HB-9 updated text (PDF) - Corbin Bullet Swaging

a 3/4-E (elliptical ogive with a length of 0.75 times the caliber) handgun
bullet is inherently no less accurate than the regular 9 or 10 degree truncated
conical bullet (truncated means cut off, and the TC is a spire shape
with the end cut off, usually at about 40% of the caliber). Whichever you
like best and feeds best in your gun is the one to use.
A common request is for dies to make a bullet with some arbitrary BC
number, usually higher than anything else on the market from mass producers.
But this is a little like spending all your money on a great set of
magnesium wheels for your car, so you have nothing left for the engine or
body work. Lots of teenagers did that when I was of that age. Today I
hear the thumping of huge, overpowered speakers from expensive stereos
coming from cars that could use a paint job and a tune-up, usually
with the same genre of fuzzy-minded youthful driver who spent his burgerflipping
paycheck for “cool mags” back in the ‘fifties.
Putting all your attention on the ballistic coefficient and ignoring most
of the other factors is very little different. The real goal is usually to hit
the target at long range with greater reliability. Confusing the real goal
with some narrow part of the total package that will get you there is a
problem created by the myth that somehow, an arbitrary BC number
bigger than anything available currently means the bullet will be more
accurate.
Sorry, but the BC is only a relative measure of inverse air resistance
compared to some standard bullet, such as the one-inch artillery projectile
that has been considered a 1.0 on the BC scale for decades. The BC
means nothing by itself. You must also know the standard against which
it is compared, and advertising sometimes plays on this fact to overstate
the comparison or ratio by subtle use of a different standard projectile.
For example, I could easily publish BC numbers of 2.50 or 3.59 or
anything else I wanted, whereas most BC numbers are less than 1.0. How?
By noting in the fine print, which no one reads, that the standard projectile
used for comparison is a five grain wad of newspaper chewed to a
soggy consistency and fired from a pursed pair of lips (yes, a spitball).
More subtle yet, I could simply assume that everyone “knew” I was using
a conventional 6-S 168 grain spitzer flat base bullet as my “standard”, and
then publish comparison BC numbers relating the bullets I was attempting
to market to this standard.
Not drawing any particular attention to the standard just reinforces
the myth that BC has some independent value as a figure of merit. It is in
fact a ratio, so it requires two items for comparison and has no meaning
otherwise. Stating the BC alone is like saying the odds of the Atlanta
Braves winning the next game against the Giants is “3”. But three compared
to what? You might assume 3 to 1. Maybe the Giants fan meant 3 to
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