School us on bullet tipping.

[Tony Z]

There were a number of competitors at the NDRC shoot a few weeks back that were using tipped bullets and did well with them. So i am asking those that have been down this road with the Whidden or Hoover etc units to tell us about your experiences.

[macca]

These are my personal findings with the whidden pointing system,your milage may vary.
Findings with 6mm 7mm and 30cal vlds,matchkings and some scennars.
All printed higher on paper then their unpointed batch mates. No standard result where I would say you are going to print 2 moa higher etc.
I pointed without metplate trimming. I then trimmed and pointed. I pointed and trimmed. I trimmed,pointed and trimmed. No method seemed better or worst.
In my mind there is little doubt you are doing something to the bc.
According to reports from the USA I should have seen my biggest result with the 6mm. Surprisingly I got my best percentage improvement with the 155 F class competition sierras. May have been a batch thing.

So what's the downside you ask. Hmmmm. I rarely grouped better after all the trimming and pointing. They may have printed higher up the target but they didn't show a reduction in group average size. Having said that they did produce that one really tiny group in each caliber that you want to put up on the net and say my rifle averages this all day every day. The aggs of ten or so groups of pointed and unpointed were that close it really didn't matter. I have a couple of acquaintances who swear their group sizes reduced significantly. If that is the case I may just have not pointed them properly.
Did they hold the wind better,that I am not that sure of. I didn't record whether they had more or less drift in the same conditions. From memory and this was awhile back I think they may have held closer.

Dave Purcell had some great results with his 260AI moly and tipped at Canberra in the 1k. So did Les Fraser on the same day.
I don't think it hurts to tip and in capable hands it may help. I may just pull the black box out and do some and see. Or I can send it up to you and get some real testing done.
So for what its worth they were my findings.

[dg]

well said grant. a very informative and comprehensive summary.

the only small comment I can add is, that I found that working the tips seemed smoother with less effort, when the projectiles had been coated with WS2. no doubt, other projectile coatings would also produce similar benefits.

cheers
dave

[macca]

well said grant. a very informative and comprehensive summary.

the only small comment I can add is, that I found that working the tips seemed smoother with less effort, when the projectiles had been coated with WS2. no doubt, other projectile coatings would also produce similar benefits.

cheers
dave

I used imperial wax as that's what I had onhand. I accidently did one without and you really notice the difference for the worst.
cheers

[Tony Z]

I second that, great report Grant.
Grant did you see any decrease in vertical dispersion at longer range?
The other thing is i am reading some difference in batching criteria before pointing. Some are base to ogive batching, others are overall length batching. The latter makes sense if you have cut meplats after B to O batching. Without that i see possible issues. Some are doing nothing, just point and shoot. What criteria did you use?

[The Raven]

I looked up bullet tipping today...thinking it had something to do with cow tipping.

I always wondered what significance the various types of bullet tips had on BC, particularly hollow points.

Now I'm be edumacated.

[macca]

I got my Whidden pointer after I had batched my projectiles by weight and b to o.
When I trimmed I chose the shortest base to tip in each batch and made them all that length so that when tipped they were all the same base to tip length.
I didn't have a juneke at the time so that was my best sort criteria.
In the Mks and lapuas less vertical was noticed at 600 yards. The Bergers not so much. If Grant read the wind better perhaps a 3 to 5 % reduction in group size may have been possible. Didn't always correlate, driver error perhaps.
If we agree that 1 moa at 600 yards is 6.282 inches I did shoot a 0.113 moa group at 600 with pointed bergers and the black pig.
There was only a.284 bullet hole above dead flat. I was around 10% larger with the unpointed ones. That's that one group. When wind was there the groups moved back and forth between the two.

[macca]

By the way all groups were 5 shots. Doing 10 shots may show a difference greater then I found.
I may test that out in a few weeks.

[Rinso]

Hey Tony and Macca,

I did a bit of pointing and yes had some success if you look solely at results of the shoots. To expand a bit I performed all the normal bullet sorting tasks basically the same as aJR's routine including using a Juenke. I then pointed some batches which were as near as I could get to matched already.

These were 123grn Lapua's which I had moly'd, I re batched for overall length after pointing and as a result of all this I shot a 4 inch agg at Canberra 1k. I also shot a 1.2 inch group at Fly in a state shoot. All that said the same rifle had shot a 1.5 & 1.8 inch group in a Fly matches. I had also shot some 5 inch groups at 1k with untipped moly'd 123 Lapua's which were normally sorted and unpointed.

Groups did print higher pointed but any variation in group size was hard to measure effectively given the nature of LRBR and shooter error, we are not talking big differences. I saw no evidence of vertical increases nor marked decreases, then again I never had vertical problems with that rifle and load. Also as indicated the rifle shot some outstanding groups with unpointed bullets.

Did pointing make any difference? I believe it did make a slight difference by improving bc which, in turn at least in theory, improved results simply by that increased bc. Shooter error in wind reading makes it impossible to be certain about these things and remains (and imho always will remain) the key to success.

We all try to reduce the variables and increase or improve our margin of error in wind reading, pointing does improve bc and therefore increases the margin for error in misreads of wind so it does help. Wether it helps enough to warrant the effort is another matter. Given the amount of time we put into reloading it seems that this is another step in a world of diminishing returns but we do need to take every advantage we can.

Good luck playing with pointing and good shooting or golfing in your case Tony. I will stick to tying knots in fishing line and bending rods for a bit longer yet but the itch is there and I may need to build a new rifle and scratch it again one day and shoot a few 1k matches.

My current toy?

P1010048%20(640x413).jpg (223.87 KiB) Viewed 7629 times

[macca]

Hey Dave.
I like your new toy.
And thanks for your info.
Enjoy your fishing.
Cheers

[trevort]

Dave I hope you scratch that itch. It would be good to catch up and get abused again


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[dg]

just a few more minor comments on my trimming and pointing experiences.

I prefer to trim before pointing, just to ensure that any minor burrs from trimming are ironed out or removed.( projectiles with extensive burring aren't pointed and are not used for match applications)

I have two whidden pointers , original design and one a few years old - the difference being, the new insert sleeves are not interchangeable in the original.

trimming wise - a number of Sinclair ( three 6mm one 7mm one 30cal) all HSS cutters, and two hoover (6mm 7mm) with a number of HSS and carbide cutters - yeah, I know should have spent the money on the hoovers initially and would have been much happier by not purchasing the sinclairs.

btw as expected the steel bodied hoover is noticeably more consistent in cutting lengths than the sinclairs which vary considerably in nylon sleeve ogive contact points and vld ogive tapers tend to jam in the inserts at times.

cheers
dave g

[dg]

hey dave

great to see you are enjoying life up north !!!!!

one or two or so 600/1000yd rifles won't take up much room.

cheers mate

dave

[macca]

Hey DG where did you get your Hoovers. I need a new one. Q store is currently sold out of 7mms.

[dg]

macca

hoovers direct from hoovers in the usa around 2-3 years ago. at the time ordered by phone, had them in my hand around 10-14 days later.

cheers
dave