How much does bullet design really affect accuracy?

[CowboyLeroy]

I've always wondered, but never been in the position to be affected by variations in bullet shape causing inconsistency in POI. I don't shoot long range or competitively or anything like that but I do have a small range of my own where I can shoot at "extended hunting ranges" (I've got gongs on clay piles out to five hundred yards.) long story short my trajectory out to 500 is right on with all the charts but once I get to 500 the groups get wild. I'm wondering if this is a physics thing or could the fact that I'm using soft points and not super duper plastic tip wizardry. It's not a big deal I'm just wondering. Not only is anecdotal and marginally related information accepted, but is encouraged!

 

[DFS]

I would give my 2 cents but I would get blasted I’m sure. I have quit chasing BC for the distances I shoot.

 

[jimh406]

At this point, most bullet manufacturers produce a very good product. Weight is probably a bigger effect than shape except at longer range when BC will come into play as long as you are comparing lead to lead and copper to copper. that matters since copper bullets of the same weight are generally longer.

However, you can look at some charts and do comparisons.

 

[Forkyfinder]

Fitst - im not quite sure what you mean on the charts - if that means the box charts, i wouldnt use those. Typically thats at sea level with a glorified hope of a velocity. Lots of ballistic calculators around, just pick one.

A better BC does lend itself to better field accuracy theoretically. The bullet bc, speed, enviroment are all slightly varying in the real world - and the bullet with highest BC (assuming equal variations/speed) will suffer the least change in impact at extended range.

If you want to prove it to yourself - try changing one of the variables like wind / bc / speed / velocity / pressure a small amount (50 fps, a few k elev, few mph wind wind) and you'll see the scale of the error is magnified with distance, and the lower the BC will have more error throughout.

In a practical sense - thats probably not driving you missing. The best way to try to correct for that is to iterate/edit parameters in your calculator. What bullet/cartridge are you using?

 

[Wind Gypsy]

There's high BC that is less impacted by environmentals, there's BC variance bullet to bullet that impacts results at distance, and there's just general bullet to bullet consistency that impacts how well they fly impacting dispersion the further you go out.

Cheap soft points are probably generally poor in all 3 regards so they will shoot worse at distance.

 

[yakimanoob]

Strictly speaking, the manufacturing quality is the dominant cause of accuracy, much more than the design "quality."

Obviously this is within the context of modern ogive-type bullet designs. Sure, a straight cylinder is bad design quality and has an effect on accuracy, but anything you can buy at most stores is going to be a perfectly reasonable design -- it all comes down to manufacturing quality from there.

This is not to say that design isn't important - of course it is - but the domain of bullet design is in how the bullet moves through the air. The domain of manufacturing quality is in how the bullet leaves the barrel in the first place. The latter has a much, much larger effect that the former.

And of course bullet design is by far the most important factor when it comes to terminal performance on game, but the OP asked about accuracy...