Are there some rifles which simply perform better, across the board, with boattail bullets?

If so, what would be your choice of boattail in .30 caliber as a general-purpose bullet for taking animals up to the size of elk, moose or kudu? (I.e., something that will expand reliably yet hold together for good penetration.)

John

For general shooting I use 165 and 168 boat tail bullets and shoot out to 600 yards,But Flat base bullets work better at ranges under 300 yards and will stay together better. For hunting with any of my rifles I try to use nosler partition bullets and I don't shoot over 300 yards at any game animals. Hunting is just that hunting and I like to get close. Varmints I shoot out to 600 yards. Good Luck

I have had really good accuracy with my 30'06 and the 165 Nosler Ballistic-Tip with 4350 powder. The Ballistic-Tips have a Boatail design.

However for elk sized animals, I would opt for a Speer Grand Slam or a Nosler Partition bullet. The Nosler Partitions have a slight Boatail. For elk you want penetration and a tough bullet. The Scirroco might work well also.

Try either the Barnes X bullets or Lost River Ballistic's J36 for a tough boat tail hunting bullet. I've used both in my .30-378 Wby. Mag. and have shot everything from deer to moose with them and have always been happy with performance on game.

I shot a deer last winter with 165 hornady boatails from my '06. The deer was near 450yds. I have always used flatbased bullets before. The boattail went right through the deer missing bones until it exited through the shoulder. From what I could tell there was no expansion of the bullet. If there was any it was minimal. Perhaps it's better suited for larger game, but I wasn't impressed with the wound. I am very happy about the way it performed getting there.

Barnes "XLC" Coated 165 grain XBT.

180 Scirocco from my 300 RUM.

Are there some rifles which simply perform better, across the board, with boattail bullets? Perhaps there are. There may also be some that won't shoot well with boattails. I have heard of such critters. But I have never had a rifle that did noticeably better with one style vs the other (boattail vs flatbase). But, within reasonable hunting ranges (under 500-600 yards), there is not much ballistic advantage for the boattail style shape.

In a bullet of conventional construction, boattails tend to shed their jackets (loose their cores) more easily than an otherwise identical flat-base bullet. If you look at sectioned Sierra or Speer boattails with their tapered cores you'll understand why.

The old Nosler Solid base did not have this tendency due to the construction of the boattail in the solid guilding metal portion of the extended jacket, leaving the lead portion cylindrical. The Ballistic Tip has the same boattail design, and they hold together and penetrate MUCH better than they are frequently given credit for.

In terms of accuracy, I've never found much difference. Boattails do seat nice and smoothly when reloading, however.

Most( but not all) of the rifles I have owned shot better with flatbase bullets. My theory for this has to do with the muzzle crown and the tapered base of the boattail bullet. I think that if the crown is not 100% perfectly concentric and square with the bore, gas pressure could effect the bullets "cant" when it leaves the barrel. I think that this effect would be more pronounced with a boattail than a flatbase. No proof, just a theory (read that "wild ass guess").

craigster is onto the true differences between boat-tails and flat bases. However, in order to make reallistic "apples vs apples" comparisons, the question neeeds to be put in context.

The single advantage boat-tails have over flat-based bullets (not counting ease of seating) is improved balistic coefficient. In most cases considering hunting quality bullets, that ballistic advantage is insignificant under 300 yds. I'll probably "draw fire" for this, but if you're regularly shooting at big game at 300 yards and more, you're not hunting, you're shooting. (Don't get me wrong, if you wanna do that, knock yourself out. But you're cheatin' yourself.)

On the other hand, if you're punching paper at 500 or more, or you're poking dogs at 600, boat-tails have a significant advantage in external ballistics. However, to realize that advantage without an attendent loss of accuracy, extra care must be taken with your rifle. Namely, the muzzle must be very "well done", and it must be kept that way. Here's why...

When a bullet exits the muzzle of a rifle, the expanding gasses behind it are traveling at many times (sometimes as much as 5x) the velocity of the bullet. As those gasses blow past the bullet at several times the speed of sound (SOS) they create "bow waves". In the case of flat-based bullets, there is a single edge from which the wave is created. In boat-tails, depending on design, there are at least two. Those two waves interact. It is more diffcult to achieve consistent wave formation and dissolution the more you have. In addition, should the muzzle be "out of true" those gasses will unevenly push the rear of the bullet around. All this effects accuracy.

Most long range shooters, whether competition target shooters or long range varminters, use custom bbls on their rifles, and have special attention paid to the muzzles. That's why flat-based bullets usually yield better accuracy for most of us mere mortals shooting our over-the-counter Remingtons or battle-worn milsurps.

One might reasonably ask, "Since flat-based bullets are, by design, more accurate than boat-tails, why wouldn't target and other long range shooters use them exclusively?" The answer (most of it anyway) lies in that speed of sound "thing". Remember the "bow waves". Well, in the case of the front of the bullet, they really are bow waves created by the supersonic velocity of the bullet. Besides robbing velocity, they have little effect on a bullet's path UNTIL IT PASSES THE SOS barrier. At that point, "things" get fairly unstable as those waves start to disintegrate. That instability is very detrimental to accuracy.

So, if you are shooting at 1000 yards or more, there is a very real possibility that your bullet's velocity will drop below the SOS BEFORE it reaches the target. You only have two ways to prevent that: (1) Make it go faster, (higher MV) or make it RETAIN its velocity longer, (higher ballistic coefficient). Everybody here knows what the down sides of higher MVs are. So the preferred way to insure that the bullet doesn't cross the SOS barrier before it reaches the target is to make it very (external) ballistically efficient. Enter the boat-tail design, and special attention to muzzles.

One final comment. While one could (and Nosler does) call Nosler Ballistic Tips boat-tails, the moniker is far more marketng than reality. Comparisons of balistic coefficient between similar designs demonstrates clearly that the effect of the Ballistic Tip "boat-tail" on ballistic coefficient is negligible. It does facilitate seating, but it would more accurately be described as a chamfer, rather than a boat-tail. And that's precisely why "regular" rifles "like" it better than most longer boat-tails.

Paul

I agree with gitano. Shots taken at more than 300 yards on big game change dynamics. There is many a campfire expert that would think a man crazy for showing up in Elk camp with a 30 30, yet they talk about shooting at Elk 400 to 500 yards out where the performance of the bullet fired velocity wise is equal to a 30 30. A post up above about a 450 shot on a deer where the bullet didn't appear to open is an example. Velocity was probably too low to expand the bullet. I'm not against long shots. I will take one if presented and a number of factors are in my favor like how sure I am of the distance. How stead I a rest I can rustle up. How hard I am breathing. The wind. How much of the target I can see. How hard it woul be to pack the animal out. How hard it would be to track, if wounded.