Dave, What does your ballistic wizardery say is the optimum bullet for a .338 that ends in a 17.5 inch twist? Thanks in advance. 

Bob,
Here are a few designs and the stability rates for 17.5 twist rate.

1.5 is fully stable, 1.4 is usually ok, it may tip a little, sometimes.

Thanks, I never thought about putting in the Pope style Hoch bullet I am shooting.
I guessed the gain twist ended at 17.5.  That is the same as Ron came up with using a cleaning rod at Spokane one year. If he had it at the shop, it would be easy to know for sure, but…..

I shoot it at about 1425 to 1450, but it has been years since it was shot over a chronograph. 

It weighs 213.9 average cast 20:1 the last batch I weighed when we were talking about pot and mold temp controls last spring. 

The OAL is .996” and bands take up .717” of that. 

Base band is .345 with my calipers.
Next .342
.340
.338
.337
.337
.335
The meplat is about .203" the way I measure eyeballing the caliper.

A Schoyen mold came with it that was smaller diameter.  I haven’t cast any for years. It did not shoot very well breech seated.  I used it for muzzle loading. The Hoch is too big to ML. 

BTW Dave, I haven't shot enough to wear one out either. Not sure who wore it out, but Harry fixed it in 1903 

Bob,
Are you having tipping problems, with your Hoch bullet?

Are you considering shorting the Hoch?

Is this 17.5 twist rifle, your Pope that you've always had?

Frank

Ken,
As I've shown in my post, the shape of the nose, can make a big difference. The Miller formula, is based on a very short nose. Somewhere between 2 calibers and a wad cutter, by my comparisons to the Goeffery-Kolbe program that I use.

If you can give me the nose length, from the point that the ogive starts, to the tip of the bullet and the diameter of the meplat, I can give you a corrected SG. 

The spitzer ogive, moves the CG rearward and decreases the twist rate needed to stabilize the bullet. 

Frank

This is the bullet. Brooks didn't make it as I designed it. It was to small on the front bands and the meplat was to large.

I only shot it a few times as my cylindrical (no taper) bullet out shot it but, it shot fairly well w/o tipping. The I shot this target at Modesto, while Barry Darr, chronoed it on his M43. The grid is 1/4", it's a .60 group, as I remember @ 100 yd. I didn't watch conditions and shot as fast as I could, as I had several more bullets to test that day.

Frank

Could just be the picture but I do see tipping on Franks target and a bit of tip often times does seem to shoot the best BobZ. Often times the backer being used will make a bullet appear to be tipping. Cloroplast is known for that as is a backer with allot of pre-existing holes or one that is not plumb.