Damaged bullet tips

[Modoc]

I am having to rethink my Ammo storage for rifle cartridges. I have been using recycled factory boxes that are wearing out and started using slip top plastic. Well, the habit has been to put the cartridges in bullet down. Now I am seeing deformation in the points on my
7mm-08 and 22-250. I will need to find boxes that allow them to be carried bullet up, but how do I repair the damaged points? These are hunting loads, but I still try to get the best accuracy out of them that I can.

Thanks,

Modoc

[OR-E-Gun Bill]

Not for sure if this is what you need but try a Google search for Bullet Meplat Uniforming Tool .



Bill

[dorothy daily]

shoot a couple and compare the results against a couple non deformed. tip deformation is not nearly the problem of heel or base damage. article in one of the gun mags couple of years ago reached the conclusion it was not any real problem in tips but damage to the base destroyed accuracy. we shoot a lot od sierra seconds or blems with deformed tip squared tips missing tips and have found varmint accuracy, no problems. this may or not hold true for you.

[SHOOTALL]

I use a pocket knife . Get a box that grips the case MTM has 100 round boxes . Its better some say to store/transport bullet down so powder can block flash hole . Guess it would depend on powder type .

[Graybeard]

Ignore it. You will never see an accuracy difference due to the nose. Yes I've done the shooting to back that up as have many magazine writers who've stated the same.

Now damage the base and accuracy goes to pot fast.

[Swampman]

I agree with GB it doesn't hurt a thing.

[huntswithdogs]

What they said! No differences.

HWD

[Reed1911]

Depends on the amount of damage and distance of the shot. By your description slight damage from being 'gently' bounced around in a plastic box will not do any harm inside of normal shooting distance. heavy damage, extreme flattening of the tip, or sheering of one side of the tip will show considerable impact in the bullets accuracy and will become more and more significant the further the distance.

Not trying to correct anyone here, just trying to keep folks from assuming that any tip damage is okay. Not all tip damage is okay, you likely need to make a judgment call. The more uniform any change is all the way around the tip the less impact it will cause.

[Graybeard]

My response specifically addressed his situation but in general it takes a lot of damage from my experiments to affect accuracy within the limits of my 100 yard range.

I pulled a bunch of bullets with a pair of pliers rather than a bullet puller for a test. Man that mangled some of them up big time. I was quite amazed when I noticed no difference in group size with them. Now at longer ranges I'm sure some of those bullets would have had to show acccuracy degradation but as severe as the damage from the pliers was at 100 yards and under I wasn't able to see a change in group size.

That was a single experiment with a single rifle and I cannot promise your results will be the same. Ron's point is valid at some point damage is gonna affect accuracy but the minor tip damage done in ammo boxes or in the magazine due to recoil isn't gonna matter.

Hey Ron did that guy I sent your way the other day call? He had seen an ad of yours in a search for X frame S&W and called me thinking that everything for sale on this site must be for sale by me. It took awhile for me to figure out what the heck he was talking about and who to point him toward.

[1sourdough]

 FYI, an shooting mag did a test just a few months(6+) ago about this. They test fired ammo that had the tips damaged to different levels. The end result was not to worry one bit about the damage done as shells get bounced around over the years. I don't have specifics but even with some good damage it didn't hurt accuracy enough to matter. They cut tips,bent , & did all kinds of things. It may of been 'Shooting Times', or 'Guns & Ammo'.

[thejanitor]

I don't store Remington bullets tip down, they seem to flatten worse than any of my others that have a little more lead.  But the ones that have been messed up I just knocked of the little edge with my thumbnail and it was still backstraps for dinner.    In a benchrest type situation you may notice but with all the variables an off hand hunting shot has, you will never notice.  thejanitor

[saddlebum]

I can't remember if it was Rifle or Handloader magazine but one of the two did a test where they deformed the points in several ways and found no accuracy problems big enough to worry about with hunting. Benchrest competition, maybe. When they started messing with the bases, they got bad accuracy including keyholeing. I have seen other tests like this over the years with the same results.
Sure makes me feel better about those battered softpoints comming out of the magazine box on my bolt actions.

[Swampman]

All are damaged after the first shot.

[saddlebum]

Your not supposed to reload those Swampman!   

[Modoc]

Looks like I will have to go through the ammo and inspect each one.  The one that brought this thought to the forefront has the exposed lead tip of the 140gr Sierra Game King bent to one side for the full length and almost half of the width out of alignment.   Maybe I'll take the gross ones and just trim the point off and make them "flat point" bullets

[Land_Owner]

Ignore it. You will never see an accuracy difference due to the nose. Yes I've done the shooting to back that up as have many magazine writers who've stated the same.

Now damage the base and accuracy goes to pot fast.

+1 with GB.  Ignore it.  Clip off the gross points. 

All are damaged after the first shot.

+1 and hunting accuracy is not affected.

Well penned. My thoughts exactly.

[Lloyd Smale]

Im with reed1911. At a 100 yards it may me nothing but i have seen flyers even at that range with badly damaged tips. At 300 yards about any damage to a tip will show up and you are talking about rounds to kill very small animals at long range. I guess id mark the box that the tips were damaged and use them for either plinking or shooting at larger critters like coyotes. When i store ammo for bullets that are real fragile in the nose i dont use the plastic boxes i use factory ammo boxes with the belt holders or styrofoam inserts.

[av-doctor]

i wondered the same thing. i pulled some nosler bt's with a hammer type puller it damaged the plastic tips what to me seemed like alot i set them aside and wasn't sure if i should use them. i've given up on the load/gun turns out my savage 243 doesn't like 70gr bt's or anything else for that matter. i can't hit a target with it if throw the gun at it, i've tried

[Catfish]

What GB said. Now if you damage the base of the bullet it will effect the accuracy.

[Autorim]

I have read several test results over the last 30 years or so that document that bullet tip damage has little to do with accuracy. Of all the variables in reloading: case capacity, uniform case length, bullet pull, bullet diameter and weight, bullet base, powder choice and charge weight, primer choice and uniform seating depth, flash hole diameter, seating distance from rifling leade plus a few others - IMHO bullet tip deformation is at the bottom of the list relating to accuracy. I am not a good enough shooter to tell the difference.

If it is a concern, shoot match hollow points or Ballistic Tip or other plastic tip bullets. A perfect tip on every bullet can't hurt.

Ken

[jhalcott]

  I've tested bullets "pulled" with a hammer type and plier type tools. Hammer types generally damage the nose when the bullet hits the bottom of the tool. This normally does NOT affect accuracy at deed HUNTING RANGES. The plier types that squeeze the middle of the bullet can damage the bullet much more IF the squeeze puts enough pressure to disturb the jacket/core relationship. I've found that a cannelured bullet is less damaged than noncannelured bullets. I've shot these pulled bullets into wet phone books at various ranges from 50 to 300 yards. Accuracy was more than "good enough" for deer hunting with the nose damaged bullets and terminal effects were practically identical. However, the plier type pulls would often tumble and/or bend on impact. This could effect their actions on deer or other game. Accuracy was often affected also. Some times a flier would happen that could not be explained . The longer the distance to the target, the more likely a miss with the squeezed bullets! The same for target size. It would be more easy to miss a ground hog than a deer.