Outer Edge bullets

[JohnV]

"This is the expected situation with most conventional rifle bullets, they have a sweet spot in velocity, and thus range. Close shots they can tend to explode, and really far away they can drill holes. "

Yep, and when you pull the trigger does it hit,
No bone
Thin bone
Or thick bone.
Is it doing 1700fps or 2700fps..
All variables, and the first three are hit and miss.

Exactly right , and that's why an old school solder bonded bullet and the Nosler Partition bullet worked well on our pigs , goats and deer in a suitable caliber and weight bullet .

[bladeracer]

I put all of Outer Edge's bullets into a spreadsheet, with all the data they provide for them. I did notice some oddities in the BC's. I think if you calculate the BC from the geometry of the bullet you're going to get a constant figure. If you measure the BC by shooting it at various distances and measuring drop and velocities you're going to get different averages, which can be variable depending on environmental conditions. I would assume they've just calculated them though.

Yes, some of the boat tails appear to be more "flat base" than some of my flat-base bullets, so I actually listed them as flat-base in my spreadsheet. Perhaps in the flesh the boat tail is more obvious.

The Outer Edge projectiles with the ball in the meplat is a very old outdated concept that does nothing .
Also two identical bullets also same weight except one has a ball in the meplat and the other an open meplat both meplats the same external size but the ball bullet is quoted with a substantially higher BC . BS. The drag coefficients and ballistics would be so close that it would be hard to tell one from the other BC wise without Doppler radar and even then they could look the same . There is no place in even a six degrees of freedom calculator to enter anything other than meplat diameter and both bullets would be described the same something like Laminar , Laminar ( air flow over the bullet ) . Although the boat tails are so minute that they may even act like a flat base . Laminar -Turbulent but both the same . All other specs would be the same .
As long as both are fired at same starting velocity .

[Lazarus]

Designed for the reloader who is fully devoted to fiddly embuggerance:

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/202 ... -22lr-kit/

[Oldbloke]

I first heard about rimfire reloading about 30 years ago. Obviously casting would solve the bullet supply issue. Ive often wondered what they did about priming compound back then tho? Must have made it them selves?

[Lazarus]

I first heard about rimfire reloading about 30 years ago. Obviously casting would solve the bullet supply issue. Ive often wondered what they did about priming compound back then tho? Must have made it them selves?

I think they used fulminate of mercury once didn't they?

That's fairly easy to make, even easier to get wrong and remove significant body parts in the process as well, like Mother of Satan.

[bladeracer]

I first heard about rimfire reloading about 30 years ago. Obviously casting would solve the bullet supply issue. Ive often wondered what they did about priming compound back then tho? Must have made it them selves?

I've read that you can use "strike anywhere" match heads, but in the US they mostly just buy ready-made priming compound.
Another issue is the heel-bullet design used in .22LR, the tail has to be small enough to fit into the case with sufficient grip to retain the bullet, while the bearing surface has to be the same width as the case. I haven't seen any DIY system of trying to crimp a heeled .22LR bullet into the case.

With modern air-rifles you'd be mad to mess around trying to load .22LR ammo.

[Lazarus]

I think the niche market is small bore benchrest Blade.

Those guys will go to enormous lengths to shave a millimetre off the group size.

Way too fifddly for my intention tremors.
I don't need a powder trickler, I just hold the powder scoop over the pan and try really hard to keep it still.
That sets the tremor going and job done

[deye243]

They try to shave 1 40th of a millimetre.

[Oldbloke]

They try to shave 1 40th of a millimetre.

I certainly would not bother loading 22lr.

Used scoops for years.
Now I use a Lee perfect powder measure. ($40 new) Pretty consistant then trickle.

[bladeracer]

Bullets arrived today.
They are coated with something but they claim not moly. It does rub off on the inside of the boxes but I haven't noticed anything coming off on my hands while handling so far.
They are technically a boat tail I guess as the base is .270", but the taper is not very obvious.
Hopefully get some loaded up for testing tomorrow.

[bladeracer]

Loaded up eight rounds of 7mm-08 with the 130gn Outer Edge HP for testing.

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The coating does indeed come off on your fingers, very grubby, and it scrapes off during feeding. I'm inclined to clean the crap off the rest of them. It's supposed to be a lube to reduce the pressure spike as the bullet slams into the lands.

One very strange thing about the design is that the bullet has a groove around the bearing surface. Reduces the diameter down to .278" over a length of about .150". Problem is that this groove, when seated to the standard 2.800" in 7mm-08 brass, is all inside the case mouth. The case neck is only about .250" long so there is all of .100" of case neck actually in contact with the bullet, all of it down at the bottom of the neck. This does not make for a tight fit in the case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TJ4x6la-J4
I did measure length to the lands (in the Ruger American) beforehand at 2.900", but as this is for hunting I want to stay at 2.800". They recommend .040"-.060" of jump so loading longer would give a better grip, but I need to seat about .150" longer to get the full length of the neck gripping the bullet. Cleaning the lube crap off will probably improve grip on the bullet as well.
Their load data is 2.783" CoaL but seating the bullets another .17" is not enough to get a grip on the bearing surface forward of the groove. It just pushes the bottom of the groove closer to the shoulder making it even more loose.

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I cycled them through the mag twice and they feed fine with nothing to indicate the bullet might get pushed deeper during feeding. I'll test shoot them and decide if it's an issue.

So far I'm less than impressed, especially compared to the Barnes TSX and TTSX bullets.

[deye243]

I agree they should have used a series of grooves like the tsx

[deye243]

Something that is not molybdenum disulfide it sure is behaving like it is so be warned it is notoriously difficult to scrub that crap out of a barrel if you decide to go back to naked projectiles

[bladeracer]

I've been battling to get out and test fire these things, every time I get close something comes up. But I had to shoot some 7.62x54R groups for somebody so I took the 7mm-08 with me. I wanted to check pressure signs and get a velocity figure to work with rather than worry about accuracy. Since I was shooting at a very odd distance of 50yd and had forgotten to put any fine aiming marks on the paper I just fired these at what I could see as folds in the paper. I fired half a dozen 120gn VMax's first to confirm the rifle/scope is working properly then fired the eight test rounds I'd loaded up. They all went pretty much where I aimed them so I can't say they're any less accurate than conventional bullets so far. Recoil was certainly noticeable, which surprised me. I should've taken some 145gn HotCore loads with me to compare the copper bullets to. The 120gn VMax was making 2850fps, these made 2840fps which is right around what I figured they should make, so that's good. The load was 41gn of AR2206H. No pressure signs at all but the primers are starting to square the edge. I'll load some more at 41gn and see how well they group at 100m before deciding whether I want to change the load.

The bullets are so loose in the case neck that pulling the bullet forward gives a CoaL of 2.946" and pushing it in gives 2.808", which is pretty ridiculous.

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I was concerned that the bullet is very likely to push forward and hit the lands simply by cycling the bolt fast to chamber the round, as you would in a quick follow up shot. Likewise, being so loose I was concerned a bullet might get pushed into the case during feeding or under recoil in the mag. Both of these situations could spike the pressures. The velocities were all within the same ball park so I don't see any sign of this sort of issue yet.

I'm going to clean the coating off before working with these again as they really are filthy things, and I may try paper-patching around the groove to bring it up to .285" so the case neck can actually grip the bullet. Frankly it's a lot of messing about for a "premium bullet" but I'm still hopeful they may be a good close-range deer bullet. With the bullet floating about in the neck like it does I would have zero confidence in their reliability in the field.