The Beauty of Solid Bullets
When it comes to creating the perfect, streamlined bullet form, solid projectiles represent the ultimate in bullet construction. Made of solid metals such as bronze and copper-nickel alloys, these bullets are lathe-turned for perfect uniformity, and the highest possible Ballistic Coefficient.
Lost River Ballistic Technologies was one of the pioneers of solid, lathe-turned projectiles in the USA. The original .408 Chey-Tac ammunition used bullets produced by Lost River on Swiss-type CNC lathes from solid bars of proprietary copper nickel alloy. Lost River’s bullets are hard to find today, but reader DesertLefty recently offered some for sale in our Forum Classifieds. We just thought you’d like to get a look at these slippery beauties. Shown below, for comparison purposes, are 6mm and 6.5mm Lost River projectiles, along with two conventional bullets. From left to right: 6.5mm 139 gr Lapua Scenar, 6.5mm 132 gr Lost River J40, 6mm 100 gr Lost River J40, and 6mm 115 gr DTAC.
DesertLefty notes: “You will need a very fast twist barrel to stabilize these. The manufacturer’s web site is no longer working, but I think the recommended twist was 1-7 and the BCs were about 0.7 for the 6.5mm and 0.6x for the 6mm.”
If you are intrigued by the ballistic performance of lathe-turned solids, check out the website of Germany’s Lutz Möller. Lutz has produced a series of ultra-high BC bullets, both solids and conventionally jacketed projectiles. His 105-LM bullet for the .338 Lapua won the 2005 Lapua Sniper Cup. The circular driving bands you see are a distinctive feature of Möller’s bullets. The bands reduce drag in ultra-long bullets by effectively reducing the bearing surface in contact with the rifling. This 105-LM bullet has an amazing BC of 0.93. Lutz also has a .408 Chey-Tac bullet with a 0.95 calculated BC!
LM-105 photos © copyright Lutz Möller, All Rights Reserved.
Lutz Moller’s bullets look a lot like Gerard Shultz bullets of South Africa!!
See the real original design here http://www.gscustom.co.za
Dear 6mm BR,
For the record, we wish to state the following facts.
1. GS Custom originally designed and produced these distinctive drive band bullets in 1997. The drive band concept was patented by us in 1997 in South Africa.
2. Mr. Moeller corresponded with us at GS Custom during 2002 and 2003 and this lead to him visiting us in the hunting season of July 2003, with a view to distribute GSC product in Europe.
3. Upon his return to Germany, he lodged a German design registration on the drive band concept and started producing drive band bullets himself.
4. The first LM 105 bullets were in fact manufactured and tested by us in South Africa in 2003.
5. This is the bullet depicted in the top picture. The bullets in the bottom picture show the modified design GS Custom developed in 2005. It is possible that Mr. Moeller developed a similar looking version on his own.
6. We have further developed the bullet early this year to increase accuracy and barrel life over the 2005 design depicted above.
GS Custom currently have a range of 226 different bullets for tactical, hunting and sport shooting of which 172 are drive band bullets. We have been manufacturing bullets since 1983.
Sincerely,
G Schultz
http://www.gscustom.co.za
This is a blatant copy of the GS Custom bullet – would love to know how many patents he has infringed. Nothing but a poor imitation of the original GS bullets – which have already improved upon.
Would this be the same GS Bullet Company that has taken orders and money and has not delivered to many, many US based customers? No doubt a company with those credentials should not, could not be questioned for what to anyone else would be fraud… Does taking money and forgetting about shipping the product have different reprecussions in South Africa than it does in the United States? GS Custom Bullets has developed one hell of a reputation over here and it has NOTHING to do with their performance. It has EVERTHING to do with fraudulent business transactions…
Matt,
I invite anyone who has ordered bullets from us and paid for the order, and who has not received the order, to contact us so that we can establish the facts of what happened and make it right.
If you know of such a person or persons, please ask them to contact us.
We do not have a single outstanding order that we know of. Every person who has paid for an order has had that order shipped.
Until you, or any person who claims to have paid and not received an order can deliver the facts, your statement is unfounded rumour. You would be well advised to check your facts before furthering such a rumour.
Sincerely,
Gerard Schultz
gscustom@wol.co.za
+27 84 338 3006
http://www.gscustom.co.za
Three months later and we have not been contacted by anyone who has not received his order and no further facts were revealed by Matt Garrtt.
I guess it can be safely assumed that there is no factual basis for the statements made and that they can be relegated to malicious rumor status.
Mr. Schultz, welcome to the wonderful world wide web.
Excuse me, but…
1) Driving bands are not “new” technology – artillery rounds have been using them for many, many decades before GS.
2) Lutz Moeller’s bullets have such amazingly high ballistic coefficients because of the shape of the bullet, not because of the driving bands.
3) The author (and many of the responses) have no clear understanding about what they are talking about: jumping from discussions of “barrel drag” to BC. Sorry these are not even remotely related.
If GS bullets are superior then they should enter into competition with Lutz Moeller and beat his products.
Whoops! I guess aerodynamics of bullets (BC) is driven more by the geometry of the bullet than b driving bands. Not to say that what happens in the .75 meters of barrel, has less impact on exterior ballistics than what happens over the next 1,000-1,500 meters!
If GS has actually has the patent on this technology, then they should sue.
Otherwise, this is all sour grapes pissing by GS.
As an Aero Engineer this is all BS. The leading edge and trailing edge of each groove or band creates a shock wave because of its supersonic speed. Each shock wave creates a huge amount of drag. Orders of magnitude more drag than the supposed friction reduction. If you add 4 grooves you add 8 shock waves to a boatail bullet that had 4 shock waves. So now it has 12. So roughly 3 times the drag.