Badlands Precision Bullets thread - From BC to terminal ballistics

[Pdvdh]

I have some concerns about how they (70gr .224 bullets) will shoot. I see some misalignment of the aluminum tips on my Lot of .224 70gr bullets. I suspect it's more difficult to exactly center and place the AL tips into these small caliber bullets, compared to the larger caliber bullets. Not as much meat (copper mass) to secure the tips possibly? And the relatively small diameter of the .224 bullets would also mean more susceptibility to running centrifugally unbalanced. They are more apt to spin unbalanced if the AL tips aren't perfectly centered/aligned because of the lesser copper mass. My initial observation and thoughts...

To add a little context, I just rolled 50 of my 70gr .224 SBD-2 bullets across a flat surface. 7 of the 50 had very obvious aluminum tip misalignment with the copper bullet. Will use those for powder charge versus MV load work up. Simply shoot them past the LabRadar and collect MV looking for a powder charge node = combustion consistency.
43 out of 50 bullets looked good to go for accuracy testing on targets.

 

[Pdvdh]

Rolled the 50 205gr .308 SBD-2 bullets across a flat plate. Tips are pretty well aligned. I marked 9 from the box which I'll shoot to develop a powder charge during load development. But even those 9 don't display much visible tip misalignment. Visible, but not bad.

Also rolled the 50 275gr .338 SBD-2 bullets across the plate. Similar to the 205gr bullets. Pretty good alignment all in all.

 

[Pdvdh]

To add a little context, I just rolled 50 of my 70gr .224 SBD-2 bullets across a flat surface. 7 of the 50 had very obvious aluminum tip misalignment with the copper bullet. Will use those for powder charge versus MV load work up. Simply shoot them past the LabRadar and collect MV looking for a powder charge node = combustion consistency.
43 out of 50 bullets looked good to go for accuracy testing on targets.

OK, not my favorite post. But I went back and rolled 100 of the 196.5gr Bulldozer bullets I have in the reloading room, in order to compare tip alignment of those Bulldozer-1 bullets to what I'm seeing with the Super Bulldozer-2 bullets I recently purchased.

Only two out of 100 bullets from the 196.5gr .308 Bulldozer Gen-1 bullets had any discernable tip misalignment when I roll them across a flat surface. I'm rolling them across a countertop. In other words, was hard to find any bullets with aluminum tip misalignment.

This compared to 7 out of 50 of the 70gr .224 Super Bulldozer-2 bullets with obvious misalignment.
And compared to 9 out of 50 of the 205gr .308 Super Bulldozer-2 bullets with visible aluminum tip misalignment.
And compared to 12 our of 50 of the 275gr .338 Super Bulldozer-2 bullets with apparent aluminum tip misalignment.

Gotta conclude something has changed in the manufacturing to cause this. Either the tips aren't manufacturered as uniformly, the holes in the tips of the copper bullets aren't as precisely centered, the placement of the aluminum tips in the copper bullets is creating misalignment, or some combination of the three. Hate to be a spoiler in commenting on the Generation-2 bullets, but perhaps if the manufacturer reads this thread, they can do what I've done and see if they find the same thing. I'd like to see this corrected, and it clearly won't be if nobody mentions anything about it.

Any other members here with Super Bulldozer-2 bullets, should you be motivated to roll some bullets across a flat surface and look for wobbling tips, I'd be appreciative hearing of your findings.

I'm hoping to get out and shoot the 70gr .224 SBD-2 bullets and the 205gr .308 SBD-2 bullets in the near future. Just been a bit cold for load development. Up to 17F today, so I'm loading up some shells for a 280yd ladder test and to capture MVs. Hoping for a good showing. All the Generation 1 bullets I've used in the past have shot well for me.

Reason I inspected these bullets closer than usual is because I saw a thread posted by Joejack where he couldn't get the 70gr .224 SBD-2 bullets to shoot worth a hoot in his 7-twist 22 Creedmoor. That surprised me, because with overwhelming consistency, the larger caliber bullets have been shooting well for folks.

 

[highdrum]

OK, not my favorite post. But I went back and rolled 100 of the 196.5gr Bulldozer bullets I have in the reloading room, to compare tip alignment of these Bulldozer-1 bullets, to what I'm seeing with the Super Bulldozer-2 bullets I recently purchased.

Only two out of 100 bullets from the 196.5gr .308 Bulldozer Gen-1 bullets had any discernable tip misalignment when I roll them across a flat surface. I'm rolling them across a countertop. In other words, was hard to find any bullets with aluminum tip misalignment.

This compared to 7 out of 50 of the 70gr .224 Super Bulldozer-2 bullets with obvious misalignment.
And compared to 9 out of 50 of the 205gr .308 Super Bulldozer-2 bullets with visible aluminum tip misalignment.
And compared to 12 our of 50 of the 275gr .338 Super Bulldozer-2 bullets with visible aluminum tip misalignment.

Gotta conclude something has changed in the manufacturing to cause this. Either the tips aren't manufacturered as uniformly, the holes in the tips of the copper bullets aren't precisely centered, the placement of the aluminum tips in the copper bullets is creating misalignment, or some combination of the three. Hate to be a spoiler in commenting on the Generation-2 bullets, but perhaps if the manufacturer reads this thread, they can do what I've done and see if they find the same thing. I'd like to see this corrected, and it won't be if nobody mentions anything about it.

Any other members here with Super Bulldozer-2 bullets, should you be motivated to roll some bullets across a flat surface and look for wobbling tips, I'd be appreciative of your findings.

I'm hoping to get out and shoot the 70gr .224 SBD-2 bullets and the 205gr .308 SBD-2 bullets in the near future. Just been a bit cold for load development. Up to 17F today, so I'm loading up some shells for a 280yd ladder test and to capture MVs. Hoping for a good showing. All the Generation 1 bullets I've used have shot well.

Reason I inspected these bullets closer than usual is because I saw a thread posted by[SIZE=4][B] Joejack[/B][/SIZE] where he couldn't get the 70gr .224 SBD-2 bullets to shoot worth a hoot in his 7-twist 22 Creedmoor. That surprised me, because with overwhelming consistency, the larger caliber bullets have been shooting well for folks.

Perhaps this is why. It's called the death start tip, aids in expansion, it may not align the tip as well as the previous generation bullet.

 

[Pdvdh]

Perhaps this is why. It's called the death start tip, aids in expansion, it may not align the tip as well as the previous generation bullet.

Well that could very well be. I believe no one's in a better postion to sort it out than the manufacturer.

 

[Wedgy]

Well that could very well be. I believe no one's in a better postion to sort it out than the manufacturer.

I assume that death star is pressed in and may not center as well as they like given the hard alloy copper they use. I used a torx bit on early 230 grain copper 300 blackout bullets hoping to get expansion, and a groove below the ogive hoping for it to break and tumble.

 

[Trigger24]

I assure you I'm watching this thread closely. And we're working hard on the tip alignment. Highdrum hit the nail on the head. The tapered hole in the new bullets does not align the tips as well as the old hollow point design did. We've made some strides in the last couple weeks. We're also working on tooling to align them even better. That being said, we've also tested to great lengths the affect of the tip misalignment. I assure you, you couldn't shoot the difference. In the bullet world this has far less effect than the normal variations in every jacketed bullet.
Here is a group shot with the .375 390gr SBD 2 at 1525yds. The tips on these bullets were purposely pressed crooked to see the effect. Joejack's experience with the 70gr is far from the norm. I have MANY guys shooting them with great success. I have some bullets going out to him to see if we can resolve his accuracy issue. I have some theories on what caused it.

 

[Pdvdh]

Trigger24,
Can you put some scale to that 1,525yd steel plate target? Are those three bullets placed into 4"? Or 7" apart?
Thanks for responding. Appreciate it.

 

[Trigger24]

Wedge, the star is rotary broached in the lathe, so it is on center. Nothing is done outside the lathe. All one operation, for concentricity.

 

[Trigger24]

Here's a picture of the square with a little girly hand in it. The first pic those bullets are sub 6".

 

[Pdvdh]

I assume that death star is pressed in and may not center as well as they like given the hard alloy copper they use. I used a torx bit on early 230 grain copper 300 blackout bullets hoping to get expansion, and a groove below the ogive hoping for it to break and tumble.View attachment 255081

That's one butt-ugly bullet Wedgy. Who manufactured it?
I presume it's for in-your-face short range uses?

 

[Wolf76]

Have an order in for a test box of 50 .338 240gr SBII, hoping to get them up over 3000fps in my 28" 338 RUM. anyone here run any of the 338's from a RUM. looking to try RL26 and 8133

n570 and a 260 hammer made the 3K Mark out of my 338 edge with a 26" barrel.

 

[Send it 284]

I assure you I'm watching this thread closely. And we're working hard on the tip alignment. Highdrum hit the nail on the head. The tapered hole in the new bullets does not align the tips as well as the old hollow point design did. We've made some strides in the last couple weeks. We're also working on tooling to align them even better. That being said, we've also tested to great lengths the affect of the tip misalignment. I assure you, you couldn't shoot the difference. In the bullet world this has far less effect than the normal variations in every jacketed bullet.
Here is a group shot with the .375 390gr SBD 2 at 1525yds. The tips on these bullets were purposely pressed crooked to see the effect. Joejack's experience with the 70gr is far from the norm. I have MANY guys shooting them with great success. I have some bullets going out to him to see if we can resolve his accuracy issue. I have some theories on what caused it.

That's pretty impressive shooting!
Thanks for taking the time to explain
I'm looking forward to shooting the 205s when I get my 8 twist 30 nos back.
Personally I appreciate that you spent some time redesigning the cavity to maximize carnage.
If they shoot as well as I'm hoping they do I'll be making some LR kills with them this year.

 

[Trigger24]

More than just some time. Lol. This was about a 6 year project.