RN vs FN

[Geoff of WA]

What's the functional difference between Round Nose and Flat Nose bullets?

[creophus]

Depending upon the firearm you may experience different results in feeding.

Flat nose bullets often make a nice clean hole in paper targets and are prefered in some applications because of that.

A nice big meplat causes more tissue damage.

Round nose bullets will have a longer range all things being equal.

[BoltNut]

Crap...you fooled me with "RN"... :-/

[lcarreau]

What Creo said. FN can be pretty satisfying for range work. I am not aware of any other practical benefit.

-Lonnie

[gokyo]

I think with a FN you can get a heavier bullet with the same LOA.

[mbradst]

BN was on the right track, RN's are pretty cool.

[Glooooock]

What's the functional difference between Round Nose and Flat Nose bullets?

Flat nose slugs cut clean holes in paper , you get more contact area to the rifling with certain weights / calibers .

[BoltNut]

Would there be more lead fouling if the bullet is in the groove more?

[Rollis]

Seams to me most fouling would be a case of pressure, and, hardness, rather than length of time.

[nitesite]

You'll hardly ever see RN in the .40/10mm bullet.

I think it's because the .40 was developed to fit in 9mm-framed guns that have shorter magazines than the 10mm or .45Auto frames.

So to allow the .40S&W round to fit in a 9mm-length magazine it had to be a FN.

I guess you could have a round nose .40-cal bullet in a 9mm frame, but it then would have to be a .40GAP. :)