Rebated Boat Tail bullets

[tbrice23]

Is there an inherent advantage or disadvantage to this design?
Is there a disadvantage in BC, price or accuracy.?
It seems they'd be more difficult to manufacturer (precisely), thus more expensive. Maybe that's why we don't see more of them.
Just curious, thanks.

 

[J E Custom]

The Idea/design of the rebated boat tail should be a good one, but the reality of making them shoot well in all rifles is another story.

I haven't had a rifle that liked them, but that doesn't mean that they won't shoot well in some rifles/barrels, just that I could never make them shoot to my satisfaction.

The theory is that they do a better job of sealing the bullet to the barrel. (Preventing gas blow by around the bullet without sacrificing the ballistic advantage of a true bolt tail over a flat base). It is a compromise that has not proven it's self beneficial in my opinion.

Many short range Bench rest shooters still prefer flat based bullets over the boat tail bullets for this reason.

Like many other things that in theory sound good, they never seem to prove out for what ever reason.

Just my opinion

J E CUSTOM

 

[tbrice23]

Yeah, had to be a reason we dont see them often, or else everyone would be making them.
Thanks.

 

[elkaholic]

I don't often disagree with J E but will make an exception this time i made .308 rebated boat tail bullets for years, and still do on occasion. They are not more difficult to make, you simply use a different tooling for the base. I've shot literally thousands of them and they were as accurate as anything I've ever shot. I once posted a pic of a 1.18" group on this forum that was shot at 880 yards with some of my 190 grainers.
Once, I modified the base on some SMK's
and tested both side by side at 100 yards. They both shot extremely well but the rebated ones shot slightly better. It was a small test and I never tried to repeat it so I can't say positively that it might have reversed the next time? I posted a lot of pics years ago of these bullets on this forum. I would not be at all afraid of them if you choose to try some. My opinion....rich

 

[tbrice23]

I must have missed all your development on those Rich.
Good to know .
Thanks

 

[elkaholic]

I was able to resurrect the old pic, and my memory is a little bad as usual. The bullet was my 208 not the 190. I was getting ready to head to elk camp and shot this group the night before. It was a little breezy while I was shooting and then it turned dead calm just before dusk. I didn't readjust the windage, but shot these 3 shots before the breeze picked up again so they were about a foot left of the bull. I stopped by Bruce Thoms (BAT) on the way home and told him he needed to tighten up the spec on his action. He got quite a kick out of that! I think he said something about tightening up my vertical

 

[Longtooth32]

I'll have to blow the dust off of several boxes of .277 150gr, bonded, rebated boat tails that I bought from Matrix many moons ago...

Thanks for the info...

Pics so others can see...

A 150 SST in the center...

 

[tbrice23]

Do they list the BC for that one?
JBM lists it as .451 G1, I don't know if that is correct.

 

[can1010]

David Tubbs 115 Dtac has a rbt design and was told it allowed you to use a slower twist. 1-8 instead of 1-7 normally needed for 115.

 

[Bravo 4]

The tipped Chinchaga RBT shoot great in my .375 Snipetac. Shot multiple sub 2" groups at 800 yards.

 

[RockyMtnMT]

When we first started making bullets we used rbbt because of all the reasons that you hear about. Plus they are cool. Or fussy bullet had terrible bc. We could not figure out the problem. Worked on everything and couldn't cure it. Changed the rbbt to a conventional bt and bc lined out. We have up on cool.

Steve

 

[Hatrick]

When it is loaded you can't tell wich one is cool. The one that shoots is cool!

 

[Greyfox]

While I don't have a lot of experience with rebated boat tail bullets, I have had excellent results with the few I have tried. In particular, I have been using 140/142 gr jLK VLD's in my 6.5x284 for 7 years. They have an honest .323 G7 BC, are exceptionally accurate and consistent with no adverse effects that I have noted. Most interestingly the terminal performance on game has been superb from 100-1200 yards.

 

[RockyMtnMT]

That is exceptional bc! I am sure we were doing it wrong when we tried the rbbt, but for our bullet design it was like dragging a parachute. Accuracy was stellar though. Maybe someday we will try it again. To me it all makes sense. Not sure why it didn't work for us. We figured that it had something to do with why none of the big manufactures offer the rbbt and never looked back. I'm not sure why there is so little of this design on the market if it is not responsible for poor bc as we experienced. Maybe Rich can shed a little light with his thoughts?

Steve