What do we really know about the transonic zone?

[Distant Thunder]

Brian,

Now I think you know where my math skills fall!

The little work I have ever done with anything parabolic doesn't help me much in understanding how that stuff works. The shape I cut in a mold for a friend who got the geometry from an aerospace guy was most definitely nosecone shaped and pointy enough that you would want to keep it away from young children who might need their eyes someday! If I have time to did up a bullet or a drawing and post it here.

If I remember correctly (and I often don't) I shot some at Lodi in a long range match and they did okay. I know my friend shot them in at least one match and while he was certain it would be the next big thing in BPTR bullets he didn't shoot it much after that first year so I'm thinking it shot about the same for him as it did for me, okay.

The problem I found with the nosecone bullet and even the prolate shape is the long, pointy nose really reduce the weight and in both of these shapes in an 18-twist they are likely to be under 500 grains in .45 caliber. That doesn't mean they won't shoot, they do, but most of us get a little squeamish with .45 caliber bullets under 490 grains when shooting at 1000 yards. You can go to a 16-twist barrel and get the weight up to "normal" for long range shooting or do what I did and move on to better shapes with decent weight and keep your 18-twist barrel.

It's always fun to play with "new" ideas in bullet design, but in the end it's difficult to improve on the older, proven designs. The biggest problem I have with the sharply pointed designs with long noses is that the last little bit out there on the tip isn't adding anything useful to the design. You still can only effectively stabilize up to a certain length and the little bit sticking out in front adds to that length. It does very little for the weight, it pushes the center of mass farther back toward the base, it moves the center of pressure more forward and does NOT offer any improvement in holding up to headwinds. It is mostly a negative feature, get rid of it!

If you cap your bullet's tip with a radius that is 30 to 35% of the caliber you turn all those negatives to positives and have a better bullet for the transonic zone in which we live. These are all facts that many either don't believe or choose to ignore. Everyone wants to shoot VLDs, but you can't!