>>>
That means the SMK's are more tolerant of a jump to the lands while giving superb accuracy, and thus can be loaded to magazine length and shoot very well.
>>>

How about just secant vs tangent, same thing with JLK VLD's, great bullets but you shoot VLD's in a Service Rifle and you're bummed. I find the Nosler 168 308's shoot pretty much the same as SMK 168's in 308 bolt guns, but I use the 175 SMK's in my 3006 Garands for High Power.

I'm not hardly good enough to shoot up to my rifles and ammo, so it doesn't really matter to me, but VLD's are rare where I shoot matches. The guy that owns JLK now did win the '07 Missouri State shoot with his 308 Garand, but I recall that was a Wilson barrel so probably a better chamber for VLD's than USGI.

I wonder how much of the perceived difference in 308 bullets is comparing 175 Bergers/VLD's to 168 tangent. Tom Luhmann built my match Garands, and he commented back about 06 that the only reason Sierra still made 168's is that people would buy them - the 175's were the only way to go. Given Sierra has introduced new 155's and 135's recently, they obviously don't feel the 168 is as good as they can do.

Shucks, I like the flat base 53 gr 223's, what do I know!?!? I do have some homework on JLK VLD's in 175/308 and 75/223 sitting in boxes but those are just OCW series to run, I'm not at the seating depth stage yet.

Regards,
Brian in CA