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Bullet ogives

muledeer

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 16, 2009
Messages
241
Other than shooting the bullet , is there anyway to determine what ogive bullet is best for your barrel [twist and barrel length]
 
The ogive by itself won't determine a bullets accuracy in a barrel.

Basic bullet selection should begin with eliminating bullets that won't stabilize in your twist.

Next, if you need to feed rounds from a magazine, eliminate those bullets with noses that are too long to feed in your mag.

Then, get an idea of your chamber throat length and see if that can further define your constraints. For example, if your chamber throat is very short, you won't be able to seat long bullets without having a lot of the bullet seated down in the case. This isn't a show stopper, but is less optimal.

Of the bullets that remain, look at which ones suit your purpose best. If you'll be shooting at long range, look for a bullet with known accuracy and a high BC. If you'll be hunting at long range then you'll also have to consider terminal performance (penetration vs. expansion).

The list of considerations for bullet selection is long; but the ogive alone isn't a deciding factor. There's no way to know what ogive will work best in your rifle.

Jim Boatright published some work years ago called 'The well guided bullet' in which he presented the math of how a bullet ogive meets the lands and it's based on the ogive radius and lead angle of the throat. The idea was to optimize lead angle design for particular bullet geometries. My belief as to why this math isn't important is because the lead angle erodes so quickly that what you design is far from what you have after 100 rounds and the lead angle rounds off.

-Bryan
 
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