I recently purchased some 165gr, 30 caliber Nosler AccuBond bullets to load in my 30-06 for a hunting trip I plan on taking in a couple of days. I'd developed a load with these bullets that actually shot very well in the "06" and the H4831. It was a last minute decision to take the "06" and decided to reload the AccuBonds to take on this hunt. When I first opened the box of 50 AccuBonds I noticed that there was a bullet where the tip was sort of melted where the bottom section of the white tip melted down the first section of the bullet; like ??? The rest of the box looked okay, figured I'd be taking along 49 cartridges instead of 50, not as this is a whitetail deer hunt the the "06" was being taken along as a second rifle with the .270 as the primary rifle.
I got some Hornady brass (I know I have to break down and get some good stuff) annealed, resized, neck sized (Sinclair mandrel), deburred flash hole, reamed pockets and tumbled the brass. After dropping the powder I started seating the bullets to 3.340 COAL and checking with calipers. I set the first round, sneaking up on the 3.340 until I got the bullet to that dimension. I then seated a few more bullets and checked the next round only to find the COAL to be 3.350, I thought that the seating die backed out, then seated a couple of more checking the COAL and found them to be 3.340; I'm like "what is going on"? I was loading 59.0gr of H4831, filling the case to the juncture of neck and shoulder. So.....not a compressed load, but a little pressure there, didn't think that was a problem, but it was a thought that the bullet may be getting pushed out? I measured the rest of the bullets that I loaded, all seemed to be within .002. After I was through seating all of the bullets I went back and measure all the rounds on the ogive with a bump gauge and found them all, including the longer case of 3.350, to be exactly the same measurement from the base to the ogive datum point.
So with all of this I concluded that the tips of these bullets are not all the same; and, I thought that they ought to be all the same, they're not a cheap date! Question is has anyone else encountered this with the Accubons or Ballistic tips, and (2) what are opinions on the effects upon accuracy? I won't get a chance to get to the range before I leave on the hunt, so will be leaving the "06" in the safe and taking the tried and true .358 Winchester in its place.
I got some Hornady brass (I know I have to break down and get some good stuff) annealed, resized, neck sized (Sinclair mandrel), deburred flash hole, reamed pockets and tumbled the brass. After dropping the powder I started seating the bullets to 3.340 COAL and checking with calipers. I set the first round, sneaking up on the 3.340 until I got the bullet to that dimension. I then seated a few more bullets and checked the next round only to find the COAL to be 3.350, I thought that the seating die backed out, then seated a couple of more checking the COAL and found them to be 3.340; I'm like "what is going on"? I was loading 59.0gr of H4831, filling the case to the juncture of neck and shoulder. So.....not a compressed load, but a little pressure there, didn't think that was a problem, but it was a thought that the bullet may be getting pushed out? I measured the rest of the bullets that I loaded, all seemed to be within .002. After I was through seating all of the bullets I went back and measure all the rounds on the ogive with a bump gauge and found them all, including the longer case of 3.350, to be exactly the same measurement from the base to the ogive datum point.
So with all of this I concluded that the tips of these bullets are not all the same; and, I thought that they ought to be all the same, they're not a cheap date! Question is has anyone else encountered this with the Accubons or Ballistic tips, and (2) what are opinions on the effects upon accuracy? I won't get a chance to get to the range before I leave on the hunt, so will be leaving the "06" in the safe and taking the tried and true .358 Winchester in its place.
