Forgive me if this is old news, but I just found the April Shooting Times that I never had a chance to read while cleaning house recently.

In it there's an article by Rick Jamison on Ballistic Coefficients. The article is OK, but what's really interesting is the test data. He shot about 50 common 30 caliber "hunting" bullets over his Oehler--damn I need to get one of those things!--(10 shot strings of each bullet) and measured their BC's. The results are pretty interesting. The absolute numbers are lower than the advertised BC's but I'm guessing that's because he tested during cold weather and didn't correct them to standard conditions (like the advertised numbers supposedly are).

Anyway, the relative numbers (how the different bullets compare with each other) look like solid data.

Some observations:

Pointy tipped bullets rock. In the weights that they are made the Scirocco, SST and Ballistic Tips kicked serious butt on everything else. That may come as no surprize to some but it may be to others. It's amazing how many people will try to tell you that meplat size doesn't matter much--it's all the ogive, etc. If you plan on shooting at long range a semi-spitzer, protected point type shape DOES make a difference for the worse.

The BT's and the Sciroccos generally advertise very similar BC's and the SST's advertise lower. Between those three bullets, the SST and Scirocco ran neck and neck beating the Balistic Tips by quite a bit. It seems either Hornady is being conservative with their ratings or Nosler is bragging a bit. But who knows what methods they use to test these things anyway....

Speaking of bragging (or telling tall tales), I've suspected that Barnes overrates the BC's for their X bullets for quite a while. They just don't add up. This test seems to confirm it. For example, the 180 XBT is rated at .552 while the Scirocco is only rated at .505 (.047 less). In the test, the Scirocco beats the XBT by .034, a difference of .081. That's quite a discrepancy. The 200 X (flat base with big hollow point) has an advertised BC of .55, nearly the same as Sierra's Soft Point Boat Tail. But the Sierra beats the X by .071. That's enough of a difference to make a hit become a miss at long range if somebody takes the advertised numbers at face value.

***DISCLAIMER***

I wasn't there to supervise the testing. BC's vary depending upon muzzle velocity, twist rate and even change in flight as they lose velocity (sometimes getting better, sometimes getting worse), etc. A single number is really only a starting point, something to use for comparisons sake...yada, yada, yada....

***END DISCLAIMER***

Anyway, I thought this would be an interesting topic for discussion. It may not be all-inclusive, but that's the best BC test data I've seen published in a gun rag yet. Better than nothing, I guess.

It also reinforces the notion that if you want to shoot at an animal at long range while hunting, you damn well better have practiced at that range with that load already. Your computer generated chart just might be wrong (at no fault of the computer or the software)!

Here's a site I just found with a long list of ballistic coefficient listings from .172 - .620. (http://www.molonlabe.net/johns/bcmain.htm)

Good post Jon A,

Your conclusion is right on. Perhaps it's best just to pick a bullet that will perform best at all ranges on the particular game and as you say to practice with it.