[emcon5]

Keep in mind when reading this that a higher BC bullet will not make you a better long range shooter, or help you better read the wind. What it will do is lessen the consequences caused by reading the wind (and compensating with hold or a sight adjustment) wrong.

What about the bullet? I know that a higher BC is better, but…
Long and heavy or light and short?
HP or FMJ?
BT or not?

Generally speaking, long and heavy will have a higher BC than short and light, and a boat tail will have a higher BC than a flat base.

For LR shooting, what you are after is consistency, and for that you want match bullets, almost always hollow point boat tail (although my personal favorite has a polymer point in the boat tail).

Velocity?
Logic suggests, to me at least, that faster is better.
But is this the case, and if so, is there a point where speed becomes counter productive?

Logic is often mistaken.

BC effects velocity retention as well as wind resistance, and the difference in flight time to the target is negligible. Running some numbers, for my rifle at my home range:

6.5-06,
.264 140AMAX @ 2818 FPS, 4400ft alt, BC .550

Velocity @ 300 2394fps 1.5MOA of drift per 10mph of Full Value wind, .34 sec flight time
Velocity @ 500 2130fps 2.5MOA/10mph F/V wind .61 sec flight time
Velocity @ 1000 1551fps 6.3MOA/10mph F/V wind 1.43 sec flight time
Subsonic @ 1575 yards

.264 95gr VMAX @ 3400FPS 4400ft alt, BC .365

Velocity @ 300 2692fps 1.9MOA/10mph F/V wind .29sec flight time
Velocity @ 500 2273fps 3.4MOA/10mph F/V wind .54sec flight time
Velocity @ 1000 1412fps 8.4MOA/10mph F/V wind, 1.38sec flight time
Subsonic @ 1300 yards

The 140 load is my actual numbers for my long range rig. I have found them to be remarkably(surprisingly?) accurate.

The flight time difference to a 500 yard target is a whopping .07 of a second, and to 1000 is even less, .05 sec, as the 140 grain bullet is going faster at that point. The velocity is equal at about 725 yards. From that point on, the 140 grain bullet, that started 600 FPS slower, is traveling faster.

If the logic theory is correct, the lighter faster bullet should have less wind when it is traveling faster, but even then it comes up short, with about 26% more wind at 300 yards, and 36% more windage at 500, even though it is still traveling as much as 300 FPS faster.

In fact, if you set the table steps to 25 yards, you will see the lighter bullet has more windage from as close as 50 yards.

For a more extreme example, lets look at 20 gr .172 VMAX from a 17 Remington, fired at 4300 FPS, and compare it to the same 6.5 140 AMAX above, but fired from a 6.5X50 Japanese at a relatively light loaded 2150 FPS.

Even though the little bullet has twice the muzzle velocity of the big one, it is only equal in the wind for 50 yards, with .4 MOA drift in a full value 10 MPH Wind. By the time it gets to 75 yards, the .17 is already up to .7 MOA drift, where the 6.5 is only .5 MOA.

The .17 also sheds about 500 FPS between the muzzle and 100 yards, the 6.5 loses only ~130FPS.

Again, this is an extreme example, the .264 140GR AMAX is a really good bullet ballisticly (BC .550), and the .17 is about as bad as a bullet gets with a BC of only .185, but it does show that now matter how fast you push it, velocity won't make up for crappy ballistics.