Since the introduction of the Flatline bullets, we have always stood by the fact that they were never designed with transitional flight in mind. Achieving a marked 20% increase in supersonic flight performance and the extension of that flight has always and continues to be the primary intention with these. That said, we were never really concerned about what happens beyond the transition point. But the more folks push the limits and demand the best of both worlds, the more we started to pay it some attention. You all know that we have started adding the option of the Tubb nose ring to our bullets. Part of montra of this adaptation is that it is supposed to add stability into transition. But no one has really tested this option to see what happens at once it does transition... until now.
The test has been setup to run the traditional Flatline side by side with a Tubb ringed Flatline with the intention of finding out how much the ring aided transitional stability. The intention here is to exclude all other variables as possible variances in the test, so the ring was the only variable. Same gun, same load, shot subsequently so atmospherics are the same, etc. I won't bore you with the semantics of the test specifics (unless you want to hear them), but the gist is that the 256 Flatline is shot out of an extremely fast twist barrel at muzzle velocity just above supersonic. What we have found initially was surprising to say the least. 400 yards beyond the point of transition, both bullets were still stable and showed no signs that they were even beginning to wobble. There is really nothing difinitive to say about the ring addition at this point, but we still do not know if there is an advantage. But we do know for a fact that we have transitional stability with the Flatline on its own.
The next steps will be to push back even further; keep moving back until we find both the breaking point in stability of the un-ringed Flatline and to determine if the ring modification actually provides assistance at that point and beyond.
Again, the take away here is that there is more sub sonic stability in the Flatlines than even we expected. It has long been thought that they simply tumbled out of the sky once they hit transition, but that is simply not the case.
The test has been setup to run the traditional Flatline side by side with a Tubb ringed Flatline with the intention of finding out how much the ring aided transitional stability. The intention here is to exclude all other variables as possible variances in the test, so the ring was the only variable. Same gun, same load, shot subsequently so atmospherics are the same, etc. I won't bore you with the semantics of the test specifics (unless you want to hear them), but the gist is that the 256 Flatline is shot out of an extremely fast twist barrel at muzzle velocity just above supersonic. What we have found initially was surprising to say the least. 400 yards beyond the point of transition, both bullets were still stable and showed no signs that they were even beginning to wobble. There is really nothing difinitive to say about the ring addition at this point, but we still do not know if there is an advantage. But we do know for a fact that we have transitional stability with the Flatline on its own.
The next steps will be to push back even further; keep moving back until we find both the breaking point in stability of the un-ringed Flatline and to determine if the ring modification actually provides assistance at that point and beyond.
Again, the take away here is that there is more sub sonic stability in the Flatlines than even we expected. It has long been thought that they simply tumbled out of the sky once they hit transition, but that is simply not the case.
