Boomer,
That's exactly what motivated me - my engineering. Although it's been several years since I applied the level of math that goes with a lot of BC calculations, thankfully there are plug and play programs and apps.
With the purchase of a LabRadar I realized I had the ability to generate a variety of velocities and the light bulb flashed. I could calculate BC's
In my experiences, I have found the BC's that I calculate for large slow moving bullets (subsonic or transonic by 200 yards or less) didn't have as much effect as I was thinking (or hoping). My calculated dope for these bullets were often skewed and things didn't happened as expected. There's a couple of articles that mention multiple BC's for this sample...? so I tried their suggestions and my dope came a lot closer to actual results. Add wind, density altitude, differences in lube, black powder variations, twist rates, barrel lengths, iron sights, the loose nut behind the trigger, and there's considerable more variables than a modern scoped rifle shooting a copper jacketed bullet.
Unlike a high velocity round, (take my 6.5 VomHofe for example) - I get velocities, plug it into my program, get my settings, with small corrections for density altitude and viola` the bullet goes exactly where my dope says it will...
I did similar experiments with 22rf and used the RA4 BC and out to 400 yards, my dope was right on... plugged data into my programs and the surprise I wasn't expecting- within less than a minute.
Aussie,
It only my opinion, but the reason they don't publish BC's with every mold, the resources to calculate BC's has just recently become available at a reasonable cost. The jacketed bullet mfg. needed to offer this to be in the race, but they sell a product, lots of the same product. The mold maker, he sells a mold - does he make any money after that from that product, no. Why invest more $$ in something he won't see any return on... We may begin to see more info in the future but even for most, the outlay of $600 or $700 dollars for an instrument that is going to give a tidbit of info that still raises a question - not necessarily a great investment.
My 2¢ (more like 4 bits worth of opinion)
Greg