Accuracy affected by gas check coming off in flight

[ghh3rd]

I've been wondering if accuracy is compromised when a gas check comes off during flight. Any ideas?

[Doc Highwall]

YES!YES!YES! because they will never come off at the same distance or same way.

[Bret4207]

Common sense says yes. I have never had one fall off that I know of, but I've had some strange fliers that were unexplainable. Never occurred to me it could have been the GC at the time. I have used lots of "snap fit" or even looser checks through the years trying to get undersized boolits large enough to fit by avoiding sizing. I think it's probably happened and probably is at least not not helping accuracy.

[44man]

I like tight checks and will lap a mold to get a tight fit. I have a pile of recovered boolits on the bench that went through 14"-16" of hardwood and the checks are still on them. Lead has even been wiped down over the checks and chunks of wood is welded to the boolits.
Now the bad thing is that some are store bought loads and lube is too hard, some is missing around the GG.

[dubber123]

I have a Savage 219 in 30-30 I bought for a dedicated boolit shooter. I have a short 50 yard range set up, and it will typically put 4 in .3" to .4", always with a flyer that makes it around 3/4". I could never get a true 5 shot group. I was puzzled until walking down to the target one day, and I found no less than 3 gas checks in the grass.... I had been using a box of the old Lyman gas checks, ('cuz they were free). I later read Lyman made slip on checks, and it looks like I got some. I will be re-testing with fresh checks, but I'm convinced that was my problem.

[Gee_Wizz01]

I have also wondered about gas checks coming off in flight. Back in the 1971 when I started casting an old timer told me it didn't hurt accuracy when the gas checks came off in flight. Judging from the groups he shot with his old Win single shot, it didn't matter. I remember the gas checks on the ground about 5 yds from the bench. Until recently I have never shot anything but crimp on checks and my experience has been similar to 44man's as we use oak logs for our back stop. I have a pile of bullets that have penetrated oak logs and still have gas checks in place. Recently I used some AL free chex in my 44 mag Rossi Puma and my accuracy was mediocre at 30yds. I had a pile of gas checks about 5yds from the muzzle. These gas checks fit loosely on the shanks. I increased the the thickness of the checks and they stayed on during flight and accuracy improved. I am still not sure if the problem was caused by the gas checks coming off or the checks weren't quite thick enough. It does seem like checks coming off would disrupt the air flow over the boolit base and adversely affect accuracy. But then I think about the old timers 32-40 and his tiny little groups at 100yds.

G

[GLynn41]

a dab of crazy glue will stick them on until impact normally -- for hunting I use .416 on .41s and glue on normally and sometimes hunting-- the check coming off can hurt a chrono-they are as fast as that bullet even if they are light-- just for info when the sabot comes an M1 120 mm round it is dangerous to over 1000 meters