Nosler 150BT - new lot is completely different

[orkan]

So I finally ran out of my nosler 150BT's. I stocked up last year, and shot a few thousand of them. I just ordered a thousand more last week.

Nosler number 30150. .308 150gr green ballistic tip.

I just sat down to start loading... and noticed an extreme variation in length to ogive. I pulled down one of my old bullets so I could measure the differences and verified exactly what I feared.

Old bullet:
OAL - 1.216
Ogive - 0.576

New bullet:
OAL - 1.206
Ogive - 0.592

This seems like a LOT of variation. My old batch of 5000 from various lots never had that much variation.

What do you think, load to the same length to ogive that I used before? Seems that the bearing surface is quite a bit longer. I'm not running max pressures or anything so it shouldn't bother much... hopefully.

Going to have to shoot them and see how they behave I guess.

On another note, I swear that midwayusa intentionally pulls boxes from different lots just to screw with people. Out of 20 different boxes... I have 6 different lots, all with different length bullets.

 

[orkan]

Well, after a call to nosler, they informed me that the "tolerance" is for 15 thousandths difference between lots. The guy on the phone answered my questions, but had a very arrogant "how dare you question us about quality" type of attitude. Definitely didn't go out of his way to be helpful, reassuring, or offer any solutions.

So, that will probably mark the last order of noslers I purchase. Hornady has a 155 amax that looks pretty good. They have always seemed to appreciate my business.

 

[Autorotate19]

That kinda seems like a lot.... I wonder what everyone else's is.....

 

[johnnyk]

I would run them at the same OAL as the last. The only difference then would be the additional pressure , or lack of, inside the .308 case. Let us know. JohnnyK.

 

[Pdvdh]

I've noted the same thing in the Nosler 7mm 160 Accb's. Enough variation from Lot to Lot that I actually see some small difference in POI on paper. Not enough to be a big concern on large game at 300 yds. But enough that I test every new Lot on paper before having confidence at 800 yds.

So I think the Nosler rep was at least truthful, if not gifted with the best of public relations skills. And that means more to me than a nice staff person simply spilling the "company line".

I've also measured variations within that tolerance with their .308 200 gr Accb's.

Other than that, I've always been content with the Accb accuracy and on-game performance.

 

[orkan]

I'm looking for a bit better than 300yd repeatability. I'd like to hold moa to 800 with this particular rifle. Remains to be seen if the differences I've found will make a difference at that range.