What do you guys know about Nossler Solid Base boat tail bullets? Were they ever, or have they ever been the predecessor to the nossler ballistic tip?

I was told that they stopped making these bullets. And, that they are nearly impossible to find now. Fact or fiction? I need to know if I have been sorely mistaken. Let's hear it...

I believe you are correct. I used them back in n the 70s in a 7mm mag.
They were very accurate for me.

Used them in the early 80s in my 25-06. Nosler, basically, removed the lead tip and replaced it with a plastic tip and called it a ballistic tip.They were a great bullet and priced right.

My go to bullet on whitetails. The solid base was never a boattail...least none that I ever used were. That flat base is one of the things that made them so damn accurate.

No doubt a well designed boattail helps when you get past 300-350 yards or so... but I can count the number of deer I've killed at those ranges on one hand.

I have used the 130 grain .277 Solid Bases for years with my four .270 WSM's. If memory serves me correctly I gave $4.95 a box and still have 20 boxs left. Thank you Nosler for your bargain store. These are first run bullets, I do have a few boxs of blems also, I see no difference between them, all are extremely accurate. Good Shooting.

Nosler also offered a solid base for the .223 Rem, etc. The brand name was ”Zipedo” if I recall correctly.

They worked well in my .222 Rem Mag.

In answer to your questions the Ballistic Tip is the offspring of the Solid Base. The design is the same with the only exception the polymer tip. (as is the Accubond except they are bonded)
By and large these are no longer made except they currently sell a .224", 64 grain Bonded Solid Base Protected Point bullet. It is labelled as a "defense" bullet but most people are having great luck with it on Deer and Hogs.
The last Solid Base bullets I saw for sale was several years ago in .243" 100 grain.
I have since given those away to an AR member.
If you have a rifle that shoots the original Solid Base well you should be able to switch to the same weight in Ballistic Tip or Accubond and be very close.
Good luck with your search.

My father passed away a little over a year ago from an illness that eventually got him. Doubless was his screen name here on AR.

I was able to get my hands on some of his "leftovers". Low and behold were two boxes of 7mm Nosler Solid base BT's. Both in 140 and 150 grn. Thanks for the info fellas, I greatly appreciate it!

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Maybe I'm wrong but I didn't think Nosler made a solid base that wasn't a BT. I know the ones I used in my 25/06 ( 120 gr) and 7mm/08 ( 140 GR) were BT. I still have some of the boxes.

quote:

Originally posted by phurley5:
I have used the 130 grain .277 Solid Bases for years with my four .270 WSM's. If memory serves me correctly I gave $4.95 a box and still have 20 boxs left. Thank you Nosler for your bargain store. These are first run bullets, I do have a few boxs of blems also, I see no difference between them, all are extremely accurate. Good Shooting.

I think I bought 25 boxes. I can't remember how much I paid, but $4.95 sounds about right. Some of mine have cannelures, some do not. All shoot great.

Heck of a deal! (Years ago, I also got some 140 Fail Safes dirt cheap.)

I was just checking on the Nosler website in addition to the .224" 64 grain Bonded Solid Base they also make a .308" 168gr Bonded Solid Base
Both are Protected Point (kind of a flat point).

To answer the question, I've experienced the reason for the Ballistic Tip addition. Penciled through a six-point whitetail and we found only pinprick blood. After three hundred yards at night, the Coleman lantern trick showed nothing to recover. The solid base Noslers shot just grand as far as accuracy goes -- 7x64 Bren and .280 Rem. I'd use them on game larger than deer, unless we're talking muleys. I believe Dale Kimbrough said he lost a coke-bottle based whitetail due to an earlier edition of the solid base where the rep said later on they'd had to thin the jacket a bit to expand on deer-sized critters. (Instead of shooting again, he was retrieving the brass for reloading, something in an interesting caliber no doubt.)

Barry

quote:

Originally posted by Canadian reloarder:
Maybe I'm wrong but I didn't think Nosler made a solid base that wasn't a BT. I know the ones I used in my 25/06 ( 120 gr) and 7mm/08 ( 140 GR) were BT. I still have some of the boxes.

We are talking 1970s and 80's and perhaps earlier. Polymer tipped bullets really didn't show up on the scene until the 1990's.

As I said...Ballistic tips are generally made with a bottail design in addition to having a polymer tip. The Solid Base bullets were generally flat base bullets and of course had an exposed lead tip. I also believe the jacket construction on the solid base bullets was a little more rugged than the ballistic tips--especially the early ballistic tips which were a little explosive on game....and in many cases Nosler redesigned the jackets on the ballistic tips and segregated them into game (hunting) bullets and varmint bullets.

This is all a gross generalization and will undoubtedly not hold true for certain odd examples...but in the macro sense its correct.

The original Nosler "solid base" bullet was the Nosler Zippedo, made in .224 and .243 diameters. It had unique driving bands on the rear (bearing) portion of the jacket and a base made of jacket material which was several times thicker than the typical drawn bullet jacket. I once killed two deer with a single shot with one of these out of a .22-250 by carefully lining up their necks as they grazed one behind the other.

The Zippedo was (although an excellent performer) was dropped in favor of a new design which was named the "Nosler Solid Base". This bullet was clearly the precursor of the Ballistic Tip. They had a similar base of jacket material with a very small boattail. The "Solid Base" used a conventional lead core and lead tip. My experience with them was that they performed much like a Nosler Partition. I've taken many deer and hogs with them in .243/100, .270/130, and .284/150. Both expansion and penetration has been excellent with never a hint of either penciling-through or excessively quick expansion.

I have a small hoard of each of these calibers and shoot them exclusively in a .243, .270, and .280 Rem. Best by god bullet I ever used.

Just a few years ago Nosler was still producing these for sale to ammunition loading companies. I was able to pick up a few of them as seconds from their online "thrift" store. I have never discovered which lines of ammunition are/were loaded with them (as I eschew factory ammunition in all forms). Whether Nosler is still tooled to produce them I am unaware.

My best guess as to why Nosler dropped the line (in addition to the need to promote the exceedingly popular and slightly more expensive Ballistic Tip) is that their performance was so good that many shooters bought them at half the price in preference to the Partition. As a bonus, I suspect that they were also more accurate, on average, than the partition. The largest caliber they were available in was .30, so shooters of 8mm's, .338's, .35's, etc. never had the pleasure.

But as they say, "All good things must come to an end."

quote:

Originally posted by KY Nimrod:

quote:

Originally posted by Canadian reloarder:
Maybe I'm wrong but I didn't think Nosler made a solid base that wasn't a BT. I know the ones I used in my 25/06 ( 120 gr) and 7mm/08 ( 140 GR) were BT. I still have some of the boxes.

We are talking 1970s and 80's and perhaps earlier. Polymer tipped bullets really didn't show up on the scene until the 1990's.

As I said...Ballistic tips are generally made with a bottail design in addition to having a polymer tip. The Solid Base bullets were generally flat base bullets and of course had an exposed lead tip. I also believe the jacket construction on the solid base bullets was a little more rugged than the ballistic tips--especially the early ballistic tips which were a little explosive on game....and in many cases Nosler redesigned the jackets on the ballistic tips and segregated them into game (hunting) bullets and varmint bullets.

This is all a gross generalization and will undoubtedly not hold true for certain odd examples...but in the macro sense its correct.

Your pretty correct and sorry I'm late on posting. I have Nosler manual #1 and all Nosler Solid Base bullet has BT and they were offered Spitzer,Hollow Point and Hollow Point Match. Back then only made for 22,6mm,7mm,30cal.

I have box of the old 22 50gr Solid Base Bullets BT they use to mark them as Expander

The old solid base bullets were great deer bullets and even suitable for elk according to many locals, the "hunting bullets" were not boattails, some varmint bullets were as I recall...the boatail Bal. tips followed and it was a failure in many cases, then at some point they beefed it up and it was a very good bullet and very accurate, The newest is the tipped accubond, its a ballistic tip with the core bonded and that's made a huge difference, its as tough as the partition and usually shoots a bit better, at least that's been my opinion of it. Ive used the 200 gr. accubond on small deer such as coues and hill contry Texas whitetail that are about the same size as a coues deer, and Mule deer in Texas and Idaho, I also use it on a number of elk, some plainsgame up to eland, and its been a winner no matter what Ive shot with it..I still like that partition, the bullet by which all others are judged...and rightly so..Every new bullet maker out there comes on board and the first thing they say is my bullets better than a Nosler, at which point I ignore their existence..

How about some photos? Here is what I can find in my reloading cabinet. The key is below the photo.



From Left to Right: 1. Original Zippedo 55 gr .224 with driving bands (no boattail). Next, Nosler Solid base bullets (all with boattails) 2: .224 HP 50 gr; 3. .224 lead tip 50 gr.; 4. .224 60gr; 5. .243 85 gr; 6. .243 100 gr; 7. .270 130 gr; 8. .284 150 gr; 9. .284 162 gr; 10. .308 165 gr; 11. .308 180 gr.

And here are the boxes for the various Zippedo and Solid Base bullets. The gold/black box was what the Zippedos were packaged in; the red/black boxes were how the Solid Base bullets were packaged; and the plain cardboard boxes were how they were packaged in recent years when bought through the Nosler outlet store. I also have some which came packaged in plastic bags.



Hope this helps clear up any confusion.

As I mentioned, I have lots of the .270 solid base bullets and most of them came in a white box like the one labeled for 165 grain 30 caliber bullets.

I'm interested that none of the ones you show has a cannelure. A fair number of mine do have one. My guess is they were originally manufactured for an ammo manufacturer.

quote:

I'm interested that none of the ones you show has a cannelure. A fair number of mine do have one. My guess is they were originally manufactured for an ammo manufacturer.

I would concur with that guess. It appears that those made since the line was discontinued as a retail product in favor of the Ballistic Tip were made to supply to ammunition manufacturers. Similarly, I've purchased Partitions and Accubonds as seconds which had cannelures.

Back in the day, my first 22-243 would eat every bullet I fired...they would turn into a buff of blue smoke 25-30 yds downrange. "Blue Smokers" I called them. Nosler 50 gr SB's were the ONLY 50 gr bullet that stayed together and would even punch a hole in the target...all the others would just leave shrapnel holes or blue/gray pencil marks. 60 hr Hornady SP's would sometimes just blow up on contact with anything from 100 yds in.

I have a box of 150 gr 7mm SB's I'm hoarding tightly, tightly for my 7RM because of the accuracy they produce with one particular load. "Modern" 7 mm 140 BT's are almost as accurate...basically 3 in one small hole...consistently...as long as I do my part with the trigger and the loading procedure.

Good Hunting

They were good hunting bullets, but as with all other lead tipped bullets it was a big problem when you had a short magazine case. If the overall length of the cartridge was too long and not a clear distance from the front plate of the magazine, it would usually bent the lead tip once the first shot is fired. This implicated that some rifles could never be loaded to near maximum overall length as predicted by the throat of the rifle. The construction of the bullet walls was also altered with Ballistic Tips. I enjoy my BT and Accubond bullets as it allow me to seat bullets to near maximum overall length.

Reloader270: I think you've got it backward on tip deformation.

Tip deformation occurs when the bullet's nose strikes the front of the magazine due to the recoil of the rifle acting against the inertia of the cartridge.

The longer a cartridge is (up to touching the magazine end plate) the LESS forward velocity the cartridge has when it impacts the end. Actually, it is the less rearward velocity of the magazine since the cartridges tend to stand still due to inertia while the magazine moves rearward due to recoil forces.

A shorter cartridge impacts the front of the magazine with MORE velocity since it has more distance for the recoil to build velocity.

Now, in a hard-recoiling rifle a sharp lead nose will deform some amount regardless of how long or short the cartridge is, but it is more pronounced with shorter cartridges.

Some magazines have a recoil shoulder which coincides with the shoulder of the case. If the shoulder of a bottleneck case is sharp enough, then this can keep the bullet from striking the front of the magazine during recoil. However, it can also result in the bullet working its way forward in the case mouth after several shots if the case neck tension is not sufficient.

Fortunately, it takes a lot of nose deformation to significantly affect the exterior ballistics of a typical hunting bullet. But I keep those rounds with deformed noses near the bottom of the magazine where they will be used for follow-up shots, which by their nature are typically quickly fired with imprecision where a half-inch variation from the expected point of impact is of no consequence.