PLOTTHOUND
New member
Interbond is a bonded bullet made by Hornaday not the same as a SST.
Plastic tipped bullets... How ?
- Thread starter getfoxy
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hickerx2
Member
Originally Posted By: RonO.As has been said, the Bronze tip started it. A Canadian bullet was the first with a poly/resin/plastic/whatever tip but I don't have a reference book within 1800 miles to tell you its name. The old time reason was to protect bullet tips from deformation during recoil. When high BC bullets suddenly became ultra important the focus changed to being slippery in air. Mechanically, the plastic tip drives back into the core of the bullet initiating expansion. Tipped bullets begin to expand more quickly than soft points, requiring an adjustment to the jacket design. The reason there is a Sirocco II these days is a further re-design of the jacket shape to control expansion and increase penetration.
I firmly believe that the reason tipped bullets sell so well is not how they perform inside animals but how they perform in the heads of shooters. A bright red tip on a SST is sexy as all heck! They look accurate. They look fast. They look deadly.
Usually when you meet a guy who refuses to shoot plastic tipped bullets he has heard (less often experienced) that plastic tipped bullets blow up on game. Early tipped bullets did have that problem on occasion. Fact of the matter is, no matter what is leading the charge, it is the jacket that is the most important part. Starting expansion is easy, controlling it is the tough part.
If you're interested in bullet design and terminal performance, I would encourage you to look for "Rifle Bullets For The Hunter - A Definitive Study", compiled by Richard Mann and including many knowledgeable gun writers. Also, call and ask some questions of bullet manufacturers. Sierra has been very informative and patient with my questions in the past.
Very good points! Yes the Remington was the first "tipped" bullet. However, I recall Remington marketing them as an expansion aid. When Nosler started with the BTip, they marketed it as maintaining a high coefficient by elimintating tip damage from feeding. everybody knows how a lead spitzer gets banged up. The Remington Bronze tip was quite revolutionary at the time and the noslers colored tips were a gimmick....albeit an obviously successful one. The remington bullets were touted as big-game bullets and the Noslers were quickly found out to be very inferior on big game. Everybody had to have the color-coded bullets though. I believe them to be the most accurate hunting bullets obtainable, and with the introduction of the accubond, which solves the problem of complete upset on larger game, they are completely on top now, even though the Accubond seems to be copied from Hornady. Sierra, Hornady, and all the other botique bullets just copied Nosler.....lol, all from sales figures. Its just funny how sometimes the big smash hit comes from a gimmick gone wild.
I firmly believe that the reason tipped bullets sell so well is not how they perform inside animals but how they perform in the heads of shooters. A bright red tip on a SST is sexy as all heck! They look accurate. They look fast. They look deadly.
Usually when you meet a guy who refuses to shoot plastic tipped bullets he has heard (less often experienced) that plastic tipped bullets blow up on game. Early tipped bullets did have that problem on occasion. Fact of the matter is, no matter what is leading the charge, it is the jacket that is the most important part. Starting expansion is easy, controlling it is the tough part.
If you're interested in bullet design and terminal performance, I would encourage you to look for "Rifle Bullets For The Hunter - A Definitive Study", compiled by Richard Mann and including many knowledgeable gun writers. Also, call and ask some questions of bullet manufacturers. Sierra has been very informative and patient with my questions in the past.
Very good points! Yes the Remington was the first "tipped" bullet. However, I recall Remington marketing them as an expansion aid. When Nosler started with the BTip, they marketed it as maintaining a high coefficient by elimintating tip damage from feeding. everybody knows how a lead spitzer gets banged up. The Remington Bronze tip was quite revolutionary at the time and the noslers colored tips were a gimmick....albeit an obviously successful one. The remington bullets were touted as big-game bullets and the Noslers were quickly found out to be very inferior on big game. Everybody had to have the color-coded bullets though. I believe them to be the most accurate hunting bullets obtainable, and with the introduction of the accubond, which solves the problem of complete upset on larger game, they are completely on top now, even though the Accubond seems to be copied from Hornady. Sierra, Hornady, and all the other botique bullets just copied Nosler.....lol, all from sales figures. Its just funny how sometimes the big smash hit comes from a gimmick gone wild.
mark shubert
New member
Wackdaddy & Ron O, who had the post about eating a coyote? Maybe someone from the Great Northern area could donate a couple of wolves to the BBQ - then we'd need a cook with experience!!
Mark
Mark
I am of the opinion that the only thing the plastic tip bullets do is feed better from some mags then hollow points, in rarer cases soft points do.
I'm not an expert, and what I'm saying is more of an educated guess, but I know enough to be fairly certain about the following.
No matter what is on the tip of a bullet, the performance on game is determained by the jacket construction, and its interaction with the core. Take a Nosler Partition, and put a plastic tip on it, and you'll still have nearly identical performance on game.
I don't believe they give better ballistics then either a soft point or a hollow point. A higher BC comes more from how the back of the bullet is shaped then any thing. As evidence for this, one only has to look at several old reloading manuals, and compare the old hollow/soft points to the new plastic tip bullets in the same shape that replaced them, you'll find identical numbers on both.
Further, if you look around you'll find with the exception of the A-MAX all the ultra low drag match bullets inveriably come in hollow point flavour. If there were truely any advantage in the plactic tips I would argue these types of bullets would benifit the most, and would be the first to have made the change when the tips became popular.
Its not to say they are a bad thing, because they are not, they may even offer some advantages, though I suspect its very minimal. But they are really no different in any measurable way then the older bullets they replaced, and for some manufactorers its a direct replacement with their older soft points in terms of performance on game. Truthfully I use them in some of my loads, and if I were completly honest I probably gave them a look see at the store because they do look cool, and there is nothing wrong with that. Though strangly enough the only reason I still load the noslers as a coyote bullets, is because they provide almost identical performance to the soft points I used to use.
I'm not an expert, and what I'm saying is more of an educated guess, but I know enough to be fairly certain about the following.
No matter what is on the tip of a bullet, the performance on game is determained by the jacket construction, and its interaction with the core. Take a Nosler Partition, and put a plastic tip on it, and you'll still have nearly identical performance on game.
I don't believe they give better ballistics then either a soft point or a hollow point. A higher BC comes more from how the back of the bullet is shaped then any thing. As evidence for this, one only has to look at several old reloading manuals, and compare the old hollow/soft points to the new plastic tip bullets in the same shape that replaced them, you'll find identical numbers on both.
Further, if you look around you'll find with the exception of the A-MAX all the ultra low drag match bullets inveriably come in hollow point flavour. If there were truely any advantage in the plactic tips I would argue these types of bullets would benifit the most, and would be the first to have made the change when the tips became popular.
Its not to say they are a bad thing, because they are not, they may even offer some advantages, though I suspect its very minimal. But they are really no different in any measurable way then the older bullets they replaced, and for some manufactorers its a direct replacement with their older soft points in terms of performance on game. Truthfully I use them in some of my loads, and if I were completly honest I probably gave them a look see at the store because they do look cool, and there is nothing wrong with that. Though strangly enough the only reason I still load the noslers as a coyote bullets, is because they provide almost identical performance to the soft points I used to use.
Originally Posted By: riverbossI believe that the nosler BT is a little thicker jacketed than the V-Max and more fur friendly if there is such a thing between them both. I have not shot any critters with them yet. But you think the Nosler 50gr. bts. would be good for coyote and the Hornady 50gr. V-max for ground squirrels out of a 26" 223rem. would work out?