I have a box of these in 308 150 grain. Black box, no pressure relieving grooves. Are they good to go???

Perry

They still sell some Nosler Partition protected point bullets but I'm not sure I've ever seen any Partitions with a "pressure groove"?
Barnes and GMX's have a series of grooves on them.
If it were me I would load and shoot them without hesitation.

Cannelure is what the name of that ring is. Meant to provide a place for the mouth of the case to be crimped into.

I would have thought cannelure too but he said"pressure relieving grooves" I picture multiple like a Barnes.

Early (aka 1st gen) partitions were of reduced diameter right at the partition between upper and lower sections. I always assumed the length of this section matched the thickness of the partition, but don't know for certain.

I still have some in .277 130 gr.

I do not know if this was a manufacturing expedient, or whether reduced bearing surface was a consideration.

Yep, the original Nosler Partitions had a rebated "belt" on the jacket between the ogive and the lower body of about .10" or so and possibly about bore diameter or a tad less. I was never sure what this little rebated section was about, but I've heard that the jackets were "machine turned", so it apparently had something to do with the manufacturing process. Later, Nosler switched from the slower and more expensive machined jacket to a double-extruded jacket which left the partition in the middle with a thicker lower half and a tapered upper half jacket.

I always had good performance from the original Partitions (as well as the current ones), both in terms of accuracy and terminal performance. So sure, go right ahead and shoot the old ones -- they acted just like the newer ones for me.

Learned something today! Thanks!

I should have been more clear. Early Partitions have a series of pressure relieving micro groves just below the center partition. These bullets are not that old, but are old Partitions.
My question is, are these older "protected points" good to go or did Nosler abandon them for a reason?

Perry

Early 1960's ???

If it were me I would load them and shoot them as I stated before and I am neither brave nor foolish just practical.
If it tickles your whimsy look up vintage load data for them.

quote:

Originally posted by perry:
I should have been more clear. Early Partitions have a series of pressure relieving micro groves just below the center partition. These bullets are not that old, but are old Partitions.
My question is, are these older "protected points" good to go or did Nosler abandon them for a reason?

Perry

Only a very few of the older Partitions used the multiple small grooves -- this was also a feature of the short-lived Nosler Zippedo, which was Nosler's first Solid Base bullet.

I never used any of the very limited number of Partitions with this feature, but used a number of the Zippedos and they were outstandingly accurate.

IIRC, the few Partitions with this feature were primarily designed for the then-new .300 Winchester. The reason was because the regular Partition of the day had its "rebate belt" exactly where the .300 Win needed to seat to meet its OAL for standard magazines at 3.35" or so, making it incompatible with the .300 Win. So Nosler redesigned its .30 caliber line to include a bullet or bullets which properly seated in the .300 Win Mag.

Here's a scan of the Nosler line in the 1968 edition of Shooter's Bible. See if the one labled ".300 Win" is like yours.



The only reason I can think of NOT to shoot them is that some people collect old Noslers and might pay you enough to buy whatever you want in the way of new Noslers if you sold them.

Over the years I have seen some partitions that had sharp grooves cut in the blank space reported above. I believe these were initially tried to provide firm hoiding of the projectile in short necked cases such as 300 Win Mag.

The old Nosler bullets with multiple circular grooves were, I believe, called Nosler Zipedo's. I don't think they were Partitions but conventional cup-and-core bullets. The ones I've used were mostly in calibers smaller than 7mm.
The early Partitions had a single, long (@3/8") relief groove in them over the partition part. This was to relieve any pressure spikes due to the hardness of the partition.
Also, the early Partition's were not a true "H" shape; ie, the partition did not extend all the way from side to side but was interrupted in the middle with a narrow gap.
I forget the year the change was made to a "gapless" full "H" but it was written up in Handloader magazine and was a big deal.

quote:

The old Nosler bullets with multiple circular grooves were, I believe, called Nosler Zipedo's. I don't think they were Partitions but conventional cup-and-core bullets. The ones I've used were mostly in calibers smaller than 7mm.

The Zippedos were neither Partitions nor conventional cup-and-core. They were made only in .243 and .224 and had a thick solid base of jacket material (they were the forerunners of the Nosler Solid Base bullets, which eventually had a poly tip added and became the Ballistic Tip line.)

As illustrated in my previous post, Nosler did adopt the multiple annular rings used on the Zippedos to certain of its Partitions, largely for the purpose of keeping the mouth of the case from terminating over the annular rebate over the partition.

The original Partitions had a tiny hole in the middle of the partition which connected the lead of the rear and front portions with a very small column of lead.