You can't over-stabilize a bullet (but you can over-spin) 

Thank you very much. I truly hope you are enjoying these videos and learning some things about our sport.

This is some very good extra information. Thank you for posting this! Well done.

Glad you liked it! Thanks for watching and posting.

Thank you very much. Thanks for watching and taking the time to post.

Well said James. Thanks for watching and posting.

@@sdkweber - thanks again, for the content. 👍

Thank you very much Geir.

You are welcome. And thank you for watching and posting.

Thank you for watching and posting Rich.

You are welcome Horst. And thank you for watching and posting.

thats not over stabilized... thats just exceeding it construction.

@@russr Correct. Over-spun but not over stabilized. I shot 40 grain varmint bullets in my .220 Swift at 4,230 fps and some of those just vaporized between me and the target.

A bullet is like a flywheel. It takes energy to spin it. It dissipates that energy into the target. Overspinning a projectile diverts energy from velocity into rotation. It should be spun enough to stabilize but not much more than necessary.

@@sdkweber yeah, I had some Sierra 50 grain soft points play kept exploding about 10 ft out of the muzzle in my AR.. I never really had problems with VMAX. I had a load for my 40 grain V-Max what's 28 grains of 748 which is a compressed load and it would shoot under a half inch of 200 yd.... 223 load

@@russr I have used a lot of moly coated VMAX bullets in my .220 Swift and I like the Winchester/Nosler Combined Technology 40gr. bullets. That VMAX was shooting well for you. I hope you stocked up on those bullets. :)

thats not over stabilized... thats just exceeding it construction.

There are a lot of factors that can cause a bullet to come apart after leaving the muzzle. Among the most significant is the condition of the bore.

he went with minimum twist that was the standard at the time...

The point was to have a bullet that yawed and tumbled in tissue. This was tested extensively.

Precision bullets get turned into non precision bullets after they are swagged by the barrel rifling. So I am of the opinion that the barrel rifling and how the bullet enters the rifling swagging die/barrel is highly influential on accuacy.

Thanks for watching Aaron. You got it right. The bullet is wider than the distances across the lands. This forces the lands (rifling) to bite into the bullet and engrave fired bullets with the firearm's rifling. The naming though can sometimes be just marketing. For instance a .300 PRC shoots a .308 bullet, but so does the .308 Win. and .30-06 and .30-30 Win. A .220 Swift shoots the same bullet diameter as a .223 and .22-250. I have not seen Taufledermaus' videos. I will look it up. Take care Aaron.

No. the distance between grooves is 0.224, the distance between the lands are smaller and that is where the bullet is squeezed.

@@brucestarr4438 Correct. The diameter across the grooves is .224. I may not have answered Aaron's questions clearly.

Good questions and yes. The same concept holds true with copper bullets. We need to stabilize them but not over-spin them. I suspect however, that the homogeneity of the copper will reduce the imperfections within the bullet and MAY decrease the effect of over-spinning, that is, a degraded precision of our groups.

That's right Mike. And these bullets are spinning at astonishingly high RPM... especially considering a circular saw spins at about 7,500 RPM. Thanks for watching and posting.

That number (350,000 RPM) has been cited by others as the point of excessive spin in some cartridges

thats not over stabilized... thats just exceeding it construction.

I think you are seeing actual stability issues. I have the same issue with my RPR as it shoots heavier (longer) bullets poorly but does a good job with the 168 gr. bullets. Look for a shorter bullet and give that a try or stick with the 168 gr. range. Speer Gold Dots are pretty short bullets for their weight and they may make a heavier bullet you could try. Thanks for watching and posting.

​@@sdkweber Thanks for the reply. At this point if I could get 2MOA out of it subsonic I'd be thrilled.

@@CasperInkyMagoo I understand what you mean. I see the .300 blackout uses a 1:8 or 1:7 twist. That's is how that rifle can shoot the heavy (long) 200 gr. + bullets.

That is what I thought for years also. Then about a year or two ago I read Jeff Siewart's book "Ammunition Demystified" and he explained the effect of over-spinning a bullet. That made me dig into this and do much more extensive research and much more reading. I tried to explain this in the video (I believe Hornady did a pod cast and discussed this also). Bottom line, it is very real and over spinning a bullet will harm precision and this is primarily due to integrity issues of the bullet as over-spinning accentuates: Errors in bullet construction. Differences in a bullet's axis of symmetry relative to it center of gravity. Differences in a bullet's axis of symmetry relative to its axis of inertia.

@sdkweber Physics says rotational velocity Can Exceed outward movement velocity. That means even if it is out of balance it can balance itself out with enough rotation. vehicle wheels are on a rotational speed limit, or you get a citation. You can spin bullets as fast as you want. Enough rotation will zero out errors in bullet construction. Not enough rotation will cause insufficient stabilization, wobbling, or tumbling. I can give you the physics equations, and plugging in numbers will illustrate what I am saying. Unfortunately, there are so-called experts that are not really experts.They don't understand physics. The bullet goes to sleep theory is complete mythology nonsense. Nowadays you can watch NFLs longest passes on youtube and play them in slow motion. The footballs thrown wobbly stay wobbly until they are caught. They do not go to sleep. A top wobbling and falling over is in contact with a stationary object which changes the forces acting on the rotating top. A bullet flying through the air does not have its point sitting against a non moving object and does not straighten out like a top does and does not wobble around the point that is in contact with a stationary object. Barrel rifling tears up they finish on the bullets and has an Effect on the integrity of the jacket. If you spin them Enough to make them Bulge or come apart They will not Shoot straight. That is literally the only type of "overstabilization" that can exist. All the rest is BS.

@@Mike-xi4zt Feel free to post links to the equations. I would like to see them. For me, I am siding with the ballistics experts like Siewart on this. His work is also physics-based as well as experimental.

@@sdkweber I watched the podcast with jeff seiwmart. Duplex loads been around forever. Elmer Keith was doing that before World War II. Gain twist has been around for a hundred years artillery has steel case ammo and they use a copper ring to engage the rifling for gain twist. Regular Small Arms copper bullets in the whole side of the bullet engages the rifling in Gain Twist causes eccessive bullet deformation. I would agree with him on there is no magic cartridge. A bullet being pushed down the barrel with 60,000 PSI does not know what cartridge case it came from and does not care. To say a certain cartridge generates a special magic fairy dust 60,000 PSI is ridiculous. I have an electrical engineering degree and I've taken plenty of physics classes. This guy was telling the story about shooting the tank round steel rods through three targets and couldn't hit the last Target. And comes up with some calculation of maybe there was a stone in the first two Targets. Why not just remove the first two Targets and see if you can hit the last one to see if there's something else going on. That's called dumbass logic. In a bullet there is a moment of inertia and center of gravity. If there is an imbalance in the moment of inertia when a bullet is flying through the air if it is rotated fast enough it will rotate around the moment of inertia in combination with the center of gravity whatever the net force is of those two for the bullet. The bottom line the bullet will be stable if it is rotated fast enough whether it is rotating around the moment of inertia or the center of gravity or both simultaneously. "pressure force" is already being overcome by the rotational conservation of kinetic energy. The pressure force will be equal around the bullet because of the direction of flow of air. If you're pushing the same amount around all sides of the bullet the net force is zero.

@@sdkweber RU-vid doesn't let you post links in comments

I had never heard of that wildcat cartridge. Quite interesting and certainly a cool name too.

Let's discuss Big Timber. I have a .300 PRC and we can compare notes.

Yes, your groups will experience increased dispersion and you will see more flyers.

You won't see it in terms of the hole in paper, like a keyholing bullet if thats what you mean.

@@CasperInkyMagoo That's right. Over-spun bullets are stabilized so no keyholing. But the groups will be large.

He said it best when he said overs spinning accentuates the defects in a bullet aka highlights the flaws in the bullet as none are perfect. The best illustration I've seen is in 5.56/ .223 when, a few years ago, the channel, Johnny's Reloading Bench got a new 20" 1:7 match barrel to replace an 18" 1:8 match barrel for his ar. He did a video breaking in the new barrel and comparing it to the old barrel at the same time. He used known good loads in various weight projectiles that he had worked up in the 18" over a few years. The "old" 1:8 was stacking them pretty tight, the new 1:7 was "meh..", it wasn't terrible, but it wasn't impressive like the 1:8 was. Basically, if you're twist is too fast, the "precision window" for amazing loads gets smaller. If it's too slow the length/weight of bullet you can successfully shoot becomes restricted. If the twist rate is just right, it stabilizes a wide range of lengths/weights(unless you are specifically targeting a "weight class" ex: only long heavy bullets or only short light ones) and is very forgiving with components and loads, leading to a larger "precision window". Johnny went on yo work up more loads with the 1:7 20" and it always just seemed like impressive groups were harder to come by than with the 1:8 18". You can check out those videos on his channel and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. Another example is 308 shooters. The "standard twist" is 1:10, though it's not hard to find others twists in 308. Most legitimate competition match grade barrel are 1:11.25". Apparently the 1:10 seems to be over spin, 1:12 seems to be barely too slow for 175gr and higher, 1:11.25 seems to be the sweet spot for 308 roughly 150gr to 200gr. My guess is the extra 0.25" came from competition guys with a healthy dose of OCD trying to figure out "the perfect" twist. Anyway, hope that helps some.

So that was one of my questions if you overspin a bullet because of the wrong bullet for the given twist rate can you slow its velocity down to counteract the effects and also how does barrel length affect twist rate for example a 30 cal bullet and a 1 in 10 twist rate barrel 22" vs 24" vs 26" Will the 26 be able to stabilize a long heavy for caliber bullet even though it still has a 1 in 10 twist

Hello and thanks for watching. Take care and stay safe.

Good explanation. Thanks for posting and watching, Ronald

That's not true, Ronald, and extreme long range targets prove it.

@@jasonshults368 It is only 5° at 4 miles. The hole in the target will still look round.