JACKETED BULLET TEST-SOME CONCLUSIONS
I used one lot each of 223 and 22-250 brass. All were neck-chamfered and trimmed to length. The 22-250 cases were neck-turned in the distant past.
The primary question prompting the test is: “With everything else the same, at cast bullet velocities, with a cast bullet powder; do jacketed bullets shoot more accurately than cast bullets?”
The answer is clearly “Yes”.
The next question is: “What causes the accuracy difference”; and the answer is: ‘The bullet.”
Jacketed bullets shoot more accurately than cast bullets because of differences in the bullets. The accuracy difference is NOT about concentricity or orientation or powder weight variation or neck thickness or the shooter or the bench rest equipment or neck tension or alloy hardness/pressure or lube or primer pocket uniformity or flash hole uniforming or flash hole chamfering or shooting bullets in the order they’re cast or any of the other oft-touted causes/solutions.
It’s the bullets.
“What jacketed bullet characteristics make them more accurate?”. I don’t know.
“How can we change cast bullets to make them more accurate?”. I don’t know but can suggest that powder coating or changing shape or changing hardness or zinc bullets might be the/an answer.
“If we do enough fiddling with concentricity or orientation or powder weight variation or neck thickness or the shooter or the bench rest equipment or neck tension or alloy hardness/pressure or lube or primer pocket uniformity or flash hole uniforming or flash hole chamfering or shooting bullets in the order they’re cast or any of the other oft-touted causes/solutions; will cast bullets shoot as accurately as jacketed?”.
I don’t KNOW, but decades of testing suggests that the answer is NO.
Next?
I’m going to start THE BS LIST, a list of CB techniques/myths that do not improve accuracy, in my opinion. Disagree with DATA, prove me wrong, but give me no opinions-I’ve got plenty.