Thoughts on Barne’s Match Burner bullets?
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CptnAwesome
Member
My 6.5 Creedmoor loves em. Not quite as expensive as other match bullets but well worth the money in my opinion.
First, we should address barrel twist, what are you running?
ArchAngelCD
Member.
They are match bullets and you want them for plinking. How bad can they be for that use? If anything they are a waste of a good quality match grade bullet, no?
I use pulled and bulk bullets for plinking.
I use pulled and bulk bullets for plinking.
The definition of thinking changes from person to person and platform.
With an SKS, I'm happy with gallon jug at 100 yards. With my hunting rifle my plinking is Clay's at 400.
ArchAngelCD
Member.
This is true Sir...
It’s a Ruger m77 Hawkeye. I believe it’s a 1 in 10 twist. Most of the Match Burners I’ve seen are 105 grain bullets. Those should work, right?
Random 8
Member
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...r-243win-to-stabilize-heavier-bullets.362951/
You might be OK, might not. Consensus on the above thread is 1:9,25 may be marginal for the VLD designs, 1:10 may be marginal for 105BTHP. You also might have difficulty seating them to magazine length and still getting good accuracy.
They are in my experience a decent bullet. I was given some in .308/168, and was able to get good accuracy in them with the caveat I was shooting through a military sighted M1Garand, so the finer points might be hard to discern. They did equal, as far as I could tell, the accuracy of the Hornady 168 in this rifle.
If you are not pushing them to extreme range, past 400 yards, in your plinking, you might be better served by some of the heavier varmint bullets from Hornady or Nosler. On Grafs they are priced comparably to the Barnes MB, and will give you outstanding results on reactive targets.
You might be OK, might not. Consensus on the above thread is 1:9,25 may be marginal for the VLD designs, 1:10 may be marginal for 105BTHP. You also might have difficulty seating them to magazine length and still getting good accuracy.
They are in my experience a decent bullet. I was given some in .308/168, and was able to get good accuracy in them with the caveat I was shooting through a military sighted M1Garand, so the finer points might be hard to discern. They did equal, as far as I could tell, the accuracy of the Hornady 168 in this rifle.
If you are not pushing them to extreme range, past 400 yards, in your plinking, you might be better served by some of the heavier varmint bullets from Hornady or Nosler. On Grafs they are priced comparably to the Barnes MB, and will give you outstanding results on reactive targets.
I wouldn't throw em through a 1:10 check your twist, some time back ruger standardized their tubes in 1:9. How many yards are you planning on on pushing these? With a 1:9 twist I'd look for something else, you can use jbm bullet length list and the jbm stability calculator to check, but I'd hazard a guess that stability will be marginal at best, if you're wanting true match bullets, sierra, berger, and Hornady all offer a quality product in a lighter weight to get down range nicely. If you're wanting a good accurate load for mid range shooting (my definition may be inaccurate for midrange but I call it 600 and under) the speer 85 is the lowest I'd go, followed by hdy 87, the Sierra 100 gr bullets shoot wonderfully (flat based or boattailed) but after 500 the boattail makes a bigger difference. Then there's also all the other boattailed bullets in the 85-100 range too, idk how the smks would do, never tried em, but that calculator should help there. My current varmint rig wears a heavier contoured 20" 1:9.128 tube (once it's shot out I'll likely replace it with 1 1:10 for prairie dogs, and 1 1:8 for long distance yotes. The 1:9 twist is wonderful for heavy game bullets, but I'd check for 1. Stability, 2. Max coal by smoking a bullet (remember different profiles have different coals) and 3. If you're not wanting to single load, make sure you're prepared to stuff the LONG bullets halfway to down the case to make em fit (slight exaggeration).
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