Opinions on Boat-tail hunting bullets

B

BumbleBug

New member
First off, in this post, I'm talking about conventional, jacketed lead core hunting bullets. I'm excluding premium bonded & monolithic bullets & strictly target bullets.

In your experience, do feel that boat-tail bullets shed their cores more easily than flat-base bullets in game animals?

Do you believe when handloading, BT bullets seat straighter & thus are often more accurate hunting bullets?


TIA for your opinions & experiences.
 
I don’t believe there is a universal answer to your question about terminal performance, rather, it’s going to depend on the specific bullet. Some manufacturer’s BT bullets are more lightly constructed than their flat base counterparts, but it’s not universally true.

I don’t know about seating concentricity. I would be guessing.
 
I just loaded up some the other night in .308. They seated no different other then the tails just dropping in the case necks. I do anticipate a better trajectory though.
 
In your experience, do feel that boat-tail bullets shed their cores more easily than flat-base bullets in game animals?
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Yes, in my experience boat tailed bullets separate easier than flatbased. Remember, we are talking just plain old CNC bullets.

Do you believe when handloading, BT bullets seat straighter & thus are often more accurate hunting bullets?
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No, in my experience they don't seat any straighter. I normally get 0.000-0.001" runout with either style.

Matter of fact, the most accurate bullet that I have shot has been a 30 cal. Speer 150 gr Hot Core...flat based. This is for calibers 30 and up.
 
I posted the questions because I have found myself, maybe sub-consciously, following this thought pattern on bullet selection:

For hunting bullets I pick flat-base as a first choice. I've had cores separate on many bullets but it just seems logical that the reverse jacket taper would shed the bottom remaining core more easily. It is really kind of moot, since if you get that type of penetration & expansion most critters are pretty much done in.

When I want accuracy I usually pick a Sierra bullet & if I have a choice I get the BT. I may need a new or sharper de-burring tool, but occasionally I've noticed that when seating a flat based bullet a bit of copper jacket may scrape off around the case neck. May not be a big deal, but if it came off the bullet heel that could cause a flyer. This also indicates a stress that could cause a crooked bullet. The BT seems to eliminate that problem. I do know that if I chamfer properly this is not a problem either way.

Thanks for all the good responses!
 
I had ~ 100,000 posts on the internet before there were WWW gun lists.
I was #1 on rec.guns.

I have concluded that out of control variables and small amounts of data make terminal ballistics likely to be more like hints than science.
Each animal we shoot, might we shoot in a different spot on the body.
That is more important than what bullet.
We don't shoot that many big game animals. [But I have shot thousands of rodents.. .pink mist]
That means, do not get involved in terminal ballistics arguments.

But you are asking for opinions....


I like;
1) Nosler Ballistic Tips
2) Hornady SST

The guys I hunt with like partitions. I think they are idiots. They accuse me of being an idiot. I don't know how i tolerate them.

There are some pics that have been all over the internet, and I don't know the origin. It looks like deer bullets penetrate 14" regardless of terminal velocity, and partitions penetrate 18" also invariant with velocity.

penetration1.gif

penetration2.gif

penetration3.gif

penetration4.gif
 
A friend likes Gameking boat tails.
He says they do tend to shed jackets. He knows because he finds them in dead deer and elk. That's DEAD.
 
Almost all of my hunting bullets are BT so I can't speak to that; the only time I saw serious separation was a very close shot on a cow elk my boy made. It did a number on the lungs and did the job quite quickly so I don't consider it a failure at all. I don't feel like BT designs are necessarily more accurate, in fact at 200 yds or less the flat bases probably have an edge (more so in some rifles than others). Longer range ballistics definitely favor the boat tail though, both in drop and in wind deflection so I use them in case I do need to take that longer shot.
 
Same issue with the scraping of flat based bullets.

A good solution is the Gerard Tri Way Trimmer, particularly if you shoot a lot of a single caliber.

It uniformly chamfers inside, deburrs outside and sizes the length off the should which is consistently accurate.

I am now loading two calibers a lot and one of each. Not cheap but it is an easy one step process just leaving primer pocket cleaning to the prep station.
 
"...That's DEAD..." I say again, "That's dead.". snicker. If the jacket comes off inside Bambi's chest, it doesn't matter. Bambi won't care.
A boat tail on a bullet is about distance not penetration. Bullet construction matters for penetration.
Nosler Ballistic Tips and Hornady SSTs are the same thing. Also the same thing as the old Remington Bronze point(and their current Accu-Tip), the CIL Sabre Tip and the Winchester Ballistic Silver Tip(not to be confused with a proper silver tip that was an SP with an Al cap.).
"...scraping of flat based bullets..." Means you didn't chamfer the inside of case mouth properly/enough.
 
For anything under 200 yards, it doesn't matter. Generally at those ranges flat based will be slightly more accurate, the only reason I can think of why is because the flat base induces less wobble on the bullet as it exits the muzzle (the boat tail unseals before the tail is out, so any inconsistencies will cause more gas to fly to the looser side creating a pressure differential which will move the rear end of the bullet off of true).

Generally once a bullet has traveled 200 yards or so, any wobble induced by an uneven muzzle is no longer a major factor in accuracy (rifle bullets are spin stabilized and drag corrected to keep the nose pointed downrange to really dumb down exterior ballistics).

But, I don't think that cup and core flat based bullets are any tougher than cup and core boat tail bullets. I like 8mm Corelokts because they shoot well from my Mausers, and I like 308 Hornady Interlocks because they shoot well from my 308s. The deer don't care a whit either way.

Jimro
 
I don't see any downside to using BT bullets. I've noted a slight edge in accuracy at ranges of 100-200 yards with flat base bullets. But we're talking about a fraction of 1 MOA and at ranges where you don't need the accuracy. At longer ranges the edge goes to BT bullets. How well the bullets stay together is dependent on construction.

At longer ranges the difference is a lot more than folks think, and not trajectory nearly as much as retained energy. Compare a flat based RN 180 gr bullet fired from a 300 WM to one of the high BC 180 gr BT bullets fired from a 30-06. The 300 WM has almost 500 ft lbs more energy at the muzzle, but they are a dead tie at only 100 yards. The 30-06 load has nearly 400 ft lb more energy at only 200 yards. But the trajectories are virtually the same inside of 300 yards.
 
In general, I find them fine for hunting. I do find the case for boat tails....i.e. High bc to be way over stated by most hunters who swear by them.

I'm one of the folks who had to have a bc, but never shot at game over 400 yards....probably flat base and more time shooting would have been more value.
 
A boat tail bullet is just like any other bullet down to that taper. The taper is an insignificant, maybe one mm amount of lead longer, with about two mm or so left unsupported by friction. The only way that a core should be pulled out is when drag on the jacket overcomes the momentum of the core, and that cuts won't happen until the jacket is almost completely ruptured. At that point, seriously, the bullet will have done it's job, and that core will still penetrate a little further anyway.

Yes, it's obvious that there is a little less "grab" on the core by the jacket, but in reality, I believe that this will be insignificant on a large scale. Maybe a few percent of standard hunting rounds will function poorly just because they have boat tails.

The ammo companies want us to worry ourselves sick about whether our ammunition will work. We have a company that touts boat tails, one with partitions, one that's all copper and one that uses tips, another that uses electrochemical bonding, one that uses belts inside the jacket... they all kill deer. My neighbor killed a deer with one of my cast lead loads. I forgot to ask if the gas check came off...
 
Something to consider is th a every hundredth of an inch the length of a bullet is stretched without adding weight, all else equal, the ballistic coefficient increases, and everything you do adds up. Put a boat tail on, add a great big hollow point like you see on match rounds, put on a sharply pointed light tip, even leave a small empty cavity behind that polymer tip, it all increases the ability of air to flow over the projectile with less disturbance.
 
conventional bullets

For me anything under300 yards both do well in expansion
beyond I go to boat tail as they fly faster at longer distances
up to 300 yards I think accuracy to moa is equal BUT boat tails will get you sub moa much more often than flat base unless 100 yards then both equal
when just shootin I use flat base just because they are cheaper
speers great under 300 yard bullets
sierra gameking great hunter, for me I do not use sierra pro hunter except to plink

boat tails just fly better at distance
 
I am using a flat bottom spire point but a long shot for me hunting here in Georgia is 125-140 yards. Most of the shots are 50 yards or less. When I go to my cousin's out in Texas to hunt sheep we are using BT and we are shooting 500 or so yards.
 
I've been shooting/hunting using Hornady Interlock flatbase bullets for about 30+ years. Never saw a reason to switch. Only boatail I've used is the TSX/TTSX. But, that is a all copper bullet. I use those 'cause I'm in Ca.:(

Oh, no separation with the flatbase.
 
All that propaganda and advertising about this and that bullets profile being better than the previous marketed or better than their competitors. I'm not that naive and or gullible to believe such trivial business hype & boasting. Frankly: I've had no success with BT bullets bettering the accuracy of any Flat Base lead cored spitzer~~ ever. But that's just my experience. Other member opinions are sure to differ. :)
 
I shot a deer at 629 yards in 2015.
There are guys who can do that easy.
That was the furthest kill I ever got.
I need all the help I can get, and boat tail bullets help me.
 
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