• Watch Out for Scammers!

    We've now added a color code for all accounts. Orange accounts are new members, Blue are full members, and Green are Supporters. If you get a message about a sale from an orange account, make sure you pay attention before sending any money!

Range Report Twist rate article in Sniper

R6Hybridd

Private
Full Member
Minuteman
Sep 30, 2012
53
0
38
Lake Saint Louis MO
I just got done reading Todd Hodnett's article on twist rates for the second time. I am intrigued and was wondering what other people thought of the article.

What really interested me was the .308 14" barrel with a 1:8 twist getting hits on target at a mile with the disliked 168gr bullet.
 
Last edited:
What really interested me was the .308 14" barrel with a 1:8 twist getting hits on target at a mile with the disliked 168gr bullet.

Sorry, not buying it unless I witness it. And it better be reliable hits, not one hail mary once in a while.
 
I haven't read it but I can comment on it: Cowboy Doc has no top-secret access to voodoo that others don't have.
 
Ok, looking at it from strickly exit vel. he can't be getting more than 2400fps out of that tube. with everything else considered other than altitude ( which can make a difference ) the bullet would be arriving at 1k yds. at around 1000fps, no more. with 700 yds more to go the terminal vel. can't be more than around 500fps. This is going to blow the B.C. all to hell even with the tight twist. I'm with Prone shooter, I'd like to know what is meant by "getting hits", hits the ground, hits the sky, hits a dump truck, a greyhound bus. I'm not calling b.s. but I would like to see it. I have a 14 in. contender in .309 JDJ. this is .30 cal in a necked down .444 marlin case. "Stout round". the best I can get is in the high 2300's, close to 2400 but not quite. That's what I'm basing my figures on. I could be off base on what he's getting, just don't know.
 
What he is saying (in my opinion) is that the higher twist rates help the bullet retain more bc and fight off the effects of going through transonic flight. Now what I think when I read that is that if the higher twist can stablize a 168gr at further distances, could it also help the stability of the more popular 175gr and make hits at the further distances more accurate/smaller groups. Now I am talking about at transonic distance and further. I don't think it will make any difference when shooting at 100 to 200 yards.

He also says that he held/dialed less elevation and windage with the faster twist rates.
 
Last edited:
Yeah, that flies in the face of decades of military and academic research and development. In order for him to be right, guys like Harold Vaughn and Bob McCoy (among others) have to be wrong. The burden of proof for such a claim is astronomical.
 
Yeah, that flies in the face of decades of military and academic research and development. In order for him to be right, guys like Harold Vaughn and Bob McCoy (among others) have to be wrong. The burden of proof for such a claim is astronomical.

+1000

I would take such claims with a huge dose of salt...

Edited to add: he might be an excellent shooters, and perhaps has the best of intentions. But some people really don't know how to apply the scientific method and perhaps confuse "uncorrected data points" with breakthroughs.
 
Last edited:
Todd sets up shoots in southeastern Utah where you can get shots from 4500 to 11,000 feet elevation.

Figure thinner air at altitude gives you the equivalent of an inch of barrel length per thousand feet of elevation and it's do-able.
 
Yeah, that flies in the face of decades of military and academic research and development. In order for him to be right, guys like Harold Vaughn and Bob McCoy (among others) have to be wrong. The burden of proof for such a claim is astronomical.

I'm not going to argue that but remember, at one time every one thought the world was flat. I'm just saying it might be worth further investigation. I might try and build a 700 with a custom twist barrel... strictly for scientific reasons of course. :)
 
I'm not going to argue that but remember, at one time every one thought the world was flat. I'm just saying it might be worth further investigation. I might try and build a 700 with a custom twist barrel... strictly for scientific reasons of course. :)

Agreed. A long time ago I learned to never say never when it comes to engineering, especially in the face of empirical evidence. At a high level, the idea has merit - at least conceptually. Increasing the spin will help a marginal bullet stay stable. Figuring that math out is near impossible for the 168 grain bullet, and that's the one that has the best data available. So is it possible that someone stumbled upon some edge case where the bullet actually worked? I suppose. I'm not expert enough to figure what that would look like. But I have studied enough ballistics theory to say that in the general case, under normal conditions, that type of shot seems very unlikely.
 
Remember you have to keep all other factors the same (or accurately correct for them) to claim that he "held/dialed less elevation and windage with the faster twist rates". This is the part most difficult to believe.
 
Remember you have to keep all other factors the same (or accurately correct for them) to claim that he "held/dialed less elevation and windage with the faster twist rates". This is the part most difficult to believe.

If I remember correctly he states he was dialing less elevation than others shooting at the same time. I am not sure if it was the same ammo and barrel lengths.
 
I just got done reading Todd Hodnett's article on twist rates for the second time. I am intrigued and was wondering what other people thought of the article.

What really interested me was the .308 14" barrel with a 1:8 twist getting hits on target at a mile with the disliked 168gr bullet.


I had to go back and re-read the article to refresh my memory. All I will say is that one needs to read the ENTIRE article and take in what the author was saying to the reader to grasp the intent of the article.

While the author did use the above mentioned details as an example of a test he had personally run, he also precluded that statement with the fact that they were shooting a tactical rifle and the results were better with the 168 to the government client who had to go to 175 to get the same results the author obtained with his 14" 168gr 308 round. So I think it's prudent to read the whole article to truly understand the authors point.
 
Could it be, just maybe, that some how the 1in 8 twist is sort of creating it's own " black hole " or some sort of "vacuum" which opens up a wind friction free zone for the bullet to travel in with less drag than say a conventional twist barrel and allowing a corridor for the bullet to travel in. Sort of like drafting in nascar racing. After reading everybodies comments, this just sort of hit me that the twist could be more beneficial than we originally thought. Just saying!!
 
Could it be, just maybe, that some how the 1in 8 twist is sort of creating it's own " black hole " or some sort of "vacuum" which opens up a wind friction free zone for the bullet to travel in with less drag than say a conventional twist barrel and allowing a corridor for the bullet to travel in. Sort of like drafting in nascar racing. After reading everybodies comments, this just sort of hit me that the twist could be more beneficial than we originally thought. Just saying!!

In a word... no. :)

All this chatter has me interested in reading the actual article, though.
 
Read it with my head shaking... Reread it again, my head is still shaking but now I also have a dog snoring in the background.

Anyone got a 300 blackout, I believe the factory twist was around 8. Load up some 168's and 175's and figure out what distance would simulate the same velocity for a mile shot.

For some reason I get the feeling that this fast twist, extra stable bullet can only be realized if four operators are using Horus reticle scopes, field swapped from a each others rifle, in a Larue quick detach mount turned backwards on a 20 moa base, taking turns shooting through "light cover" and walking shots in at a mile... all the while, a friend spins a yarn of a story about a 14" 1-4 twist 308 he once knew. Now the important part...The four operators and one expert wind reader must call a ceasefire as soon as the first shot hits and declare in a loud voice "We just made a successful one mile shot, a distance more than twice what many would consider the effective range of a 308!"


Sorry couldn’t resist. Buy the DVD if you hope to understand some but not all of the above. You will However, need the DVD and the Sniper magazine article along with some Alaska brew hand delivered from a friend that just returned with it… if you want a clear picture of the above.

Cheers!
 
Last edited:
Is this magazine still on the racks? I always check WalMart for "Sniper" magazine, hoping to get lucky, but haven't seen one since last year's issue.
 
Thanks for posting the article.

For ME, the entire article is the definition of "unscientific"...

I'm fairly certain it wasn't intended to be a scientific dissertation but rather more of an editorial piece to get people thinking about faster twist rates used with high BC bullets at long distances using a wide variety of factory loads. That's my take on it.
 
Quick, everybody run to ditch their 1/10 and 1/8 barrels for 1/4 and 1/2.........
 
Yeah, that's pretty much all wrong. If anyone is interested in what is right, buy Bob McCoy's book if you (really) like math, and Bryan Litz's if you don't. This is just all over the place, and stumbles on some truth here and there, but is largely just wrong.
 
Yeah, that's pretty much all wrong. If anyone is interested in what is right, buy Bob McCoy's book if you (really) like math, and Bryan Litz's if you don't. This is just all over the place, and stumbles on some truth here and there, but is largely just wrong.

How do you know its wrong? Have you ever tried a faster twist rate? I'm not saying its right but it is worth a look. Maybe it doesn't work in theory with the formulas they have but for a twist that fast the formulas may not work. Like in the formula he gives they substitute 180 in for the 150 for a velocity over 1800fps to make it work. Like I said, I'm not saying he is right or wrong, just don't immediately dismiss it as BS until you have personally tried it or there is enough evidence to disprove it. If the industry never tries anything new, technology will never advance. We need people like him to try new things like that. There was a time when there was no rifling. Something to remember.
 
Last edited:
I know it's wrong because if it's right, the entire aerospace engineering profession world-wide is wrong. This isn't new stuff, and is well understood - I have a textbook on ballistics published in 1953 that explains this all very well, for example. The "industry" people whose knowledge he is so dismissive of are actually the US Army Ballistics Research Lab and other institutions. I'm pretty sure they thought of trying different twist rates. More importantly they did scientific investigation derived from basic principles of physics to understand how spin impacts moving projectiles, and that ain't how it works.

I admire the spirit of exploration and the willingness to share ideas, but this article is not consistent with current engineering thinking, which is a very old discipline.
 
I'm waiting for a DTA Covert A1 and already picked up a 16" 1:8 Twist 308 barrel. This article makes sense to me because I was running the JBM online calculator to determine how slow I can go and still stabilize a 220gr bullet, the online calc would only go to 600fps but even at that speed the bullet was still stabilized. So the higher twist would allow the bullet to stabilize below transonic flight. Going the other direction, the JBM calc allowed me to pur 3000fps in and the bullet was still stablized. So how far can a 220gr fly and still be 600fps?

So using a ballistic calculator and plugging in 2400fps at the muzzle, a 168gr bullet can go 1700yds before it slows down to 600fps.

Sounds like it can be done to me. Btw 1760yds=1 mile.
 
The question though is will the extra RPM keep a 168 smk from tumbling. It isn’t that bullet has stopped spinning but the design induced low pressure wobble between mach 1.2 and mach .9

I know from experience with my 11.27 twist rock barreled 308, the 168 has a muzzle velocity of 2700. Per jbm’s stability solver it is theoretically stable in my average atmosphere at the muzzle all the way to the 1000y target line where it is traveling at mach .96. I still saw a few oblong impacts on the steel target, when they would hit the target that is.

After giving this some thought as to why some made it and others didn’t it may be as simple as the bullets that hit oblong had a slight imperfection in the jacket or lead core. Causing them to be ever so slightly unbalanced either in weight or air flow and exploited that weakness in transonic flight… So now if we spin it faster how does that change things for the better, worse or do they stay the same.

Playing devils advocate, If we take a mark 1 finger and swirl it in water while the water is draining we get a vortex, if we spin our finger faster the vortex will extend in length a little deeper. Could it be this occurs behind the 168 pushing that low pressure area back far enough that it can’t act as much on the bullet base???

I am tired and feel I am rambling, good night guys :)
 
Last edited:
My understanding is that the 168MK is on the ragged edge of dynamic stability, and in some cases can be neutrally stable, where the yaw increases and stays put. In other words, they won't necessarily tumble, but it doesn't take much to make them go sideways. Spinning it faster will help with that, but only a very small amount. Once a bullet is gyroscopically stable, increasing spin provides rapidly diminishing returns. Bullet design plays a huge role, and the 168SMK is unfortunately not a terribly good design for long range. Trying to shoot these past 800 yards is something people may want to do for fun, but it's really impractical, as there are much better bullets. A mile seems like a huge stretch, although I've never done it myself.

The reason JBM said your bullets would be stable is that it calculates an approximation gyroscopic stability, not dynamic stability. Dynamic stability is not easy to calculate because it requires lots of very difficult to obtain data specific to the bullet. For a bullet to be stable, it must be gyroscopically stable and dynamically stable. As you've seen, the 168 goes wonky on the dynamic stability when you push the range.

If you have a better bullet that is stable through to the target, then increasing spin will not do much of anything.

Unbalanced bullets are another problem entirely (well, they're somewhat related in that they cause bullet yaw). An off balance bullet will want to tip while in the bore, but it can't because the bore constrains it. As soon as that bullet leaves the rifling, it will do what it wants, which will result dispersion. The faster you spin it, the bigger this effect will be. This is why (almost) everyone wants to shoot the slowest twist they can get away with. I have a .30BR with a 1:18 twist. It shoots great, but only with bullets under 125 grains or so ( I know it works with 118's, not sure what the upper limit is). It cannot stabilize the heavier ones.
 
Like I said, I'm not saying he is right or wrong, just don't immediately dismiss it as BS until you have personally tried it or there is enough evidence to disprove it. If the industry never tries anything new, technology will never advance. We need people like him to try new things like that. There was a time when there was no rifling. Something to remember.

I have to agree with this line of thought. I highly doubt many, if any, here have conducted the shooting tests as described in the article. It's easy to dismiss what goes against the norm or even ones personal experiences as it seems illogical and or improbable/impossible, especially by those who are heavy into the physics and numbers. However, it's safe to say that the author is not talking about established norms but bleeding edge,pushing the envelope, outside of the box, idea(s). He is also basing this off of his stated observations in the field, ie: hitting the target.

I think it is also worth stating the obvious, the target being discussed is a man sized target, not an X or groups;it's military sniping at the fringes of what can be achieved with ammo in the military inventory/factory ammo at extended distances. As a military man, I look at it this way, while the bullet very well may go unstable at some point, if it is still hitting the intended target at that extended distance and as long as it has the ability to penetrate flesh, that badguy isn't going to know (or care). If using a faster twist rate in combination with todays (or improved)bullets makes that possible then I am all for it.

I haven't drank the Kool-aid in the article entirely ,but I do know the author is well known and respected in my community and believes in the results one can see downrage on the target. If his (and others) pushing the established and accepted norms results in a change and or an improved product/result then I am willing to entertain the ideas and possibilities they present that make it possible,even if it seems to fly in the face of what is currently known. I also realize that the results/benefit initially seen might be on the lower end of the scale and or only matter to those who find themselves working on a two way range, which is fine by me.
 
The bullet doesn't lie. :)

But the shooter VERY often gets confused and cannot understand what it does... ;)

If you read the old military manuals written by the best shooters of the time, you'll find pearls such as "humid air is more dense", incorrect "inclined fire" corrections, "1 MOA up for every 20ºF increase", etc.
 
Having made my living for a number of years testing things (aircraft, bombs, missiles, guns, EO/IR, etc.), I will say that sometimes we find things through empirical means and try to find the formulas that will explain what we saw when we didn't predict it. To fully grasp his concept in order to make a truly informed opinion on his hypothesis, I would need to have access to the raw data and materials. That won't happen so I will make a single comment on the article.

I fail to see the validity he assigns to 1340 fps. I believe I can surmise his reasoning for selecting the free airstream velocity of the upper end of the transonic region so as to minimize the drag coefficients that occur btwn .8-1.2 Mach. However, Mach is temperature dependent only and the 1340 number he uses across the board, in reality only occurs at 59 F. Because of what I feel is a fundamental flaw in his basic reasoning, it casts doubts on the validity of the entire article. For example, if you use JBM online (or any of the fine apps out there), it will calculate Mach for you and show you that figure along with other computed info. So if you really want to know where the edge of the transonic region is, take that number (in fps) and multiply it by 1.2 . The only kicker is that some bullets have a design that will allow them to enter the transonic region a little farther until the drag catches up with them. If you run some trials online btwn using 1340 for everything versus using the actual number, I think you will be surprised at the outcome.

I bring this point up not to pick on him or tarnish his reputation. Todd has very good shooting skills and is very knowledgable in that area. I bring this point up to add to the great discussion going on here at the 'Hide. After all, I think one of Todd's key phrases is to, "question everything". I guess thats what I'm doing here. He indeed may be on to something new and if so, kudos to him.

I welcome any critiques to what I've said because if I don't understand something, I want to know the truth and welcome the inputs.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD