I had an older friend of mine, in his 70's, suggest that in his experience he liked flat base bullets over boat tails because the boat tails tended to "push out" the core due to the design.
All things being equal, ie. Pro Hunter verses Game King, is there any truth to this???

Perry

I used Hornady 165gr sp fb which had a ~60% retained weight after being shot in a moose with .308W held together well. A friend used 180gr SPBT in his 3006 but stopped using them after jacket core separation, this stopped me from trying them myself.

I think there is something to recovered cup and core bullets showing more separation with the boat tail design.

That being said, if you recovered them, they obviously worked.

The boat tail is supposed to improve BC, and thus velocity retention at range.

Unless you are a long range (meaning 600+ yards) hunter, I don’t think it matters much. Use what is more accurate.

I have shot both types of C&C bullets and haven't seen a lot of difference in their performance. I liked Boattail bullets but sometimes they wouldn't shoot well in certain guns, as far as accuracy.

Reminds me of the old formula: F=uN

The friction component (u) is reduced in a boat tail due to the angle. On the other hand, boat tails have a longer bearing surface with equal weight bullets, so who knows?

Been tested over the years, from memory quite a major military test in Denmark out on sandflats some years ago and Sierra have done a lot of exhaustive testing too. Despite common believe by some without any scientific basis, testing has shown boattails reduce drag right from the muzzle. Obviously if not shooting at long range then it doesn't matter but that is not the same as saying it doesn't work.


Ask yourself why almost without exception in most Nations military bullets are boattails and have been from the get go when they dropped the long round nose heavy for calibre bullets.

I've shot quite a bit of game at longer ranges and have always favoured Sierra boattails for their accuracy, terminal performance on game and good trajectories at the longer ranges. Bullets such as the 160gr 7mm Sierra SPBT driven at 3000fps or more or the 140gr bullet driven at 2900fps from the smaller 7mms such as the 7mm-08, just work.

I've used both flat base and boat tail c&c bullets in several calibers and both have worked fine with respect to terminal performance. I've read that, at shorter distances, flat base bullet tend to stabilize a bit quicker and may be marginally better at holding their core. For deer size game, at the slower (non-magnum) velocities of the calibers I use most, I haven't seen much difference in accuracy or terminal performance between the two bullet types.

I tend to use whatever bullet shoots best in the rifles I have. In some cases (like my 9.3x62) the most accurate bullet is a bonded bullet, so that is what I use for whatever I'm hunting. I'm a pretty lazy reloader and my goal has always been to find the one, most accurate bullet/powder load data combination for that particular rifle.

Talking with the guys at Sierra they confirmed that the prohunters will have less jacket separations than the gamekings.

I’ve read a few articles over the years that concluded that c&c SOFTPOINT flatbase bullets separate less than boattails. This does not apply to FMJ or open tip match bullets not intended for hunting. The 100 to 200 yard bench rest match shooters use relatively light for caliber flatbase bullets almost invariably. Long distance guys shoot heavy boattails almost invariably. Both disciplines Obviously use commensurate rifling twist rates. I like traditional cup and core flat base bullets in rounds going no faster than 30-06 speed. If shooting a super zapper, bonded core bullets make more sense to me, and their price is no longer prohibitive. However, I believe statistics bare out that ones chances of losing an animal with either design is quite small, with flatbases holding a slight edge. In the end I wouldn’t worry too much about it, and go hunting with what shoots well in your rifle.

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Ask yourself why almost without exception in most Nations military bullets are boattails

No mystery to this. Military bullets are, by international compact, all full metal jacket (ie., non-expanding). They are made exactly the opposite to other jacketed bullets in that the jacket is drawn from the front to leave the lead exposed at the base (rather than drawn from the base to leave the lead exposed at the front.) The base is "boattailed" or tapered to the rear in order to firmly seat the lead core and keep it seated. As we know, the boattail design also creates less drag (a bonus), but the manufacturing process probably plays just as an important part in the shape of military bullets as does their slight improvement in downrange velocities.

And yes, conventional boat tailed bullets do tend to let go of their cores a little easier than flat based bullets. Sierra and Speer conventional boat tails tend not to retain the core and jacket together (not necessarily a bad thing with lighter game like whitetails). However, flat-based conventional bullets from these manufacturers often show core separation, too.

The Nosler Solid Base design has a minimal boattail, but it is actually just a bevel in the base of the thick jacket material at the base of the bullet and does not extend into the area where the lead core is. In my experience the Nosler solid base bullets (speaking just of the Ballistic Tips now) may very well have core separations or partial separations, but the solid base provides unexpectedly deep penetration. However, I don't consider these bullets true "boat tails".

I remember all that being argued in the 1970's and 1980's.

I solved the problem by switching to monolithic bullets for hunting.

In my opinion they are equally crappy.

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Originally posted by AnotherAZWriter:
Reminds me of the old formula: F=uN

The friction component (u) is reduced in a boat tail due to the angle. On the other hand, boat tails have a longer bearing surface with equal weight bullets, so who knows?

Boattails have a LONGER length but a shorter bearing surface ! I just tried to seat some boattails when the seating die was set up for flatbase bullets and I had very little grip on the BT bullet in my .257 AI case !

Hip

If yu want to buy non-bonded game bullets, try Remington Core-Lokt bullets, cup and core bullets, but they usually hold together well. I have had Speer and Sierra shed their ackets on larger mule deer.

Personally, the bullet seems to be the most critical shooting component and the cost of quality bullets is so vanishingly small compared to other hunting costs that it makes no sense not to use them.

quote:

Originally posted by Alec Torres:
If yu want to buy non-bonded game bullets, try Remington Core-Lokt bullets, cup and core bullets, but they usually hold together well. I have had Speer and Sierra shed their ackets on larger mule deer.

Personally, the bullet seems to be the most critical shooting component and the cost of quality bullets is so vanishingly small compared to other hunting costs that it makes no sense not to use them.

So how come you have found shed jackets, I take it the animals didn't get away?
Never used a so call premium bullet, the only bullet that is premium to me is one that emphatically puts down animals and after nearly 6 decades of hunting and shooting a lot of deer, feral goats, chamois and tahr, cup and cores, Sierra in particular, have never failed me. They go where I point them and just do the job. A tradesman shouldn't blame his tools is my motto.

Back in the early 70's I shot a blacktail with a 270, using a Sierra boattail. He went down at tbhe shot, but when I got up to him he stood up with a shocked look on his face, then took off. I shot him again, and when I cut him up I found the jacket just under the skin, and 2 pieces of lead went above and below the spine. I think he would have survived if not anchored. don't remember which Sierra it was.

My brother had the same thing happen with a Sierra boattail, using a .243. I've used Ballistic Tips quite a bit, mostly with a 25-06 or 270, on blacktails and AZ whitetails, and never had that problem.

That's the only deer I've shot with a Sierra so you could say it's an overwhelming example of one! My brother's wife wouldn't let him get anything bigger than a 243, but he finally bribed her with a new Camaro and got a really neat Dakota falling block.

I shot a lot of game with the Speer130 gr. flat base and the 130 gr BTSP in my 7xx57s and even more in Africa....and done both with a number of cup and core bullets

I have also found the flat base more accurate in most cases than the boat tail and the boattail will indeed squirt the lead out where the flat base never has in my case...I also have found flat base bullet tend to be more accurate than boattails and a better game bullet..but on deer, particularly light white tail it makes no difference and a exploding bullet seems to kill very well indeed "most of the time".

I have to agree with your friend...

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Originally posted by jerrymontgomery:
... My brother's wife wouldn't let him get anything bigger than a 243, but he finally bribed her with a new Camaro and got a really neat Dakota falling block.

That's a story in itself, Jerry! What non-shooting wife would know the difference?

A friend of ours in Illinois wouldn't even let her husband keep his .30-30 in the house 20 years ago but, when we visited last year, she had got two pistols of her own and practised with their AR15 in the backyard.

If you drive the bullets fast enough, all jacketted bullets would loose their cores.

This also applies to both Nosler Partition, and Swift A Frames.

I have seen every single one used loose the core behind the partition.

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Originally posted by eagle27:

quote:

Originally posted by Alec Torres:
If yu want to buy non-bonded game bullets, try Remington Core-Lokt bullets, cup and core bullets, but they usually hold together well. I have had Speer and Sierra shed their ackets on larger mule deer.

Personally, the bullet seems to be the most critical shooting component and the cost of quality bullets is so vanishingly small compared to other hunting costs that it makes no sense not to use them.

So how come you have found shed jackets, I take it the animals didn't get away?
Never used a so call premium bullet, the only bullet that is premium to me is one that emphatically puts down animals and after nearly 6 decades of hunting and shooting a lot of deer, feral goats, chamois and tahr, cup and cores, Sierra in particular, have never failed me. They go where I point them and just do the job. A tradesman shouldn't blame his tools is my motto.

The animals did not get away. That does not mean that the terminal performance was acceptable. One of the animals (a very large mule deer shot just behind the shoulder with a 120 grain Sierra bullet from a 6.5 X 55 at about 300 yards) appeared to be stunned, but did not go down. A quick follow up shot to the spine anchored him, but he was still very much alive and required a finishing shot. The bullets shed their jackets and the cores fragmented badly. I stopped using them in favor of Remington Core Lokt and Nosler Partitions, which have worked well, providing one shot kills on both deer and elk from my 7mm rifles.

quote:

The animals did not get away. That does not mean that the terminal performance was acceptable. One of the animals (a very large mule deer shot just behind the shoulder with a 120 grain Sierra bullet from a 6.5 X 55 at about 300 yards) appeared to be stunned, but did not go down. A quick follow up shot to the spine anchored him, but he was still very much alive and required a finishing shot. The bullets shed their jackets and the cores fragmented badly.

Not that uncommon.

When one has shot a lot of game one sees many things.

Ive seen NOslers loose the frontal core when driven to fast, but in every case the base portion completed the kill and mostly exited..When this happens they seem to kill quicker sometimes, its not a problem at all, some for some other bullets, and on light game say up to 150 lbs. an exploding failure kills quicker than any other bullet, thus the hot 22s are favored deer calibers in many areas..So Ive come to the conclusion that soft bullets work on deer size game and hard bullets on elk size game at least basically..the rest is voodoo.

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Originally posted by Saeed:
If you drive the bullets fast enough, all jacketted bullets would loose their cores.

This also applies to both Nosler Partition, and Swift A Frames.

I have seen every single one used loose the core behind the partition.

It happened when the Weatherby's first came out and again when the Lazzeroni and Dakota cartridges came out. Pushing compound/jacketed bullets another 150 to 200 fps saw more bullet failures. Nosler came out with their Combined Technology Partitions to address the problem to some level of success. With the resurgence of the .416 Rigby, Woodleigh beefed up their jackets in the Mark II to address higher terminal velocity.

About the only bullets I have not seen fail on big game at high terminal velocities are monometal bullets with a big flat meplat upfront. But they tend to pass through and through so there's that...

The whole boat tail vs flat base discussion is just that. Most any bullet can and will fail.

Just a couple observations...I have almost universally had better luck with getting a load topped with a flat base bullet to shoot well or even phenomenally well than boat tail bullets.

I have killed many many medium game animals with plain ole flat base cup and core bullets and in the vast majority of cases its a pass through so I don't really know (or care) if the bullet "failed"... It killed the animal. In the handful of instances where I recovered the bullet they were separated about half the time. But again,,,it killed the animal. I have had less than a half dozen tracking jobs that were more than 50 yards or so. In almost every instance the placement was off...which is on me not the bullet.

The ballistic differences between a boattail and non-boattail bullet are really not worth discussing until you get beyond 300-350 yards. Inside that range you are quite literally arguing differences that amount to fractions of an inch in performance differential. From 300-500 yard there is a difference but its of marginal utility to a hunter...might help you save a point if you a master class competitor shooting against other master class shooters. Beyond 500 yards the boattail begins to enjoy an advantage but not all boattail designs are equal and generally bullets with longer sleeker boattails will significantly outperform they shorter boattail friends. This isn't readily demonstrated on paper. But experience will prove its so... Look at the .30 Sierra 180 gr Match King and compare its boattail design to the 175K match king or the 190 match king which both share the exact same long sleek boattail vs the 180's short boattail which can be found on the 168gr SMK as well. I promise you no long range shooter who knows how to jerk a trigger will favor a 180 gr with the short boattail over the 175 gr with the long boattail. They just don't fly as well. And again, we are talking 600-1,000 yards. But inside of 300-350 yard which is where most hunting bullets do their work...there is no practical velocity, drop, or windage difference between a boattail and a flat base bullet of similar weights. DOn't take my word for it. Do your own homework and run some ballistic comparisons. Unless you are afraid of learning something that might upset your apple cart.

I love flat base bullets like the Sierra Game Kings or the Speer Hot Cores, even the Nosler Partitions or Ballistic Tips. They are easy to get small groups with your loads, they work great on game, and they usually cost a lot less.

I don't see any difference in a Nosler losing its core than a Barnes X shedding its wings,both give an exit hole, and both kill..