[QUOTE=EchoSixMike]I didn't know you had some serious tooling, you sell commercially, or just for personal use? Now that Jimmy Knox is getting out and Berger is having problems with a bad lot of jackets, I may have to try my hand at VLD bullet making.
E6M:
Can't insult my intelligence anymore. I am not sure how much I have left to insult -- he, he, he.
Knox is calling it quits eh? Not surprising as the bullet business is one of margins and the big outfits like Sierra, Nosler, and Hornady have the tooling and quality control to do a very good job on a margin of profit. Jackets are extremely difficult to make consistently -- thus the problems with M-118 Special Ball and about any issued bullet.
I have been buying J-4 Jackets for a few years now after Cotterusio (SP) had to about double his prices for Sierra jackets due to Sierra squeezing the swagers out of business. I bought bunch of J-4 Jackets a few years ago and so have a decent supply of quality .30 caliber jackets in a variety of lengths. A couple thousand Sierra jackets left as well. I think the Sierra design of jacket is a bit better in terms of balancing out the bullet but honestly am not positive.
I have some nose forming dies for VLDs but have never seen a quantifiable increase in accuracy or exterior ballistics attributes from them so I stick with conventional ogives. Funny that I normally shot more X's with the VLD tips but normally shot a lower score with the VLD tips as well. I have never seen a difference in elevation between a secant ogive or a tangent ogive either. This is where experimenting has made truth stranger than fiction for me. Same core alloy, same jacket length and manufacture, different ogives -- one a VLD and the other a standard #8 for some 185 grain bullets I have had the most success with in .30 caliber. Exactly the same pressures and holds on pressures when swaging each one. Same brass, loads, and primers. Absolutely no change in elevation to 600 yards and only about 1/2 minute difference at 1000 yards. And IMHO one can never be sure what the cause of an elevation difference is at 1000 yards. Shot more X's with the VLDs but always with a few points less in score.
My swaging experiences have lead me to believe that I can make a bullet as good as Sierra or Nosler but not a quantum leap above either. So, I swage out some bullets for across the course once a year in the winter when I want to keep my hands involved in the shooting sports but otherwise I fork over the money for a drop shipment of Sierras and Noslers.
Gene
Linear Mode
