low friction turned Drive band Bullets

P

pierre

Guest
I suppose many of you have tried this sort of bullet -solid copper-
On paper ,they offer the best of all worlds :very high bc and extremely tight tolerances
What is your opinion ? do you work? are there hidden problems
Peter
 
Pierre

They are the cats meow in 50 caliber competition and our ilustrious leader Don "The Pumpkin" Nielson has been making some up in the smaller calibers.
The borerider design is a big aide in starting the bullets out straight as 3/8 of an inch is riding the lands before you even pull the trigger.
Keeping the tips concentric with the body is sometimes a concern as is the groove to land ratio.If your lands are too tall you will gas cut the throat before the driving band engraves it.
Get a barrel from Barney Lawton if you want to play with the solids.
Lynn
 
Lynn
many thanks for your comments
is anybody on this forum using them for small calibers?308?
Peter
 
I amreally puzzled that 236 on this forum have read the thread and only one -Lynn -has dared made a comment
Is it that few people have got a clue about what this type of bullet is
or :
Is it that such bullets have all been tried and tested before and have nbot been found to be competitive (if so ,could someone explain why?) ?
Peter
 
Pierre

They are the most accurate bullets made for the big 50's but when they are scaled down you need to spin them real fast.They are lighter than typical lead core bullets so most manufacturers make them longer resulting in a faster required twist.

Don Nielson has made them in 338 caliber and they have shot well.He made them in the smaller calibers and he wasn't as pleased with the results.His buddy Tom Price isn't on the internet and Don doesn't seem to post alot.

Alot of people myself included bought the Lost River bullets and couldn't get them to shoot very well.If you bought the J36 bullets they would shoot but offered no gain over a conventional bullet.If you bought the J40's at $2 a shot you not only needed a faster twist rate but the land to groove ratio needed tweaking before they would shoot.Solid bullets don't engrave very well and the hot gases will try and get around the bullet resulting in lousy throat life.When the land/groove ratio was adjusted they shot much better and this could be seen on doppler radar at The Yuma Proving Grounds.Problem with developing bullets like this is a day at Yuma cost $50,000 and is hard to recover on $2 bullets.A trick that helped the Lost River bullets shoot better was to trim the needle thin meplat back too 15% of caliber.I gave all of my bullets away but I think the meplat was around 0.015 inch.It is hard to mass produce bullets on a screw machine with a meplat that thin and not run into concentricity issues that aren't seen on a 50 caliber bullet.
On any bullet you don't want the ogive off center and on a slender solid you sometimes see it.
As to your question about people not posting.If someone developed a good shooting solid that didn't foul like crazy and was cost effective they would probaly keep it to themselves.While the intent is to share info here very few do.
Lynn
P.S. Eric Danis and Lutz Moeller are the people you want to talk to.
 
land/groove ratio

Lynn, could you explain what is meant by land/groove ratio? Did the solid bullets you referred to run better with deeper rifling? I'm keen to learn more.
Thanks.
Willy.
 
Willy

A spokesman from Lost River-Chey-Tac that was involved for years with the 408 told me that the lathe turned solids didn't engrave as well as the lead core jacketed bullets did.If you didn't change the lands depth combustion gases would flow around the base of the bullet and erode the throat very quickly plus the accuracy wasn't as good with the deeper lands and this could be seen on doppler radar.I don't know how much of that is true but Ken Johnson from K-P built there first barrels and Barney Lawton is building there new barrels and could maybe be asked.
If you go to the Lawton website it lists Lost River bore sizes.
Lynn
 
Last edited:
Turned Bullets

KJG MUNITIONS (GERMANY) MAKES THEM , (http://home.snafu.de/l.moeller/Patronen) claim 6.5mm (copper) 109 gr. w/BC of .598 in 1: 8" twist barrel. They were also shown in 6mmbr.com on 3/24/06 in the "Daily Blog" )
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Pierre

The website Larry Kramer posted is Lutz Moeller as mentioned earlier and is a wealth of information.
There is also a company out of South Africa that sells monolithic solid bullets here called G-S Bullets.I have never shot there bullets but I have heard good things about them.
Lynn
 
been in contact with them
unfortunately for me ,i 've now heard that solid bullets are banned on our range ,for safety reasons
Peter
 
6.5mm -109gr.-.598 B.C. W/1-8" GAIN TWIST?

*Additional note On Turned Copper Bullet Info: (I Am Not Positive about this) But may have read where KJG MUNITIONS (lutz Moeller) May Specify That A "gain Twist" Barrel (walther Makes Them) May be REQUIRED To Successfully Take Advantage Of This LOW RECOIL, Upper B.C., Copper Type Bullet. There Probably Is Someone Here In The U.S. That Produces Gain Twist Barrels, But I Don't Have That Info. Larry Kramer, Victoria, Tx.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top