Longitudinal lube grooves ?

[JonB]

I'd love to hear some opinions on this.

Was ole' George onto something?
Or is it just one more of his half-baked ideas that is lunacy at best?

Below is a .429 half-jacket bullet made with Herter's 44 cal swage dies.

Bullet and Photo by BT_Sniper


From Herter's "Professional" reloading manual.

 

[Ian]

It's a copper half-jacket. Why would it need lube grooves at all?

 

[JonB]

Dang, I hate it, when I don't notice the obvious

 

[Brad]

Hate to say it but a bullet with longitudinal grooves would be a bad idea unless it has a solid rear band. Without a way to seal the rear of the bullet in the bore the grooves would just become an outlet for powder gasses. Bet those suckers would lead like a sumnabitch.

 

[Ian]

The only advantage I could maybe see is improving the way the bullet takes the forcing cone. But then I think about it more and realize it has half the radial bearing surface so in fact it's MORE likely to crush on one side rather than kick the cylinder into alignment than a regular front band would be. Or at the very least AS likely to crunch, since there's space behind a driving band at some point and the ribs are continuous longitudinally.

The only (knock on wood) dud that I've shot un-intentionally was a .45 ACP in my carbine that missed the powder charge. Bullet was an MP 452-200 SWC with the almost square front band. The front band and half the rear had been engraved by the rifling from the primer force. I tapped the bullet out of the throat easily and discovered to my surprise that the little tails from the land engraves trailed off BOTH FRONT AND BACK of the front band equally. HMMMM I thought. Seems like the gliding force of the lands would drag the metal to the back side of the driving band...but not so. The alloy was displaced as if by a cannelure swage tool. What does this have to do with longitudinal bearing surfaces? What someone THINKS is happening might not exactly be so.

 

[Rick]

I looked at that picture for 5 minutes trying to think of a good reason for that and I came up with one. Not a good reason but a reason.

It's a sales gimmick.

>

 

[RicinYakima]

Herter's was nothing if not about salesmanship! I knew a big fan of Herters' stuff that actually shot that and the "Wasp Waist" bullets (another story). They leaded the forcing cone badly unless the front exposed part was made as short as possible in his Ruger SBH. But that was an issue with all half jackets I think. IIRC, they shot just fine, but were more expensive than cast, so he never bought anymore of them.

 

[KHornet]

Shot a few of the Herters Wasp Waist bullets in 06. They needed a long neck to function. Shot OK, but nothing worth noting.

 

[Brad]

Ric is right. Salesmanship. Heaters didn't mention that they had good success because they used only the finest lead. The moulds were also the finest ever made and no person could possibly replicate the results by casting at home.

 

[358156 hp]

I would expect the slug to skid like crazy while trying to engage the rifling. It seems to me that the longitudinal grooves wouldn't engage the rifling anywhere near as efficiently as lateral grooves would, especially a heavy, full caliber front driving band which I seem to recall was a point of contention here some time in the past (apologies offered).

 

[fiver]

IMO it was done for the swage dies integrity.
longitudal lubing grooves my little pony.
fill those grooves with lube and shoot some... see what happens.
or don't see what happens as would be the case, the cloud of smoke would be horrendous.

now if you used the 444 case, a wad, and straight rifling you could really write up a sales pitch.

 

[Brad]

Bet those grooves reduce pressure a bit. Far less bore contact. Looks a bunch like a shotgun slug to me.
I wouldn't shoots those in a handgun by choice. The nose is gonna skid really badly.

 

[358156 hp]

And be the mother of all lube purges.

 

[Pistolero]

Ric has it.

Herter's was ALL about sales gimmicks. Anyone else remember the sonic wasp-waisted
bullets for rifles?

I presume that the wasp waisted fuselage on the F102 was the basis. Original F-102 prototype
had normal fuselage, it would not pass through the Mach. One of the young aerodynamics
guys said it should have a smaller fuselage cross section in the middle. The modified the fuselage,
and it easily went supersonic....

However, the aerodynamics "area rule" was that where the wings were, you had to reduce the
fuselage cross section so that the overall cross sectional area was constant along the fuselage.

So, this 'wasp waisted" idea did not apply to a bullet since there were no wings to have
to compensate for but that didn't stop Herter's from marketing
it as "the latest supersonic aerodynamic technology" or something like that.

Bill

 

[KHornet]

However, it was fun reading thru the Herters catalog. Some of the stuff worked great (still have some Herters ctg boxes) and other stuff was crap with a capital C. Still have one of the catalog and his reloading manual, and his turkey calling record, and------a few other things.

 

[Pistolero]

Oh, yes. I LOVED reading the Herter's catalog when I was in 9th and 10th grades, so many wonderful
products, and all of them the best possible...... which was kinda true in a lot of cases. Not really slamming
Herters, but they sure were silver tongued devils.

Bill

 

[JonB]

I wonder what Lube ole' George stuffed into those longitudinal lube grooves...as I assume he sold them lubed ?
NRA 50/50 (BW/Alox), maybe?

 

[fiver]

was there anything ever called perfect lube?
the description alone would be worth reading.
I'd imagine it would have more ingredients than one of my or Ian's HOMO-lubes just to be able to do what the description would say it could do.
probably covered any condition from the sun side of mercury to the far side of Pluto and probably further but the testing was halted due to losing the satellite's image.
I'd imagine it erased the need for gas checks and increased velocity by 200 fps but was non marring nor greasy to the touch.
good for your hair too.

 

[RicinYakima]

The ones we shot had no lube; why would you need that for jacketed bullets? It scraps everything thing out after every shot remember?

 

[9.3X62AL]

Herter's catalogs......fond memories every time I open the fly-tying box to wrap some trout foolers or bonito busters, because close to half of the box's contents came from Herter's almost 50 years ago. In my early teens I was pretty susceptible to the slick hyperbole printed in those catalogs, and in retrospect I can't say that GLH was fraudulent--optimistic in the extreme--surely. Proud of what he sold--overly so. Now, this longitudinal lube groove idea.......I'll pass.