Bullet Fragmenting ?

[wv109323]

I have a 360-158-SWC mold that I can not get to perform to my least expectations. The firearm is a S&W model 14-6. Bullets are sized and loaded on Star equipment. Testing was with a Ransom Rest.
I have two other .358 molds that I can get acceptable results from. One is the RCBS 358-158 RN and a NEI 358-158 SWC. Everything is exactly the same except for the mold.
I have pulled my hair out for 2 years over this mold. Over the weekend I Ransom Rested some rounds. All loads were exactly the same except the bullet. I started with the RN bullet. I got the group centered on my backer(with three shots). I then shot the three remaining rounds into a three shot group of 1 3/8". I then shot 10 rounds of the "bad" bullet. Two of the ten rounds were not on a 21 X 24" backer. The remaining 8 were measured at 15 7/8". I then went back to the RN bullet and fired a 6 shot group of 2 1/4".
On Monday I water trapped some bullets. I threw a bucket into a four foot hole of water with a rope attached. There was a couple of rocks in the bottom to sink the plastic bucket to the bottom. I could fire almost directly down into the bucket.
I captured four of the bad bullets and seven of the round nose bullets. Two of the four bad bullets had tremendous deformation. The deformation is on the side of the bullet and the nose appears to not have come into contact with anything. None of the seven round nose bullets had any unexplained deformation.(some struck the rocks in the bucket).
Much to my disbelief the four bad bullets weighed within + or - 2 grains of each other.153616153617153618153619. I will attempt to attach pictures. Pic. 1 As cast,Deformed,Deformed,bullet, RN, Pic.2 close-up Pic.3 Nose of bullets shows no impact, Pic 4 Same as 1
What is my problem? Are these bullets being sheared off as they enter the barrel? Revolver out of time? Comments?

[Rooster]

I love a puzzle!

It looks like a temp/alloy issue, are these linotype? But it doesn't happen with other molds as you've stated everything else but the mold is the same. Hmm.

Geometry of the mold?

[country gent]

What does the deformation on the side of the bullet look to be? Impact with the water rocks or possibly gas cutting, stripping in the rifling, damage from seating crimping, or forcing cone deformaton. Load a couple and pull them see if there is damage showing before being fired. Try a few thru the throats in the revolver to see how they fit. Have you slugged the cylinder throats and barrel. Another question, are there fliers opening the group or just large groups? If fliers are from the same chamber in the cylinder? Is there more leading present from this bullet that the others?

[wv109323]

It looks like a fracture. I first thought the side of the bullet sheared off,but the bullets weigh the same.I am now thinking that the square shoulder of the bullet is hitting the barrel like the cylinder is out of time. Why just the one mold? There was one round nose bullet that had a similar pattern on the nose but it is clearly evident that the bullet struck something. That bullet is bent.
The bore was slugged at .3572. The forcing cones in the cylinder are : Qty 1 .3582" Qty 1 .3577, Qty 3 .3572 Qty 1 .3570. These RN bullets were sized at .3577. The bad bullets were sized at .3582. I uped the diameter of the sizing die to be .001 over the bore size. I am going to open the cylinder throats to .3582. I have not done that yet.
The bullets at .3577 were not deformed in the seating operation.
The bad bullets print all over the paper. I don't think one bullet was within 3 inches of another. It can't be just one bad cylinder.In previous groups the bad bullets would keyhole. That was not evident in this last RR session.
There appeared to be very little leading with the bad bullets.
there is no evidence that the bullet was stripping in the rifling.

[44man]

I believe the boolits are just too hard. Where it happens is the mystery but since accuracy is bad, it has to be at the gun. If at the forcing cone you should have a lot of spatter from the gap and severe wear on one side. Put cardboard on each side of the gap and see if you are poking holes in it. It could be a timing issue. To continue will ruin the gun.
You can see if the throats are out of line with the bore. Empty the gun of course and shine a bright light at the gap or recoil shield, look down the bore, you should not see an edge of a throat. Check each chamber.
Look at the cone and see if it is wearing off center. The cone is at the rear of the barrel, throats are not cones. You can wear throats oblong if out of line.
The sheared lead had to go somewhere and my guess is out the gap.

[Hickok]

Just my guess, but looks like the boolits are starting to tumble on impact with the water, and then hitting the grit or rocks at the bottom of the bucket sideways.

I am a little confused about you method, are you shooting straight down into the bucket that is in a 4 foot deep hole of water?

Try getting about 7 or 8 plastic milk jugs, fill them with water ad place them on a flat surface lined up perfectly. Then shoot you cast boolits into the water jugs. Just a "back-up" test to see if you can reproduce the same results.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

snip...
None of the seven round nose bullets had any unexplained deformation.(some struck the rocks in the bucket).

Did the RN boolits that hit the rocks, have a similar texture as the sides of the deformed SWC ?

I agree with Hickok "looks like the boolits are starting to tumble on impact with the water, and then hitting the grit or rocks at the bottom of the bucket sideways."

[Dusty Bannister]

http://www.guns.com/2015/03/03/how-many-water-balloons-does-it-take-to-stop-a-44-magnum-video/

Maybe this will stop your bullet undamaged? Then you will know what you are dealing with.

[Larry Gibson]

What alloy?

Larry Gibson

[popper]

Just hitting on the side of the boolit, note - base is deformed on that side. Tumbling. RN probably doesn't. Evidence is the bad paper shots. NEI 358-158 SWC works OK?

[44man]

It is from the gun. No way every boolit hits rock the same. Should not shatter on one side only.

[wv109323]

Alloy is not Linotype. Alloy is a mixture of COWW and range reclamation from a bullseye pistol range. I took one bullet and lay it on an anvil. Smacked it with a hammer and no " shattering". Smacked it again and ended up with a flat bullet. No loss of any part of the
Yes NEI SWC works OK. The mold has very short handles and your hands get hot around the pot. That is the sole reason to cast with the RCBS mold.
A note on shooting into a bucket. I researched and thought 18" was enough to stop a bullet in water. Not so. I got a bucket to prove it. Second attempt was to go into deeper water. The angle of deflection was not that much. Just shoot into bucket and disregard any deflection for the water.
None of the RN had side damage like these SWC. One RN had similar impact on the nose.
Yes , I was shooing almost vertical down into bucket. I was at a small water fall and I was standing above. I was 10 feet above the bottom of the bucket and the bucket was five feet in front of my feet. Rocks were to stabilize bucket from current flow.
Reflecting back ,I do not remember any impact marks on the rocks in the bucket.
I will check cylinder alignment with light and report back.

[wv109323]

I also have a Ruger BH and a DW revolver. I will sandbag a few rounds through them. I need to load more as I did not load many of these bullets.
I will get a few pictures of the RN bullets and let you comment on them.

[Larry Gibson]

Your COWW and range lead are good on antimony and short on lead. That is evidenced by the grainy structure appearance. I suggest adding 2 % tin and 20% lead. At least add the tin. The lead will lower the antimony %. The 2% tin will mix and balance the antimony forming SbSn. The SbSn will blend into the lead and stay blended reducing the grainy structure making the alloy much more malleable. It will cast better bullets also.

Larry Gibson

[Blammer]

what are the bullets sized to?

check the crown of the barrel.

[Win94ae]

Just my guess, but looks like the boolits are starting to tumble on impact with the water, and then hitting the grit or rocks at the bottom of the bucket sideways.

I am a little confused about you method, are you shooting straight down into the bucket that is in a 4 foot deep hole of water?

Try getting about 7 or 8 plastic milk jugs, fill them with water ad place them on a flat surface lined up perfectly. Then shoot you cast boolits into the water jugs. Just a "back-up" test to see if you can reproduce the same results.

I agree.


I shoot into the cow trough all the time. Some hit the bottom and look just like those two ugly ones, others don't... and none of them were fragmenting.

If your bullets actually were fragmenting, they'd be doing this.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UIuJGz8Qto

[wv109323]

The RN were sized at .3577. Opened up the sizing die to.3582 and sized the SWC. Again the RN give acceptable accuracy,the SWC not even close. The SWC have not shot well regardless of what I have tried. Some of the cylinder throats are too small and I have plans to correct that.
I looked down the bore to see if I could detect a timing issue. I could not see the cylinder out of alignment with the bore.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Maybe check the seating die, if the stem is shaped for RN, maybe it's seating the SWC crooked ?

[Hickok]

On the middle picture, bottom row, the boolit to the right appears to have "grit" or rock imbedded in it. (Blowing up the picture to bigger scale)

Win94, cool video. I never would have thought a boolit would behave that way!

[Larry Gibson]

I agree.


I shoot into the cow trough all the time. Some hit the bottom and look just like those two ugly ones, others don't... and none of them were fragmenting.

If your bullets actually were fragmenting, they'd be doing this.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UIuJGz8Qto

There is an excellent example of the "helical arc" and non-linear group expansion caused by the centrifugal force on the imbalances in the bullet. It is readily apparent, especially in the replay of shots 4 and 6, at these lower velocities because the "wrinkles" in the bullets are excessive and really lower the RPM Threshold for this cartridge/bullet.

Larry Gibson

[44man]

Larry has it! That is the worst ever but hey, good tree trimmers. :bigsmyl2:

[Dusty Bannister]

"There is an excellent example of the "helical arc" and non-linear group expansion caused by the centrifugal force on the imbalances in the bullet. It is readily apparent, especially in the replay of shots 4 and 6, at these lower velocities because the "wrinkles" in the bullets are excessive and really lower the RPM Threshold for this cartridge/bullet."


I think you might be following the wrong rabbit trail. I have the benefit of a few samples of the bullets involved in this issue, and the quality of the sample casting is not an issue. The video was not submitted by the OP so there is nothing to relate the quality of the casting to the issue. If the sides of the bullet were sheared off or flew off for some undetermined reason, why is the bullet lube still mashed into the lube groove. If it was gas cut, there would be streams cut from the sides, and the lube would be melted and blown out of the groove. That is just not showing up on the bullet.

[Larry Gibson]

My comments you quote are not in relevance to the OPs bullets. The comments refer to the bullets used in post #16.

My post #14 references the OPs bullets.

Larry Gibson

[Oklahoma Rebel]

WOW I know about that happening but didn't realize how dramatic it could be, so i guess you can "curve the bullet" lol

[wv109323]

OK, Let's assume the bullets did not fragment and that the sides of the bullets are from striking the rocks in the bucket.(I will admit I have no experience of shooting into water to recover bullets. I did ruin two 5 gal. paint buckets.)
Why will one bullet not even come close to the accuracy of the two others? I have exhausted my knowledge and experience.
The latest results are not one time happenings. I have tried various things for two years and nothing seems to help this bullet.
What would you do next? Enlarge all Cylinder throats to .001 over bore? Ream barrel throat? Sell the mold?
I can not figure out why the two molds are respectable and a nearly identical mold is terrible.

[paul h]

Have you measured the driving bands with a micromoter? If any/all the bands are undersized, it could explain the poor accuracy.

[Dusty Bannister]

Sorry Larry, I must have misunderstood your post and comments of others.

[Larry Gibson]

Not a problem Dusty, happens to us all. It's what I like about this forum; most of us can discuss these things w/o problems:drinks:

Larry Gibson

[44man]

Wrong velocity for twist rate always must be looked at. But I never seen anything like the video.

[Larry Gibson]

wv109323

My initial post was in answer to the bullet fragmentation question. The improved alloy as I suggested should improve and/or correct that.

My apologies for not addressing the accuracy issue. Dusty Bannister makes an excellent point and 44man's last post reinforces it. Dusty is basically saying if 2 bullets work fine and a third doesn't it is not the alloy or the load or the lube etc. ad nauseum. It is either the gun or the bullet but more than likely a combination of both. The S&W M14-6 will have an 18 3/8" twist. Note in your photo of the bullets the SWC inaccurate bullet appears to be considerably longer than the RN accurate bullet, is it? If so then it may mean that at the velocity used that SWC is simply not being stabilized in the slower S&W .35 bore twist. In essence there is nothing wrong with the bullets you cast of that alloy, the mould used to cast them nor the S&W revolver used.

It's simply the wrong choice of bullet. That happens to us all. As an example several years back before the shortage I bought 1K Sierra 55 gr Blitz kings for use in my 12" twist .223 AR. Since 52 - 55 gr bullets have always been just the ticket for that twist of .223 I didn't really check the bullets that closely, just assumed all would be well. Several weeks ago I loaded 100 of those Sierra BKs over my usual favorite .223 gas gun load and went out to zero the rifle. I expected 1 - 1 1/2 moa but got 10 - 15 moa instead. I then shot my standard load with Speer 52 HPs and Hornady 55 gr SXs..both put 10 shots into right at 1 moa. So I naturally figured I had gotten some bad Sierra bullets (foolish me!).

Later at home I as I was pulling the BKs I noticed how long they were with that ballistic plastic tip. They were almost as long as Sierra's 69 gr MKs! I measured the length and ran the figures through a stability program (Applied Ballistics) and lo and behold a 10" or faster twist was needed to stabilize those BKs! I went back to the range with 2 rifles having 9" twists; my Colt Competition AR and my Savage 112 Competition. That same load that gave 10+ moa in the 12" twist now put 10 shots in 1 moa out of the Colt AR and 10 shots into .68" out of the Savage (with Redfield Palma match sights)! Lesson learned.

Bottom line is that bullet probably just isn't going to work with that load in that revolver no matter what you do.

Larry Gibson

[wv109323]

PaulH- The bullets are cast at .360+ and are sized to .3582. The entire side of the bullet is sized to .3582. There are no part of the bullet that goes unsized.
Larry- The round nose is actually longer than the SWC. .703 vs. .677". The flat nose of the SWC makes it the shorter bullet. By comparing the two bullets, the center of gravity of the RN has to be closer to the base of the bullet than the SWC. The SWC has longer driving bands at the front and the lube groove is much deeper and wider than the RN.( IIRC the accuracy of the H&G 68-200gn. SWC is attributed to the rearward CG) The total length of the driving bands are almost identical between the RN and SWC.
You may well be correct that the bullet needs more rotation to be stable. I have tried velocities of 850-875 fps but that did not help. The SWC does have two crimping grooves for different OAL . It may be more intended for the velocity of the .357 Magnum.
I kinda forgot but I have a Contender in .357. I will load some in .357 cases and see what the accuracy is with higher velocities.
Thanks for your help.

[Larry Gibson]

That's the problem with photographs; they can be deceiving. However as you describe the bullet the CG definitely comes into play. Be interesting to see how that SWC does out of the Contender.

Larry Gibson

[Hickok]

WV, could you give us the powder and charge you are loading. Also look real close at the forcing cone and the junction of the barrel and frame, to see if there is any unusual lead spitting in this area, off to one side or the other, to indicate if the cylinder could be out of time. I really don't think this is the problem though. I believe you have a stability problem with the boolit for some reason.

Another check to do. Take an old toothbrush and clean out the notches on the cylinder where the cylinder pawl locks the cylinder. and then check the cylinder pawl/lock where it comes up out of the frame. If either one of these gets gunked up over time with oil/grease and fowling, they can prevent good solid cylinder lock-up.

I cured a Model 27 Smith of shaving boolits simply by cleaning these areas once. The owner allowed a build up powder fouling and quick cleans with WD40 to gunk up the cylinder notches and the cyl. lock. The gun started getting out of time and began shaving lead. A good clean up with a brush solved the problem. Just check yours so as to eliminate the possibility. But I don't think you revolver is at fault.