$4 458, wow! I won't buy it!!!

The price of brass and copper is rapidly going out of sight. I just paid $64 for a 9/16 6ft 360 brass rod. That will make about 50,.50 FN bullets. The cost of premium bullets will soon exceed $5 per bullet in the DGR sizes. Watch and see. We are all going to be only shooting bullets cast from wheelweights real soon. I think we shooters will soon be sneaking around the parking lots at Kmart pulling wheelweights off of cars to support our addiction -Rob

"....designed for the 458 Win Mag and the 460 Weatherby...."

Guess you 458 Lott guys are out of luck

I guess you can always shoot a $1.25 Swift A Frame...

For $2.50 I can get a 500 grain TBBC and have a far superior bullet.

Nosler has their head up their ass on this one.

And how about the Solids?

thanks a lot RGB for sharing my secret!! Next thing, you;ll be telling them about the 6-10oz weights on semis and they'll be hitting the truck stops!

Rich
DRSS
Knowledge not shared is knowledge lost...

quote:

Originally posted by Robgunbuilder:
The price of brass and copper is rapidly going out of sight. I just paid $64 for a 9/16 6ft 360 brass rod. That will make about 50,.50 FN bullets. The cost of premium bullets will soon exceed $5 per bullet in the DGR sizes. Watch and see. We are all going to be only shooting bullets cast from wheelweights real soon. I think we shooters will soon be sneaking around the parking lots at Kmart pulling wheelweights off of cars to support our addiction -Rob

You paid about 3 times market price for that stick of 360 Brass. If you need some sources let me know.

No cup & core bullet is worth more than a buck each - period.

We make brass solids in any shape, caliber, and size within reason for about $2.75 each shipped. Four bucks for a lead bullet is comical.

Macifej-- Pse tell me where I can get 360 brass cheaper. I'd really appreciate that!BTW the SL-10 holds .0001 all day and night with just ambient temp. Its alive and running bullets. I'm having a ball with my mini-mill and Cad-Cam too. I feel a full size gatling gun is soon in the plan.
ISS- Only if you can move faster than me. I'm hell on wheels with pliers!-Rob

quote:

Originally posted by Robgunbuilder:
Macifej-- Pse tell me where I can get 360 brass cheaper. I'd really appreciate that!BTW the SL-10 holds .0001 all day and night with just ambient temp. Its alive and running bullets. I'm having a ball with my mini-mill and Cad-Cam too. I feel a full size gatling gun is soon in the plan.
ISS- Only if you can move faster than me. I'm hell on wheels with pliers!-Rob

You can try onlinemetals.com. Their 6' 9/16" 360 brass is $42 & change. You can check them out at http://www.onlinemetals.com/merchant.cfm?pid=15240&step...hes&id=80&top_cat=79

https://www.speedmetals.com/product.asp?intProdID=264

$42.00

I made a booboo. the 9/16 rod was $42 from MSC I also bought some 5/8 rod for you know what at $64. Its still robbery!-Rob

I pay about $15.50 for a 6 foot stick of 9/16" C360 H02 brass bar. This also happens to be extremely high quality material and nets call out size on a screw machine no problem.

The SL-10 is a pretty good machine so those tolerances don't surprise me.

The price on Nosler's site is the MRSP. By the time it gets to MidwayUSA and other the price will be less.

Macifej- Oh PSE let me know in a PM where you get 9/16 rod for that price. I will send you alcohol and money.-Rob

When are you boys gonna stop the lollygagging, get to work and make me some .620 flat-point solids?

PM on the way Rob.

Vapodog,

I agree, the original TBBC was a great bullet.

But the current 500 grain .458 Speer TBBC disapointed me at 2,400 fps.



Speer switched to gilding metal from Jack Carters pure copper, and may have added antimony to the core as well. Result was the front end blows off.

I would actually expect the Nosler to do better.

But at that price, I will take the Swift, or for a high expansion bullet the even less expensive Kodiak.

Macifej,

The Nosler is not a cup and draw, it is impact extruded. A Nosler employee told me it took a 60 ton press to impact extrude the .375. I dont know what it takes for th .416 and .458 but I am sure they are amortizing the cost of that equipment.

Andy

Andy,
what is the retained weight on that?

346 grains, about like an original 400 grain TBBC at 2,700 fps!!!!

Also similar to the unbonded Winchester 510 grain Power Point.

So much for progress!!

There is as much art as science in making a great hunting bullet.

Andy

I just droped by the Nosler Pro Shop in Bend, Oregon.

They have the FN solid available for $62.00 for 25 bullets.

That is $2.48 apiece.

The staff there said they were made elsewhere but designed by them to have similar point of impact and pressure as their 375, 416 and 458 partitions.

The .458 partitions are not available yet.

I purchased some of the solids and will post photos of them her with some of our other well known favorites.

Andy

If I were going on a expensive safari half way around the world, the price of bullets would be way, way, low on my list...

linotype alloy bullet (RFN) = solid performance at 2000-2400fps MV.

Rich
DRSS
Knowledge not shared is knowledge lost...

quote:

Originally posted by 450/400:
I guess you can always shoot a $1.25 Swift A Frame...

quote:

Originally posted by .366torque:
$4 458, wow! I won't buy it!!!

Well, I don't think, compared to the cost of an African hunt, that 100 bucks is too much for all the bullets you'd need to bag all the big five!

quote:

Originally posted by 450/400:
I guess you can always shoot a $1.25 Swift A Frame...

[/QUOTE]

I will second that.

IMO the Swift is the best of all 500 grain .458's but still not in same class as the 450 grain NF. (I am surprised that Speer and Hornady can ruin a SD 340 bullet that is only going 2,400 fps).



500 grain .458's from base. Swift is 3rd from left.



Pictured from top. From Left to Right; Barnes X, Kodiak, Swift, Speer TBBC, Woodleigh PP, 510 grain WW Power Point.

All at about 2,400 fps 1-12 twist 450 Dakota.

We all need to be prepared for higher bullet prices. Raw copper has increased in price from 0.50 cents a pound in 2000 to $1.50 in 2005. It doubled to $3.00 in 2006 and then increased to $3.30 (10% more) from 2006 to 2008.

Andy

Copper Alloy suitable for manufacturing precision bullets is about $7.25 per pound in VERY large quantities and about $9.75 per pound in small batches.

quote:

Originally posted by Robgunbuilder:
The price of brass and copper is rapidly going out of sight. I just paid $64 for a 9/16 6ft 360 brass rod. That will make about 50,.50 FN bullets. The cost of premium bullets will soon exceed $5 per bullet in the DGR sizes. Watch and see. We are all going to be only shooting bullets cast from wheelweights real soon. I think we shooters will soon be sneaking around the parking lots at Kmart pulling wheelweights off of cars to support our addiction -Rob

You're lucky you didn't pick that rod up at Gander Mountain. The price would be "cool 2x$64".

quote:

The Nosler is not a cup and draw, it is impact extruded.

The process is the same. Jackets are banged into shape from a roll of flat material. They can be made very cheaply in large quantities. Not very precise but adequate for most jobs.

Gerard and Gina of GSC,
Have I been waiting so long that I owe you more money for those .395 bullets due to inflation of copper prices from 2007 to 2008?
Let me know ... please!

Gerard's Kudu Powered Pedal Lathe may have broken down again!!

OR! He may have been waiting on a fresh shipment of grounding rod to anneal for bar stock.

All in fun Gerard!! Real possibility of power outages as I hear from my contacts there.

I own the 458 Lott and at 4.oo A shot is out of my reach for a partition. You're talking 200.oo for a box of 50 that is rediculish.

Here is a picture of the 500 grain Nosler FN solid next to some of the other solids I have some experience with.



Pictured left to right: The FN solid that started it all, the 450 grain GS, the North Fork that shot through 60 inches of elephant skull, the 450 grain Barnes so-called FN (really a RN-FN), the 465 grain TCCI RN that shot through 33-39 inches of elephant, the A-Square that replaced the TCCI-made A-Square that I had used, and the 500 grain Nosler FN.



As you can see the Nosler has the smallest meplat but will have less drag on the ogive than the Barnes, but still more than a truncated cone FN like GS and NF.

Andy

/

quote:

A $4 Nosler Partition????

and besides.....since the Nosler partition is famous for shedding the front partition, I wouldn't give you a dime for a truck load of them for dangerous game!

quote:

If we assume that only the meplat is wetted then all else equal ie stability, velocity etc than then surely the FN with the smallest meplat would have the least drag in target?

Alf, I dont think you can assume that only the meplat is wetted on a RN-FN.

Try shooting one into a water tank. They are almost as unstable as the blunt RN.

The Truncated Cone bullets shoot 3 times as far as a RN and twice as far as a RN-FN.

I think the ogive of the Barnes and even a portion of the Nosler will be outside of the vapor barrier, thereby producing drag, which would explain their relative instability in water compared to a TC design like the GS and NF.

Since an elephant skull is harder than water it might not mean anything, but these bullets penetration in water tanks did correlate to penetration of the 465 grain TCCI RN on my 18 year old cow elephant, and indicated correctly that the FN would out penetrate the RN. Just not by such a large margin.

I would hunt with any of these, but I would not expect miracles from the Barnes.

Andy

Shooting water (a true fluid) is not at all the same as shooting a soft solid (muscle) or a hard solid (bone)..

/

Way to go Alf!

That 1930 article from Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD on:

"THE THEORY OF THE MOTION OF A BULLET ABOUT ITS CENTER OF GRAVITY IN DENSE MEDIA, WITH APPPLICATIONS TO BULLET DESIGN"

... this gave credence to water as a dense medium for comparison to flesh effects on bullet behavior.

Subsonic velocity bullets have less resistance with blunter noses in air than the pointy bullets.

In water or flesh, bullets are subsonic in the usual 2000 to 3000 fps bracket of bullet speed, since speed of sound is greater in dense media than air.

A bit of a jump to conclude that the blunter the bullet is, the better it will penetrate in dense media because it is subsonic compared to the speed of sound in that media?

/