Bullet Tipping -- Is this a waste of Time?

[mrobles3808]

I'm sure views on this are likely different on here vs. other forums like accurate shooter with more BR focus. I just thought I'd check in and see if anyone here is pointing their bullets to take advantage of increased bc and/or consistency.

I'm thinking about tipping some 105 hybrids and hoping to see a bit of improvement.

 

[MarinePMI]

IIRC, bullet tipping decreases BC, but increases uniformity. Most trade off a slight loss of BC, for the uniformity that comes with tipping.

The RDF's are tipped (claimed the smallest meplat available in factory bullets).

 

[jbailey]

Waste of time unless you are shooting crappy bullets. I would say you are wasting your time tipping and/or pointing 105 hybrids. Maybe 2-5% BC improvement, but certainly not 10+% like some of the manufacturers of those machines claim.

With the time you save, improve your wind reading and positional skills.

 

[Sheldon N]

I'm pointing 105 hybrids for my match loads, both for a slight increase in BC and also for increased accuracy/BC uniformity at distance. Not a huge increase in BC, maybe 0.005 to 0.010 improvement in G7 but I'll take any advantage I can get. My process....

Buy one single lot of bullets, enough to shoot out the entire barrel.
Length sort all of them by bullet OAL, placing into bins in 0.0025 increments. You'll end up with a couple very full bins and a few outlier bins.
Point bullets within each lot, then adjust pointing die when you change lots. Sorting by OAL both improves consistency of bullet point since the tipping die indexes off base of bullet, and also improves BC consistency since OAL is related to BC.
Go for a SUBTLE point, not aggressively closing the meplat. I only get maybe 50% meplat closure. Do NOT allow the pointing die to compress the bullet or alter it in any fashion. Pointing on the press should be low resistance, and you should see no change in bullet base to ogive or pressure ring diameter after pointing.

It's honestly not that daunting of a process... I did the OAL sort in one evening of watching TV. Pointing took another couple hours the next day. Finished the entire lot of 2k bullets over a weekend without too much effort.

 

[Sheldon N]

IIRC, bullet tipping decreases BC, but increases uniformity. Most trade off a slight loss of BC, for the uniformity that comes with tipping.

Meplat trimming is what reduces BC but can improve consistency. Pointing (aka tipping) increases BC. Sorting and pointing can improve both BC and uniformity.

FWIW many benchrest shooters just meplat trim and don't bother with pointing. I think the world record 600 yard group (0.292 inches) was shot with bullets that were trimmed but not pointed. My process follows more what some F-Class shooters are doing, where improvement in BC and reduction in wind drift carries a higher priority.

 

[MarinePMI]

Thanks for the clarification.

I'm just a troglodyte, shooting whatever comes out of the box.

 

[Codiekfx400]

Just had this conversation with JLK bullets. They will perform the tipping process for you on their bullets. I ordered 500 of the 105 JLK and 50 of the 110 JLK to try in my 6mm br. I did not order the tipped bullets just the regular bullets. Didn’t figure that small jump in bc was going to be worth the money for the kind of shooting I do.

 

[mdmp5]

Meplat trimming is what reduces BC but can improve consistency. Pointing (aka tipping) increases BC. Sorting and pointing can improve both BC and uniformity.

FWIW many benchrest shooters just meplat trim and don't bother with pointing. I think the world record 600 yard group (0.292 inches) was shot with bullets that were trimmed but not pointed. My process follows more what some F-Class shooters are doing, where improvement in BC and reduction in wind drift carries a higher priority.

Beat me to it. But personally, I don’t think tipping is worth your while. However, by calculation, it’s really only worth tipping the smaller caliber bullets I.e. 224, 243 bc the ratio of meplat diameter to caliber diameter is larger

 

[Niles Coyote]

I have played around with pointing and it does both increase BC and consistency. While the gains in BC differ from one style of bullet to another, all have gained some. However, consistency or measured vertical has always decreased in size by 20-30% when compared to its unpointed brother when I've tested them at 1k.

In other words, some bullets you may see little to no change at a grand in BC but the group will be smaller overall and more so in vertical. When I've done this testing it was done one for one or round robin, firing one round of pointed and unpointed and repeated for 10 shots. I'd do that to rule out changes in wind, and there has always been less horizontal with pointed bullets as well.

One thing to keep in mind is you must first verify and account for a change in zero between the two as well. In just about every case that I can recall my zero was slightly different between pointed and unpointed.

And yes, smaller caliber bullets stand to gain the most increase as the size of the tip is a greater percentage of the total diameter of the bullet.

Is it worth your time? That depends on you...

 

[Diesel65]

Litz has some interesting observations on this in Modern Advancements Vol. 2, with data.

 

[Milo 2.5]

I'm sure views on this are likely different on here vs. other forums like accurate shooter with more BR focus. I just thought I'd check in and see if anyone here is pointing their bullets to take advantage of increased bc and/or consistency.

I'm thinking about tipping some 105 hybrids and hoping to see a bit of improvement.

I believe tipping systems were derived because of hybrids, lol, tips look bad, lol
Have you ever grouped your rifle at 1K on a nice calm day? If you did, could you say a 3% increase in bc would do you any good? Keep in mind a load does not fall apart in a linear fashion as distance increases.
One characteristic of all hybrids is they fly great at distance, even with tips that look like Denali.
Not saying or implying tipping does not work, but it's a step I'm not taking.
Edit: I understand why Sheldon does it, he thinks things through more than most do, and it works for him. If you've read his postings, paying attn to detail means points, a bullet striking a plate on the right edge with barely the left ogive of a bullet is as good as a center punch hit.

 

[Milo 2.5]

Let me elaborate on my above post, I asked if a 3% increase in bc will tighten your groups at 1K. Just say your rifle averages 5" for 5 shots at 1K, a 25% improvement in group size now measures 3.5". < Would even a 25% increase in bc alone yield the 25% betterment in group size. I do not see how it can, so much more involved.

 

[Sheldon N]

One of the reasons I chose my process is following what some F-Class shooters are testing and doing. One guy I respect tested it extensively and found that OAL sort + moderate pointing produced both smaller groups in addition to the BC improvement. I believe the US Army Marksmanship Unit is also doing OAL bullet sort for match loads.

There's a second layer effect that happens when you combine group size with wind variability. The larger your group the less you "see" the true wind value when looking at where your last shot hit. If you have a 6" group at 1k yards that bullet could randomly be anywhere left/right in that group causing you to correct slightly too much or too little for the conditions, then when the wind changes you'd have less forgiveness for staying on the plate. Smaller groups = more accurate wind corrections on follow up shots.

 

[Lynn Jr]

Meplat trimming uniforms the BC number but it lowers it as well. It lowers it because when the meplat is trimmed the diameter is larger.
Tipping the bullets restores the loss from the meplats trimming and improves it.
Jacketed bullets usually have a meplat diameter that is close to 15% of caliber.
You can go to one of the online BC calculators and change the meplat diameter from 0.050 to 0.020 and see what kind of improvement it shows.
The Benchrest crowd is trying to remove as much vertical as possible from there groups so ballistic uniformity is important to them.
It is very easy to use once you have it setup. And one unit with a bunch of caliber sleeves will do all common bullets. I bought three of the Hoover units one by accident.