Very-low-drag Bullet - Development

Development

The development of very-low-drag bullets has focused on the following main factors:

• the production of bullets with concentric and coincident centres of pressure and centres of mass
• bullet nose design incorporating a secant ogive, tangent ogive, Von Kármán ogive or Sears-Haack profile
• the use of carefully tapered bullet heels, or boat-tails
• a cavity or hollow in the bullet nose (hollow point) to shift the projectile's centre of gravity rearwards
• To reduce damage to the employed barrel and increase muzzle velocity, many modern mono-metal very-low-drag bullets are bore-riding bullets, in which thin driving bands are the only parts that are etched by the barrel's lands. The use of driving bands originates from artillery shells and to use these driving bands correctly requires projectiles and barrels to be precision-fitted to each other.

The resulting projectile should be very "slippery" (well streamlined) for easier passage through the air. Consistency in bullet production, allied to consistency in the assembly of cartridges (quality control) should give excellent shot-to-shot consistency.

The principles of bullet design and flight are classically set out in F.W. Mann's The Bullet's Flight From Powder to Target: Ballistics of Small Arms.