Round nose bullets???

jase kaye

Well-Known Member
Well on picking up my new(to me) .270 yesterday I was given 80 rounds of Federal 150grn Round nose ammunition with it(looks like good pig medicine), having never used them before (always used 130grn pspbt) and got to thinking what's the difference, I know one's pointed and one's rounded;), but what different applications are they used for? and if anyone local to me fancies some to try I'm up for a swap for some 130grn soft points.
Cheers Jase.
 
At normal stalking distances (say up to 250 yards) you won't really notice any differences but past that and the spitzer being more aerodynamic (ballistically efficient) comes into its own. Give me a good old fashioned flat based round nosed bullet every day of the week for my style of shooting.
 
Hello jase, Good luck with the new rifle.
I understand the round nose bullets do not penetrate in a straight line as opposed to flat and pointed bullets.
These tests were carried out with heavy cal. rifles used on big game though.
As 8x57 said, at ranges we shoot........jc
 
I ran some 100gr rn in .243 to good effect
exactly the same poi at zero as the spitzer version of the same bullet
 
Hello jase, Good luck with the new rifle.
I understand the round nose bullets do not penetrate in a straight line as opposed to flat and pointed bullets.
These tests were carried out with heavy cal. rifles used on big game though.
As 8x57 said, at ranges we shoot........jc[/QUOTE

Huh?~Muir
 
These Sako Hammerheads aren't particularly spitzer shaped yet they seem to penetrate in a straight line.
hammerhead_0.png
 
Earlier this year I had cause to load the trusty .308 with something other than the usual Nosler 150gr BT due to late delivery of a 9.3x62 for use on pigs.

I found some boxes of Hornady 170gr Interlock FP (flat point) at a very reasonable price - probably due to them not being pointy and fashionable - and worked up a very accurate load that runs at circa 2500fps. Did the job on a pig and bowled it straight over, so thought I'd carry on using them on our local reds and roe, and boy do they put them down well - like being hit with the Hammer of Thor! - and make very little carcase damage.

View attachment 59045
Agree with what others have said above - at typical UK stalking ranges, RN or FP are perfectly adequate, (and will probably cost less).
 
I love RN bullets. The long bearing surface and flat base means they line up well in the lede and seal the rifling before the base exits the neck of the case, which contributes to very small deviation in muzzle velocity, when the loads are made up identically. They are not fussy loads; the same loads shoot well in a lot of rifles.

I have found the 150-gr .308 and .300 Savage to shoot very well, same for the 180-gr.
The 180-gr .30-06 Federal and Remington shoot as well as anything for me.
The 150-gr Federal and Remington RN .270 Win ammunition is very accurate and hits hard. The CoreLokt is a tough bullet, and does not blow up.

The relatively slow RN ammo for my 6.5x54 Mannlicher and my .257 Roberts kills way above their weight class.

I handload the Hornady 154-gr RN for my 7mm-08, 7x64mm, and now for my 7x57R.

All these shoot to the same place as the spitzers up to 200 yards.
 
I love RN bullets. The long bearing surface and flat base means they line up well in the lede and seal the rifling before the base exits the neck of the case, which contributes to very small deviation in muzzle velocity, when the loads are made up identically. They are not fussy loads; the same loads shoot well in a lot of rifles.

I have found the 150-gr .308 and .300 Savage to shoot very well, same for the 180-gr.
The 180-gr .30-06 Federal and Remington shoot as well as anything for me.
The 150-gr Federal and Remington RN .270 Win ammunition is very accurate and hits hard. The CoreLokt is a tough bullet, and does not blow up.

The relatively slow RN ammo for my 6.5x54 Mannlicher and my .257 Roberts kills way above their weight class.

I handload the Hornady 154-gr RN for my 7mm-08, 7x64mm, and now for my 7x57R.

All these shoot to the same place as the spitzers up to 200 yards.

Thanks for the info pal, all sounding positive, if my rifle likes them I'll be giving them a go :thumb:
 
I have never seen a .270 which would not shoot the Federal and Remington 150-gr RN ammunition. The Federal is a Speer Hot Cor bullet. A machinist at work ( one of my clients ) went on a bear hunt in North Carolina last year, and I told him to forget the expensive ammo that he could not get to shoot well. It was going to be a shot inside 50 yards. He tried the 150-gr Rem and it shot under 1 inch groups at 100 yards. Shot right through a fat 400 lb bear and rolled him over on his back, dead as a hammer.
 
I have shot thousands of RN bullets. No problems with game going down and very good accuracy. My son's Savage 30-06 will shoot 150 grain RN bullets into half MOA. It doesn't take a point on the nose or a boat-tail on the bottom to make it accurate. ~Muir
 
I tip my hat to Muir in the usual respectful manner, before saying...

The other benefit of RN bullets is that you can stabilize a much heavier bullet with a RN than a spitzer because a RN is much shorter. Look up the Miller stability formula if you're seriously interested in this, but otherwise take my word for it.

I'm a great fan of round-nosed bullets and you can load some seriously heavy-for-calibre rounds if you use them. Obviously they come out of the barrel a lot slower than a light-for-calibre bullet loaded to the same energy, but my very limited experience says the heavy ones don't damage the animal more than they have to to put it down, yet they'll still "stamp their authority" on the quarry, so to speak.

No reason you should only use them for pigs either. Penetration with RNSPs tends to be very good, so exactly what you need for pigs - plug them from side to side. They're surprisingly useful for anything down to small deer too. Loading heavy-for-calibre RNSPs in a .270 (or in my case, a .308) might sound waaaay too much for muntjac (for example) but my own moderately-loaded RNSP round comes out at about 2150fps - devastatingly effective, but not devastating to the carcass and point and click up to 125yards, which does me very nicely for woodland stalking.
 
Well thanks for the replies lads, I zeroed my rifle last week using the Federal 150g SPRN and got a three bullet touching group at 100yds off my rucksack, so these will do me fine, shall be using them on deer starting next week once my fields have been cut :D.
Cheers Jase.
 
Gander Mountain has Rem CoreLokt .270 RN 150-gr and .30-06 RN 180-gr on sale for $17.00 USD. What ammo and bullets can you get in the UK?
I can still occasionally find Hornady .308 150-gr RN bullets, but no CoreLokt bullets for reloading, so I load Hornady and Speer RN.
 
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Gander Mountain has Rem CoreLokt .270 RN 150-gr and .30-06 RN 180-gr on sale for $17.00 USD. What ammo and bullets can you get in the UK?
No idea Southern, as I don't reload and only use factory ammo, but I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will be along shortly, but I dare say they'll cost a lot more than that.
Jase.
 
Back in the early 90s Nosler made a solid base boat tail bullet that i used to use for reloading the .308. I went to buy some more and i could only get 150 grn Round nose solid base boat tails. Looking in the Nosler book there was only loadings for 30-30 but with care i loaded the up in the .308. Only bullet I've ever used that knocked deer clean of their feet and never had a single runner.
I used to shoot 105grn speer round nose in my .243 and killed quite a few roe with those as well
 
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