Post by GLSHOOTER on Jul 22, 2019 9:07:03 GMT -8
The question came up on who had used Bob’s Bullets and as far as I know none of us had direct experience with them. Being inquisitive and seeing pictures of some of them I got on the e-mail train and sent them a note. It was a holiday weekend but I got a response back in thirty minutes. Apparently the owner works when the others are enjoying the weather. Several e-mails back and forth that day gave me a nice warm feeling that I was dealing with a fellow that number one was a shooter and number two was a man that believed in quality. All products are produced here in the USA from materials sourced here.
I had requested a sample of bullets and they were sent along with me receiving them four days later as Monday was a no mail day. The bullets were dang good looking. Half were cannelured and half were non-cannelured. I cut the bags open and weighed five of each and they weighed exactly 55.2 grains for all ten. I’ve weighed a bullet or two over the years of the FMJ design and have never encountered this.
For a comparison I just pulled ten Sierra 55 grain FMJ’s off the shelf. Weights ran from 54.7 to 55.7 an average of 55.1 but averages are for statisticians making numbers lie. I measured five of each brand for overall length. The BB’s came out to 0.001 variations in base to tip running from 0.745 to 0.746. The Sierra bullets measured from 0.754 to 0.764 or a full 0.010 difference. Ten times the variation. AS you can see the numbers are outstanding. I’ve always used those 55’s for cannon fodder to just plink with and while you’d get a good group or two they were never eye opening.
I decided to do an in-depth test on these rather than just load up twenty and go bank away at 8” plates at 200 yards. The bullets as I mentioned came with and without a canneluer. Those with show a very light indentation not like the ones from Sierra. This would imply that there is probably less internal stressing n the core/jacket interface and this is always a good thing. I don’t routinely crimp bullets except in my rock and rollers as I’ve found adequate neck tension will carry the mail nicely in the light kickers.
I picked two powders, AA 2200 and H 335, at two separate charge weights for each. All rounds were loaded at 2.260 as a nod to most users whereas I would tend to shoot them a bit longer in most of my applications. Primer choices was the Remington 7 ½ Benchrest that I like to use for most of my 223’s. I selected tow 26” Remington SPS varmints with 1:12 twist, a 20” Olympic Arms Ultamatch with a 1:10 twist and my BHW X-Factor match gun that is 1:8 twist. Brass was specific to each rifle as I have it segregated out for each one so I can track the times fired on a given batch for each one. While this could induce a slight variation in performance as case volumes were not identical I figured most users are not going to be setting down at 2 AM shooting up primed cases with water to see what they have.
I spent an afternoon loading 320 rounds of various mixes for the test using a Dillon 300 and letting it throw the charges just like most guys would do in usual set up for high volume ammunition production. Color coded and sorted I did an equal numb of those with and without the canneluer. Eight rounds total for each rifle. I cleaned all four down to the bare metal knowing full well that some of them hate clean barrels. The charge weights were middle of the road that I had shot previously in some of the rifles so I was not worried about smoking holes in the back of the case and magic smoke from the receiver. The only reservation I had was that the BHW has a polygon rifling and I have found that every one of the three dozen I own thrive on top end ragged edge loadings and historically it has never liked 55’s compared to the bigger bullet weights.. These were mild for that rifle so I figured a hope and a prayer.
With everything loaded, sorted and cleaned I headed out to the range on Thursday. Along for the day was a Kestrel for temperatures and my Bald Eagle front pedestal rest and rear bag. The LabRadar was packed so that I could see what barrel length did on each load. Targets would be ¾” red dots two per sheet applied to a heavy copier paper. Weather was severely overcast and temperatures for the shooting day that covered over six hour were from 55 to 64 with slight breezes. The calm air was nice but I knew the mirage was going to be horrendous and as predicted I felt at times I was looking through a rippling pond as the dots bobbed up and down and sideways on the crosshairs. Not conducive to screamer groups but as the kids say now, “it is what it is”.
So days end showed me lots of massacred dead tree products with holes in them. As I had so many groups shot I felt I would showcase the best three groups for each rifle and a bit of discussion about what I thought about its performance with the ammunition. I will put a disclaimer that I was shooting between a 200 Win Mag and a 338 Win Mag, with brake, on either side and between my normal yips I got more than one assist in a bit of jerking..LOL To give some idea on the muzzle blasts I was dealing with I had to turn the sensitivity down on the LR as it was being triggered by the various blasts going on. Once that was adjusted I never missed a lick except for the 300 was rattling the system so hard I lost contact with the power cord a couple times finally forcing me to put in a back up that was a bit tighter on the plug in.
First up was 26” SPS Remington sporting a nice 32X BSA target scope, made by Weaver, running a ¼” target dot. A superb test bed addition but for field work not so much. It has the –Mark trigger that I had worked over and the old “it won’t shoot” Tupperware stock. First groups from the squeaky barrel were OK at a bit under 1.2”. Historically I knew this rifle could get it done for and it had shot an occasional sub-MOA group with ball ammo but most hovered at 1.25” The next two were nice at 0.737 for identical size groups. The rifle got better and better over the next few rounds. Below are its best efforts for the day. I found that the ones that didn’t get uber-small were spreading left to right so this indicated a seating depth adjustment might be needed or, gosh, I might be cheeking the stock.
Not bad for a random pick and I could have stopped after that go around and said these bullets would do to take on the river with me. That being said I didn’t do all this to shoot an hour and a half and quit. Onward..
Next up was another 26” SPS Remington sporting a 4X12 Remington scope. Same stock etc. and this is one of those “package” deals they sell all the time. No trigger work done and the scope quality was not quite up to par with others. Entry level it is but performance wise it is not. I’ve mentioned before that I bought my Stepson this rifle and due to his untimely death it had ended up back in the guns safe. This little outing was also a method to reattach to him. He was not the best shot but he did do fair to middling.
Bryan was with me when the first ten went down range. From a squeaky barrel it did better than mine. What the heck? I had o adjust after the first shot as the scope had been remounted and only shot four for the first set and it came in at 0.940 with the prover doing a solid 0.992. It went on and did nice solid sub –MOA work with the 2200 loads and I swapped over to the H 335 powder. Most of these were running vertical but it did tuck in for a few. I was fighting the mirage so I was doing what I could. I managed one batch with clear air ad it did well. I’ll let you be the judge. I did shoot a few three shot groups throughout the day when I was getting frustrated and it needed to test the load vs. the shooter. If it will do three it will usually do five. This three shot one was the best of the day and I think Bryan was smiling.
I put the turn bolts away and drug out the black guns. Both uppers shot were setting on my match lower I use in F-class with a Geissele High Speed Match Trigger set nice and light on the second stage.
The first one up was my old original AR that is an Olympic Arms upper that I started my 3Gun career with. Nothing fancy with a 1:10 twist with a standard flash hider. This gun would routinely shoot ball ammo in about 0.6 back in the day and I figured it would be adequate today. I use this as a back up at matches and went with a 3X9 Nikon on it. A god scope but I found out PDQ that a ¾ "dot and a 9 power scope in mirage caused for a bit of heart burn and some rounds that just didn’t want to go where the image was.
This is my pig gun. Not that I’ve killed pugs with it but if it ain’t dirty it ain’t playing. It always takes a few rounds through the tube to settle in and it did not disappoint today. I never took it to match clean and I was reminded why forcefully after wetting my pants on the first two groups that we were slightly less than marvelous. With ten down the tube it was time to squeeze them off. The next two went off to never never land so I got a cup of coffee out and relaxed. I had eight rounds so I settled down and waited for conditions. Five down and it looks decent. The remaining three were for the money on the light AA load No pressure here at all and I ended up with a decent 0.457 that made me smile a bit all things considered. I ran through the rest of the AA ladder getting some decent groups that years ago would have made me happy.
Finished with that I moved on to the H335 knowing I still had a pig in my hands that hates change. Sure enough the first five went back to being huge, a bit over 2”, but the next five tucked into a nice little batch under an MOA. Working along I was getting groups a bit over an inch and fighting the boil. I caught a breeze and everything cleared up for maybe two minutes so I got five down range pretty fast and was really happy. Five under one half at 0.438 was about what I had hoped for with this rifle on a god day. The bullets are stacking nicely.
The UM is a rifle that I consider my baseline standard to shoot against. It’s not a world beater but it has the potential to clean a National Match with the right driver behind it. I was happy considering the scope/dot pairing was less than ideal. If I put one of my big scopes on it the groups would be decreased significantly as if you can’t see it you can’t hit it and I don’t see so well.
For my fourth rifle I had a 24” BHW bull barrel to wring out. This is a 1:8 twist rifle that has been “adequate” with the 50 grain light bullets but never earth shattering. It has never done well with any 55 grain pills that I have tested yet when you step up to 69’s the groups tighten up considerably and it becomes a rock solid sub-MOA performer. As mentioned earlier I have found that the faster I push any bullet in this tube the better it does and these were by no means hot.
The first rounds were decent from what I could tell with one a bit over and one a bit under an MOA at 1.013. I was tickled with those from the start so felt maybe there was hope. My goal with this bullet and this rifle was only 0.75 so when targets were crunched I found that it would do that and also found that several were sub.-0.75 in four shot clusters with obvious shooters errors making that fifth hole way to far over to be blamed on the load. I will probably work with these more in this one just because I’m stubborn but I learned a long time ago you can’t force any rifle to like XX powder or YYY bullets. Many groups were probably a bit large also thanks to me getting a little tired after six hours of setting on the little stool at the bench. This old man kind of wanted to pack it in. So my worst batches for the day are those below.
If you notice the bottom target is 0.6 grains heavier than the one above it and still shows some vertical. If I revisit this with H 335 I will try it at 0.3 above the 25.9 into the Service Rifle realm.
So there you have it. This test took four hours of loading, six and a half hours of shooting, six hours to transfer the data from the LR to my spreadsheets; print the target pages; cutting out and pasting the groups and scanning to IMGUR. Now the summation of my labors
My conclusions from the test not limited to the bullets. Looking over the speeds on the 26” vs. 24” vs. 20” barrel lengths I found the 24” lost virtually nothing in some loads and around 30 FPS on others but this is slightly skewed as the 24” tube is a polygon rifles barrel and is almost always good for an extra 2” velocity in comparison speeds no matter what the length. . On the 26” vs. the 20” I found that same same loads lost approximately 115 FPS. These are both Enfield rifled tubes so the comparison works out to right on 19 fps/inch loss. This is exactly what I would expect plus or minus 5 fps/inch.
All told throwing out fouling groups I ended up with right on 50% that were sub-MOA performers. Lots of 0.7’s got shot as did many in the 1.1” realm to be a bit over the Grail level. So will these bullets do for most purposes? Absolutely nothing in my experience would dissuade me from using these in any of my matches in the 3Gun world using thrown charges.
I do intend to set down and use my best practice match loading techniques in the next two weeks and shoot some through the SPS to see what I can really do with all the stops pulled out. I suspect that it will be even more eye opening for me. As for the PD/varmint field, I’m going to see about some bullet alterations on the FMJ part but that will make them viable for a warm target. It would make you cringe if I gave it away so I’ll save that for the same day as the heavy target loading test. Also just because I can I’m going to load some of these up in the 2-NXS and push them to 3700+ fps and see how they hang together on target.
I know this has been long in coming but I can say that Bob’s will be getting more of my plastic in the future. I’m pleased with the results. Everyone knows how I like teasers so I must admit I sent some teaser photos to Bob on the first batch of targets to let him know I felt he had a winner. He’s been waiting for the final write up just like you all.
Greg
I had requested a sample of bullets and they were sent along with me receiving them four days later as Monday was a no mail day. The bullets were dang good looking. Half were cannelured and half were non-cannelured. I cut the bags open and weighed five of each and they weighed exactly 55.2 grains for all ten. I’ve weighed a bullet or two over the years of the FMJ design and have never encountered this.
For a comparison I just pulled ten Sierra 55 grain FMJ’s off the shelf. Weights ran from 54.7 to 55.7 an average of 55.1 but averages are for statisticians making numbers lie. I measured five of each brand for overall length. The BB’s came out to 0.001 variations in base to tip running from 0.745 to 0.746. The Sierra bullets measured from 0.754 to 0.764 or a full 0.010 difference. Ten times the variation. AS you can see the numbers are outstanding. I’ve always used those 55’s for cannon fodder to just plink with and while you’d get a good group or two they were never eye opening.
I decided to do an in-depth test on these rather than just load up twenty and go bank away at 8” plates at 200 yards. The bullets as I mentioned came with and without a canneluer. Those with show a very light indentation not like the ones from Sierra. This would imply that there is probably less internal stressing n the core/jacket interface and this is always a good thing. I don’t routinely crimp bullets except in my rock and rollers as I’ve found adequate neck tension will carry the mail nicely in the light kickers.
I picked two powders, AA 2200 and H 335, at two separate charge weights for each. All rounds were loaded at 2.260 as a nod to most users whereas I would tend to shoot them a bit longer in most of my applications. Primer choices was the Remington 7 ½ Benchrest that I like to use for most of my 223’s. I selected tow 26” Remington SPS varmints with 1:12 twist, a 20” Olympic Arms Ultamatch with a 1:10 twist and my BHW X-Factor match gun that is 1:8 twist. Brass was specific to each rifle as I have it segregated out for each one so I can track the times fired on a given batch for each one. While this could induce a slight variation in performance as case volumes were not identical I figured most users are not going to be setting down at 2 AM shooting up primed cases with water to see what they have.
I spent an afternoon loading 320 rounds of various mixes for the test using a Dillon 300 and letting it throw the charges just like most guys would do in usual set up for high volume ammunition production. Color coded and sorted I did an equal numb of those with and without the canneluer. Eight rounds total for each rifle. I cleaned all four down to the bare metal knowing full well that some of them hate clean barrels. The charge weights were middle of the road that I had shot previously in some of the rifles so I was not worried about smoking holes in the back of the case and magic smoke from the receiver. The only reservation I had was that the BHW has a polygon rifling and I have found that every one of the three dozen I own thrive on top end ragged edge loadings and historically it has never liked 55’s compared to the bigger bullet weights.. These were mild for that rifle so I figured a hope and a prayer.
With everything loaded, sorted and cleaned I headed out to the range on Thursday. Along for the day was a Kestrel for temperatures and my Bald Eagle front pedestal rest and rear bag. The LabRadar was packed so that I could see what barrel length did on each load. Targets would be ¾” red dots two per sheet applied to a heavy copier paper. Weather was severely overcast and temperatures for the shooting day that covered over six hour were from 55 to 64 with slight breezes. The calm air was nice but I knew the mirage was going to be horrendous and as predicted I felt at times I was looking through a rippling pond as the dots bobbed up and down and sideways on the crosshairs. Not conducive to screamer groups but as the kids say now, “it is what it is”.
So days end showed me lots of massacred dead tree products with holes in them. As I had so many groups shot I felt I would showcase the best three groups for each rifle and a bit of discussion about what I thought about its performance with the ammunition. I will put a disclaimer that I was shooting between a 200 Win Mag and a 338 Win Mag, with brake, on either side and between my normal yips I got more than one assist in a bit of jerking..LOL To give some idea on the muzzle blasts I was dealing with I had to turn the sensitivity down on the LR as it was being triggered by the various blasts going on. Once that was adjusted I never missed a lick except for the 300 was rattling the system so hard I lost contact with the power cord a couple times finally forcing me to put in a back up that was a bit tighter on the plug in.
First up was 26” SPS Remington sporting a nice 32X BSA target scope, made by Weaver, running a ¼” target dot. A superb test bed addition but for field work not so much. It has the –Mark trigger that I had worked over and the old “it won’t shoot” Tupperware stock. First groups from the squeaky barrel were OK at a bit under 1.2”. Historically I knew this rifle could get it done for and it had shot an occasional sub-MOA group with ball ammo but most hovered at 1.25” The next two were nice at 0.737 for identical size groups. The rifle got better and better over the next few rounds. Below are its best efforts for the day. I found that the ones that didn’t get uber-small were spreading left to right so this indicated a seating depth adjustment might be needed or, gosh, I might be cheeking the stock.
Not bad for a random pick and I could have stopped after that go around and said these bullets would do to take on the river with me. That being said I didn’t do all this to shoot an hour and a half and quit. Onward..
Next up was another 26” SPS Remington sporting a 4X12 Remington scope. Same stock etc. and this is one of those “package” deals they sell all the time. No trigger work done and the scope quality was not quite up to par with others. Entry level it is but performance wise it is not. I’ve mentioned before that I bought my Stepson this rifle and due to his untimely death it had ended up back in the guns safe. This little outing was also a method to reattach to him. He was not the best shot but he did do fair to middling.
Bryan was with me when the first ten went down range. From a squeaky barrel it did better than mine. What the heck? I had o adjust after the first shot as the scope had been remounted and only shot four for the first set and it came in at 0.940 with the prover doing a solid 0.992. It went on and did nice solid sub –MOA work with the 2200 loads and I swapped over to the H 335 powder. Most of these were running vertical but it did tuck in for a few. I was fighting the mirage so I was doing what I could. I managed one batch with clear air ad it did well. I’ll let you be the judge. I did shoot a few three shot groups throughout the day when I was getting frustrated and it needed to test the load vs. the shooter. If it will do three it will usually do five. This three shot one was the best of the day and I think Bryan was smiling.
I put the turn bolts away and drug out the black guns. Both uppers shot were setting on my match lower I use in F-class with a Geissele High Speed Match Trigger set nice and light on the second stage.
The first one up was my old original AR that is an Olympic Arms upper that I started my 3Gun career with. Nothing fancy with a 1:10 twist with a standard flash hider. This gun would routinely shoot ball ammo in about 0.6 back in the day and I figured it would be adequate today. I use this as a back up at matches and went with a 3X9 Nikon on it. A god scope but I found out PDQ that a ¾ "dot and a 9 power scope in mirage caused for a bit of heart burn and some rounds that just didn’t want to go where the image was.
This is my pig gun. Not that I’ve killed pugs with it but if it ain’t dirty it ain’t playing. It always takes a few rounds through the tube to settle in and it did not disappoint today. I never took it to match clean and I was reminded why forcefully after wetting my pants on the first two groups that we were slightly less than marvelous. With ten down the tube it was time to squeeze them off. The next two went off to never never land so I got a cup of coffee out and relaxed. I had eight rounds so I settled down and waited for conditions. Five down and it looks decent. The remaining three were for the money on the light AA load No pressure here at all and I ended up with a decent 0.457 that made me smile a bit all things considered. I ran through the rest of the AA ladder getting some decent groups that years ago would have made me happy.
Finished with that I moved on to the H335 knowing I still had a pig in my hands that hates change. Sure enough the first five went back to being huge, a bit over 2”, but the next five tucked into a nice little batch under an MOA. Working along I was getting groups a bit over an inch and fighting the boil. I caught a breeze and everything cleared up for maybe two minutes so I got five down range pretty fast and was really happy. Five under one half at 0.438 was about what I had hoped for with this rifle on a god day. The bullets are stacking nicely.
The UM is a rifle that I consider my baseline standard to shoot against. It’s not a world beater but it has the potential to clean a National Match with the right driver behind it. I was happy considering the scope/dot pairing was less than ideal. If I put one of my big scopes on it the groups would be decreased significantly as if you can’t see it you can’t hit it and I don’t see so well.
For my fourth rifle I had a 24” BHW bull barrel to wring out. This is a 1:8 twist rifle that has been “adequate” with the 50 grain light bullets but never earth shattering. It has never done well with any 55 grain pills that I have tested yet when you step up to 69’s the groups tighten up considerably and it becomes a rock solid sub-MOA performer. As mentioned earlier I have found that the faster I push any bullet in this tube the better it does and these were by no means hot.
The first rounds were decent from what I could tell with one a bit over and one a bit under an MOA at 1.013. I was tickled with those from the start so felt maybe there was hope. My goal with this bullet and this rifle was only 0.75 so when targets were crunched I found that it would do that and also found that several were sub.-0.75 in four shot clusters with obvious shooters errors making that fifth hole way to far over to be blamed on the load. I will probably work with these more in this one just because I’m stubborn but I learned a long time ago you can’t force any rifle to like XX powder or YYY bullets. Many groups were probably a bit large also thanks to me getting a little tired after six hours of setting on the little stool at the bench. This old man kind of wanted to pack it in. So my worst batches for the day are those below.
If you notice the bottom target is 0.6 grains heavier than the one above it and still shows some vertical. If I revisit this with H 335 I will try it at 0.3 above the 25.9 into the Service Rifle realm.
So there you have it. This test took four hours of loading, six and a half hours of shooting, six hours to transfer the data from the LR to my spreadsheets; print the target pages; cutting out and pasting the groups and scanning to IMGUR. Now the summation of my labors
My conclusions from the test not limited to the bullets. Looking over the speeds on the 26” vs. 24” vs. 20” barrel lengths I found the 24” lost virtually nothing in some loads and around 30 FPS on others but this is slightly skewed as the 24” tube is a polygon rifles barrel and is almost always good for an extra 2” velocity in comparison speeds no matter what the length. . On the 26” vs. the 20” I found that same same loads lost approximately 115 FPS. These are both Enfield rifled tubes so the comparison works out to right on 19 fps/inch loss. This is exactly what I would expect plus or minus 5 fps/inch.
All told throwing out fouling groups I ended up with right on 50% that were sub-MOA performers. Lots of 0.7’s got shot as did many in the 1.1” realm to be a bit over the Grail level. So will these bullets do for most purposes? Absolutely nothing in my experience would dissuade me from using these in any of my matches in the 3Gun world using thrown charges.
I do intend to set down and use my best practice match loading techniques in the next two weeks and shoot some through the SPS to see what I can really do with all the stops pulled out. I suspect that it will be even more eye opening for me. As for the PD/varmint field, I’m going to see about some bullet alterations on the FMJ part but that will make them viable for a warm target. It would make you cringe if I gave it away so I’ll save that for the same day as the heavy target loading test. Also just because I can I’m going to load some of these up in the 2-NXS and push them to 3700+ fps and see how they hang together on target.
I know this has been long in coming but I can say that Bob’s will be getting more of my plastic in the future. I’m pleased with the results. Everyone knows how I like teasers so I must admit I sent some teaser photos to Bob on the first batch of targets to let him know I felt he had a winner. He’s been waiting for the final write up just like you all.
Greg