Do the lighter bullets shoot as good as the 140's ?

[Buzzbee]

I see, 120, 129, 130gr bullets used for the 6.5 Creedmoor. The 1-8 twist shoots them as accuratley as the 140's? I guess same could be said about the 147's too.
I can see the heavier having a better BC, so why shoot the lighter bullets?

 

[Iamero]

The 129 and 136 Scenars are fantastic bullets, but it's hard to justify shooting a lighter bullet with a lower BC that also costs more. The velocity gained from the lighter bullet doesn't offset the BC and energy advantage of the heavier projectiles.

 

[velvetant]

Not everyone shoots long range and needs a high BC bullet. Yes lighter bullets can be just as accurate in a 1-8 twist. I shoot 95,120,130, 140 and 147. At 100 yards you can't tell what bullet I'm shooting by just looking at my targets.

 

[308pirate]

I see, 120, 129, 130gr bullets used for the 6.5 Creedmoor. The 1-8 twist shoots them as accuratley as the 140's?

Twist rate, once it's enough to stabilize a bullet, has little to nothing to do with accuracy.

I don't know where this BS associating twist rate and accuracy came from.

 

[J McGriddle]

The 123s are lasers to 1000.

 

[308Gunner]

I shoot the 130 RDF's at 2920 from a 22" barrel in a 6.5 Super LR and it shoots a lot flatter than my 140 load and has a better BC than a Hornady 143

 

[Greg Langelius *]

My current .260 Rem development centers around the HDY 95gr V-Max going around 3200fps (+?) out of a 28" 1:8" barrel. It's a sprinter instead of a cruise missile.

At 4350ft ASL, that moderate BC gets a huge practical boost, and if I'm using the HDY 4DOF correctly, is still at or above transsonic at 1000yd. Maybe I'm wrong on that and puffing out a pipe dream, but that sucker shoots really flat at 300yd (Max ordinant around 2-3"), and the accuracy is coming in quite nicely at the distance, using a ballpark midrange load of 41.0gr of IMR-4064, with wind deflection staying decent, too. This is really an effort to get away from H-4350 for some of my loads, as it gets pretty scarce at times.

The goal is to develop a 'secret weapon' for the local club's varmint matches. It rejuvenates an older rifle without running hot loads.

My experience with twist rates seems to have shown that I get best accuracy from a bullet that's just under being too heavy/long for the given twist rate. There's some theoretical backing to this concept that suggests that limiting static accuracy allows the bullet to weathervane, allowing the bullet axis to better conform by means of dynamic accuracy to the trajectory curve. This reduces drag and may reduce turbulence induced dispersion.

Greg

 

[Badfinger]

Sierra 107's and Hornady 123's shoot very well out of my 260 Remington, mostly one hole @ 100yds.

 

[CJS-6.5]

General rule of thumb is that flat base bullets will group better at 300 and in. Most lighter for caliber bullets for hunting are flat base. I have had some insanely small groups out of Hornadys 129 grain Interlocks in my 6.5 hunting rifle. If you are going to 600 and out that usually changes to favor the heavier boattails. And has nothing to do with stability. Unless you are shooting a weird twist custom rifle. Groups at 300 and in are all about consistency and bullet to bore alignment. Also farther out. But some really long bullets can do what I call the top wobble until 300 or more.