[TheCreepyJesus]

So I just bought my Mini 14 and put a good amount of rounds through it and I noticed the 55Gr. Remington rounds I put through where not nearly as accurate as some cheap stuff I shot today. I noticed the noses of the Remington brand rounds were not in any particular shape save for one with a perfect flat nose that was identical to my 7mm-.08 Federal Fusion rounds. So I had the thought to of filing the nose of the remaining Remington rounds I had to a flat nose like that one single round and all my Fusions. Has anyone tried this? Until last year I was strictly a shot gun guy so am i worrying about this non-symmetrical nose for nothing? I'm planning on using this gun mainly as a Turkey killer but also for those pesky prairie dogs and groundhogs we have everywhere in South Dakota so accuracy is a wonderful thing for me.

(LEFT) Originally flat Remington .223 round. (MIDDLE) The filed down nose of a .223 round. (RIGHT) One of the rounds from the box unmodified.


These are my 7mm-.08 rounds (LEFT) is a cheap Winchester round and (RIGHT) is the nicer Federal Fusion round. This is where I got the idea of flattening the nose of the .223 rounds for more accuracy.

 

[PigBat]

Yes, you're worrying about it unnecessarily.
The nose can be fairly mutilated without any significant effect on accuracy; base damage is what really plays havoc with accuracy.
Nose damage does tend to lower the ballistic coefficient a touch and may (depending on bullet design) cause the bullet to deform / fragment a bit sooner on impact.

 

[TheCreepyJesus]

Thanks for the reply. I kinda figured I was worrying for nothing but thought I would ask. With that said I did file down 9 of the bullets, left 9 the same, and modified the last two to use in six, 3 bullet, sample and one, 2 bullet, sample to see if i noticed anything significant at 100yrds. I figure I won't learn unless I try.

 

[tri70]

Put it to a paper test and see what happens, file the nose flat and shoot 5 rds, file to a point and shoot 5 rds. Base line without filing.

 

[Bolero]

Minor deformation shouldn't make a noticeable difference. I tested this on some 30-.06 handloads that looked a lot like the bullet in your picture that has the nose tweaked over, and didn't see any changes in accuracy or POI.

 

[Chilly]

Your sample size is way too small to draw any statistical conclusion from the experiment (that's where opinion takes over). Ammo is too expensive these days to run experiements of sufficient sample size to do a proper study, unfortunately.

It's possible you'd degrade accuracy more by varying bullet weights than any impact from tip deformation. I read somewhere in a gun rag or reloading book that tip deformation is a non-issue, within reason.

 

[tri70]

I don't think it will affect heavy bullets 100 gr up, I think it will give some variance in 55 gr or less.

 

[Tailgunner]

It's called a "Meplat", and yes there are factory made trimmers for it. However, most of them (M trimmers) are used on Matchkings by guys shooting benchrest matches, where a group reduction of 0.1 MOA is a lot of improvement.
For a factory rifle that only averages 2 MOA (like a mini) shooting cheap factory ammo, that level of improvement falls in the category of turning your hat sideways and holding your mouth "just right" to shoot tighter groups.

The base VS nose deformation (nose damage has almost 0 effect BTW) question was answered back in 1909 by a guy named "Dr. Franklin W. Mann" in his book "the Bullet's Flight, the ballistics of small arms". It's available online in PDF format if you care to read it

 

[Marlin 45 carbine]

never seen that done, all marksman and competition shooters I know use spire-point ammo some hp match