Bullets Fragmenting?

[mugsie]

OK - since I'm an old hand at casting, having produced a total of 60 good bullets and only fired three of them (didn't have enough brass - but that's another story altogether!) I have a quesiton.

This weekend I went to the range to fire off some 44 mag which had laser cast 250 SWC's in them (I needed the brass, but that's another story altogether!) and took three of my latest castings - Lyman 245g SWC made out of WW plus 2% tin. I had loaded these under 9.8g of Unique. When I fired them one appeared to hit the target along with a small piece of debris. When I checked the target, sure enough there was a very tiny hole where a piece of fragment went through the paper.

Granted it's only three (this weekend I'll try more like 100 or so) but has anyone ever had a problem with a bullet from WW's fragmenting? Lube was Lymans Super Moly the black stuff.

Thanks guys.....

[felix]

Not enough info to determine that a pattern exists. Need to shoot a bunch of the same load to solidify an answer that would be satisfactory and half way correct. 25 yards? ... felix

[357maximum]

Need more info, was a gas check invoved?, distance? Likely if you were close to the target it is hard lube related, either a chunk was still disembarking the boolit or you had lube on the base and a powder cake was stuck to it and came off....could have been a chunk of lead from seating also...........need more specifics

[Pepe Ray]

Another option?
Could it be that your target was attached close enough to something that you got some back splatter?
Pepe Ray

[44man]

Hard lube does not distribute itself from centrifugal force or spin off evenly. It comes off the boolits in chunks and what is left on the boolit throws them off center. I would also blame a chunk of the hard lube they use on those boolits.
I would bet if you scrape out the hard lube and put a better one on the boolits that accuracy will get better.

[JIMinPHX]

Sometimes when I’ve been a little careless casting, I’ve gotten flanges on the base of my boolits. Depending on how you then run that boolit through your sizing die, you might get a little piece of that flange folding back into the heal of the boolit. That little flake that folded back can separate in flight & give you a small piece of shrapnel that hits the target near the boolit. I’m a little more careful with my casting practices now.

My second guess would be what Pepe said. Depending on what type of backstop you were using, a fragment may have bounced back through the target from the rear. You need to look at the paper to see which direction it looks like the hole was made from.

If it was a chunk of Moly lube that hit the paper, you would have seen a black mark & there would be little doubt in your mind as to what your fragment was made of.