Hornady 180 INTERLOCK SPBT BULLETS

[Ju.an]

Hi my friends.
I have a question about this bullets for my Vanguard 300 WM rifle.
Yesterday. I bought a case of Interlock 180 grains BOAT TAIL.
As ever success and after buying it, friends told me that bullets are not goods for a 300 WM.
The cause of that afirmation is that bullet have to be flat and not boat tai for a 300 WMl.
Boat tail interlock bullets in 180 for a 300 WM doesnt stabilize during his flight because the friction surface is not long enough like flat ones.
Do you have experiences about these cuestion?
I do remember, time ago, BT bullets in that 300 and in another one give me bad groups. I forgot that at buying moment.
Thank you very much.
Juan, from Buenos Aires, Argentina

[eford]

What you have bee told is FALSE: The Hornady 180 grain Interlock with a boat tail are fine bullets for the 300 Wby. My 300 Wby Vanguard and Mark V have perfectly acceptable "deer accuracy" with those bullets.

[BB340]

I don't know where those people that told you that got their information from. They are WRONG! I have shot some 180grn boat tail ammo in both my .300 Wby mag and my .300 Win mag and they both performed good. I have reloaded more accurate bullets in my .300 Wby mag but I use the 180grn Speer Boat Tail in my .300 Win mag and it is very accurate.

[truck driver + 2]

I used to have problems loading all Boat tail bullets till I happened onto the Nosler reloading forum.
The guys and there used to be some Gals over there that are very sharp on reloading all types of bullets and got me straightened out on loading boat tail bullets.
You have to play with your OAL a little more with boat tails which seem to like being seated longer.
You also need to seat all your bullets off the shoulder and not the tip. If you can get one get a Reading micrometer seating die or a micrometer seating stem for your seating die if you already are using Reading dies. That will help you seat your bullets more accurately.

[zoniezonie]

I agree with the knowledgeable  shooters on Weatherby nation.   some rifles I shoot boat tails and other rifles I shoot flat base.  in general terms it depends on the rifles and ranges you shoot.  longer ranges 300 /400 yards plus boat tail bullets come into their own as far as drops go which translates into better B/C's and better retained velocities with lesser bullet drops at greater distances, this all depends on how accurate the bullets shoot to really have any great advantage.  I shoot a lot of plain flat base in rifles I don't normally use past 400 yds my own personal opinion flat base bullets tend to be a little more accurate in most of my rifles.  some of this kind of  bad info on boat tails came from old time shooters back in the day saying that boat tails at times tended to cock the bullet upon exiting the barrel crown  caused by non-uniform escaping gases causing a wobble and less accuracy,  bad re-loading practices when seating bullets can do the same just in a different way and very possible,   back in the day where boat tail bullets may not have been made to the tighter tolerances we have today, the other issue and may have been a bad crown on the barrel itself causing bullets to cock when exiting BUT this will cause inaccuracies  with both flat base or boat tail bullets that was a rifle problem.  Some folks and you don't see it too often today is re-bated boat tail bullets where you kind of get the best of both worlds so long as the bullets are made correctly the advantage of a boat tail and the squareness of a flat base.  the base of the bullet and how square is far more important for accuracy than for instance if you batter the exposed lead tip of a bullet from recoil from bullets in the magazine, or if you knock the lead tip off of a normal hunting bullets while it is most likely not as accurate as undamaged bullets they still shoot pretty well in most cases.  one reason why poly tipped bullets or mono (pure copper) bullets tend to fly real well is they are more damage resistant and in the case of pure copper bullets they don't have a jacket with imperfections causing tiny balance issues,  not to say solid copper bullets can't be turned out of round which would cause the same problems.  I hardly do this any more but I have been known to mic bullets with a .00005 " Mitutoyo  that's  actually being anal on my part but if they are off .001  out of round or  dia spec it could make a difference depending on rifle of course.

[zoniezonie]

If you wanted you could prove a point.  I made my first concentricity gage / tool around 40 yrs ago give or take a few years using plate steel,  Starrett V-blocks and a magnetic dial indicator, and when Hornady came out with their Concentricity gage I bought one a little faster to use than mine.   normally you can visually see if a bullet  cocked / case is out of round by rotating it in V blocks , but adding a means of straightening the out of round ammo made it to where you can correct the out of roundness to a certain extent.  if you can get it down to less than .002 " corrected it will make an acccuracy  difference vs  out of round ammo  upwards of .005 or more and that's dependent on other things of course  i.e. how accurate the rifle / ammo combo is to start with.  the easiest / fastest way to load bullets that aren't cocked too much when re-loading is to insert the  bullet 1/4 to 1/2 way and then rotate the shell case 180 degrees and seat the bullet rest of the way.  there are other options on equipment to use to ensure straight bullet seating.