Reduced diameter GG bands

[labop]

I see that Buffalo Arms offers many of their designs with one, two and three reduced bands. I know they give you more powder capacity. What is the consensus on accuracy...the same, better or worse than the full diameter parent? I read a couple of posts on the ASSRA forum where full diameter bullets did better than tapered.
labop

[bruce m]

you have to fiddle around with seating depth to get the best out of them.
then they equal non reduced band bullets.
it could be argued that bore diameter pp bullets have 1 band and it is reduced diameter, and they are equal to any greaser or better for certain jobs.
bruce.
bruce.

[Glen Ring]

Jeanne and I both shoot a Lyman bullet with reduced bands. We seat that bullet deeper with less powder and that's our chicken bullet. We tried adding more powder and setting it farther out, but we didn't enjoy good accuracy.

[mdeland]

My experience wth GG's in pistol or rifle has been that if you stray far from groove diameter, front or back band, accuracy goes south. I like the base of the ogive to be a bore rider though. Generally if the bullet pushed into the muzzle snugs up on the ogive just before stopping at the front driving band it will shoot.

[J.B.]

My experience to date has been quite favourable. Certainly they can give you a little extra case capacity if you're chasing that and you have the added advantage of more bullet aligned in the bore. A cheats way of getting pp type bore riding numbers without pp. Truth be known paper patching is probably less work, although in some cases there is an argument for dual diameter paper patch bullets also. There is probably some advantage in reduced bands with a smaller 40..or a 45/70 if you need to produce more horsepower/ fps . 45/90 and above would seem to be able to produce good fps figures and results without them. Between BACo, Accurate, Brooks, Kal etc there seems a myriad of choices already but we tinkerers just have to keep trying something different ( or we think it is anyway ). Find or design a bullet to suit your chamber/ case/ throat etc and you may be pleasantly surprised. If you already have the powder capacity to produce the goods on the clock and the results on the score board..then you may be looking for a solution you dont need. They've worked for me so far but I've been pretty choosy about designs.. usually working with no less than .30" inside the case.
.. just my two cents. hth.

J.B.

[Aviator]

When I decided to try long range target rifle competition, I decided, under suggestions from my mentors, that a bullet with reduced bands might help my 45-70 Shiloh perform better.
I ended up with a couple of BACO molds for Money bullets which let me get cartridge overall length with my 45-70 close to what a 45-90 gets without a reduced band bullet. I have 3 grease grooves showing, with about .3 inch of bullet in the case.
I have not found any down side to going down this path.
For silhouette, I usually do not use the reduced band bullet, as the extra oomph from the increased powder capacity is not needed to knock a ram over at 500 meters with a 540 grain bullet. It is the same bullet design as my long range bullet, just without the reduced bands.

[Coltsmoke]

Labop, what rifle, what caliber, are you shooting and what are you shooting at?

[labop]

CPA 45-90 at 900-1200 yards.

[mdeland]

I cut bullet molds for various rifles I have, experimenting with shapes and diameters of both PP and GG bullets. In messing with a .43 Spanish Roller I acquired last year I made up a design that had the proper band width mated to the seven grooves of the barrel it came with. The original design I tested had the band diameter right but the ogive was left under the land diameter and the accuracy was lousy. I re-centered the blocks in the 4 jaw of my lathe and with a boring tool cut a simple rounded band just ahead of the front driving band on the ogive to land (bore)diameter so the nose was also supported in line. Now the bullet shot superbly with no other change.
I've been also messing with a PP design in two of my SMLE's in .303 with no success however I have a new one with some bullets loaded to try out as soon as I get some more day light.
For some reason I can't really explain I have a real hankering to get these SMLE's to shoot paper with a bullet of my own design.