots on small game. I don't need the maximum velocity possible. Just precision and consistency. Back to the centerfire. Haven't shot any of the 8MM yet. You could make a stack of washers with the correct diam. hole, to a height to trim your .358 bullets. Use a metal filled epoxy and try the bullets as an experiment. If it is successsful for you maybe Hanned would make a die for you to use. They could use a die that has not been heat treated to bore the dorrect hole . They already make the die for .308s. Would be no trick if they are willing to do it on the end of a production run. Long post. Seemed to be pertinent info. Hope this has sparked some ideas for you. PAK

Ben H!!
How long is the 22LR gauge ? ,
I think I could do one at the lathe.

Anders �sterberg

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Pecos45:
[QB]I've done some BIZARRE things to bullets

Pecos45,
Have you ever heard of a "ring shot"? Some crackers I know used to skive the plastic shotgun shell at the base of the wad cup, so that the shot cartridge would break and go down range still encased in the partial hull. I never tried it, sounded like a good way to blow up your shotgun.

John Y, now that you mention it, I do remember that part of the article. I guess those bullets were pretty primitive when you compare them to what's out there today. And El Viejo, we call those "ringers" out here. At close range they are devastating. I've seen them cut fence posts in half at ten yards.

Anders:

I'm currently living/working in Europe so I do not have access to my .22LR die right now. If you make one, the main thing to be sure of is that it is sufficiently hard to withstand the filing it takes to make the meplat.

Good Luck,
Ben H

We call them "Cut Shells" Surprizingly enough the pressure is less than the normal ammo. That tidbit comes from the Accociation of Firearms and Toolmarks Examiners journal. The measurements were taken by qualified profesionals in a laboratory. It is not BS. Still I am not going to shoot any cut shells. Seems like a stupid and dangerious thing to do. Suppose you stuck the otside of the hull in your barrel then shot again. You would ruin your gun. Forget you ever heard of it and move on.

Ben H
I made a guage today it ended up at 0,84�� and it seames to be the right length .
I hardened it using a acytylene torch got it red hot and cooled it in water , the file ride ontop without to grind it .

Anders �sterberg

Anders;

Sounds like a job well done. Congrats!!!

Let us know how the bullets perform for you.

Cheers,
Ben H

This is an interesting post ! I have a similar question but for a different reason -

I have been using several soft-point Sierra and Hornady bullets for my .32 H&R magnum and 7mm TCU for IHMSA competition. When these bullets are received, the points are all beat-up. This makes accurate OAL measurements impossible. I have to measure on the exact same spot on the ogive of the bullet. I have a gauge I made to do this.

I'm not concerned with expansion, penetration or feed. I'm shooting a Contender and knocking down steel (hopefully!).

I thought of clipping the lead tip off the bullets flush with the jacket. Do you think this will severly impact accuracy? I know I'll lose a little weight off the bullet, but I hardly think it will effect trajectory that much. Of course, I would sight them in as modified.

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks folks !

Read an article on a test where the author purosely filed the points to an angle. Openned the goups a bit, but not much. The spinning in flight equallized the effect. Or that's the theory anyway.

[ 07-25-2002, 19:39: Message edited by: John Y Cannuck ]

"The Bullets Flight" by Dr. Mann covers this.

Don & John -

THANKS ! Will do !

Dale,
I do the same thing for my 350 mag. It's shot 15-20 deer, bear and moose. I've never had to put a second shot into anything with it. Accuracy wasnt hurt, 1 1/4 - 1 1/2" no matter what it's fed.