Richard Graves Wildcat bullets

Will the 169.5, 6.5 mm bullets stabilize in a 1:8 twist?

Thanks in advance.
Dave

[Fiftydriver]

Dave,

I do not know for sure. I will say it will probably depend on how fast you drive them. The 156 gr 257 ULD RBBT will stabilize in a 1-8 barrel but only at velocities above 3000 fps or so.

I will be building a 6.5 Allen Mag for my wife here soon for her 1000 yard chuckin rifle which will be on a heavy 1-8 Lilja so we will see what she does. This round will produce 3200 fps with this bullet pretty comfortably though.

What round and velocity will you be driving this bullet to? If your using a conventional 6.5 round like a 6.5-284 or 6.5-06 AI I would guess these will not stabilize in a 1-8 barrel but would not say for sure.

Stanger things have happened. Richard told me of a customer of his shooting his 142 gr 257 bullets in a 1-10 twist 25-06!!!

I would have bet a couple rifles those bullets would land full profile, instead I hear they are punching 1/2 to 3/4 moa groups!!! Not amazing but dramatically better then this set up should be able to produce.

Try some out and see!!

Kirby Allen(50)

Buddy is going to use a 6.5 wsm.

[Fiftydriver]

My gut tells me no but I have been wrong before on some marginal twist rates with these bullets.

Richards 150 and 160 would probably be better choices and the 160 may still pose some problems.

Just depends on the true twist rate of the barrel. If this is a button pulled barrel I suspect it would be closer to 1-8.5 as they tend to be a bit slower twist then advertised.

It is for this reason that I had Dan Lilja tool up for twist rated 1" faster then what I needed for the Allen Mags with Richards bullets just to make sure I had enough spin.

Contact Richard and see what he thinks. He will be more then honest with you and will get you a bullet that will work best for this combo.

Kirby Allen(50)

[goodgrouper]

Not to derail this thread, but I was wondering if Richard has got his dies for the 300 grain .338 match bullets yet?
I was under the impression that he was going to send them out to me as soon as they were made and that was 3 months ago.
I would really like to see them! ANy word on problems or something?

[ss7mm]

gg:

Sending Richard an e-mail at wildcatbullets@hotmail.com would be the quickest and easiest way to get an answer to your question. He's easy to get hold of and will answer any and all questions.

[Fiftydriver]

Goodgrouper,

Last I talked with Richard on the phone about the 338 bullet issue he was knee deep in jacket supply orders not showing up.

I believe he told me he was 70,000 jackets behind for the 338s and his supplier just is not getting him the jackets.

As a result, Richard has been aggressively pushing for one of his other jacket suppliers to tool up for the 338 jackets and from my talk with him this sounded promising.

Would be very nice to as these would be heavy tapered jackets that would expand better at long range while still surviving close range impacts.

These are the same jackets he used for all the designs for the Allen Magnum bullets and I have been completely impressed with these bullets and their performance.

So as of right now its a jacket supply issue but I assure you Richard is doing everything he can to get the jackets he has on order as well as actively looking to contract for a more reliable supplier.

I am in the same boat as you. I have several boxes of the huge 350 gr ULDs but these are waiting for testing in my 338 Allen Mag which will be designed around this bullet.

Believe me, Richard is 10x more frustrated them any of us waiting for his bullets.

Good Shooting!!

Kirby Allen(50)