I shoot a 6mm/284 Rem 700 with Shilen 1/12 twist barrel. Shilen and everybody else says that you can shoot up to an 85gr bullet in this twist which I knew when I put the barrel on. The 58gr Vmax will shoot 1/2" at 200 yards and 85gr Game Kings with shoot 1" at 200 yds. I tried to push the envelope a little and tried 90gr Bergers and they won't stay on the paper at 200 yds. The ones that print are leaving a round hole. My question is why? I expected the groups to open up some but not to that extreme. I fully understand that this twist obviously won't stabilize the bullet but why with only a 5gr increase?
its not the weight thats killing the accuracy its the length the 90gr Berger is a long bullet longer than alot of 100gr hunting bullets , truefully the 1-12 may not stabilize a 70gr VLD style bullets but will probably stabilize a 100gr round nose due to it being short for the weight.
the 75gr V-max has a pretty good BC for what it is and they will give stellar performance when driven fast , I shot them out of a 243Ai and loved them they seem to do at 500yds what a 22-250 does with a 55gr v-Max at 300
Thanks, that's interesting it gives me a better understanding of the twist rate vs bullet. If I understand correctly, it has to do with the length of the "bearing" surface of the bullet that is touching the rifling? Even after 50 years of shooting you can learn something everyday!
Not realy the "bearing" surface but the over all length for instance that 85gr bullet your shooting probably has alot more bearing surface than 95gr Berger VLD due to the VLD bullets having such a long slender ogive which is what helps with the BC , its just that the longer overall bullet has to be spun a little faster then the shorter one.
What relay screws some guys up is when their buddy is shooting a 75gr A-max out of his 1-9 twist custom barrel and his won't even think about stabilizing them out of his 1-9 twist , I've seen this a couple times and checked the twist of both guns and they are the same but differant barrel makers!
excluding all of the minor things that affect twist rate,the main thing is the ratio of the length of the bullet as compared to the diameter.the longer and thinner it is, the faster you have to spin it.
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