hundreds of recovered bullets

[Lloyd Smale]

all winter I test shoot into a snow bank off my front porch. In the spring I can pick up bullets and see if they have expanded ect. Well ive been picking them up daily here and ran into something. I know many have asked if you can pc a gas checked bullet and leave the check off. I did a bunch of 130 rfgc 9mms with smokes brown. Did some with checks installed and some with no checks. they were all fired through my 4.5 inch ar15 in 9mm. When I picked up the bullets I noticed that the gas checked ones looked fine. Still had some color in the rifling groves but the ones I left the checks of looked like bare lead right up to the nose of the bullet that doesn't touch the rifling. These were all done at the same time, same alloy and went through the same sizer, and pc'ed together. All I can figure is without the check I'm getting a lot of gas cutting of the bullet. Every one I picked up that wasn't gas checked look like this. Barrel didnt lead after shooting 60 of them through the gun. I did check that right after I shot them. So apparently its still working good enough to not lead. At least not noticeably. Also found my 130 hp expands nicely with a mix of 1/4 ww 3/4s pure but the 147s didnt expand at all. Both were loaded with top end book loads and cast out of the same alloy. So the 147s must not be running fast enough out of that short barrel to expand. Same size hp cavity in both. Now my 200 grain hp 45acps looked like the picture pefect expanded mushroom cast out of that alloy and shot with 7 grains of unique.

[kbstenberg]

Very interesting

[ChuckO]

The ones without the gas check, were they from the same mold and designed for the gas check? That reduced diameter section might be a starting place for gas cutting. Would be interesting to see if a plain based bullet shows the same results.

[Lloyd Smale]

yup out of the same mold cast at the same time, coated at the same time. I gas checked some and left the gas check off some. Gas checked ones looked fine but the ones without checks had all the pc gone except on the nose. All were shot at the same time and loaded with 4.7 grains of aa2. All were cast out recovered lead that tested 12 bhn.

[redhawk0]

Did you GC after PC...or before? Just curious.

redhawk

[Walter Laich]

I agree that if you shoot a GC bullet without the GC on it there would be gas cutting of the base PC or no PC.

PC is not a substitute for a GC.

[Willbird]

I noticed that the gas checked ones looked fine. Still had some color in the rifling groves but the ones I left the checks of looked like bare lead right up to the nose of the bullet that doesn't touch the rifling.

I cannot imagine gas cutting that removed every bit of PC from the bullet including the nose ? Were you firing them through a supressor ??

A picture might be worth 2,000 words .

Maybe the muzzle blast in the blast chamber of the can (if you are using one) is removing the PC ??

Bill

[jdfoxinc]

The nose was still coated.

[firefly1957]

I have noticed snow taking coating off bullets but never had snow expand a bullet unless ice or gravel was hit ?
I do not get the snow you get so shoot into snow bank from the snow thrower along driveway .
I also found some slow (800 f/s) 30 caliber 170 grain bullets seemed to go further in snow then full velocity ones (2040 f/s).

[Lloyd Smale]

Its about a 6 foot tall snow bank where snow is blown all winter long.

I have noticed snow taking coating off bullets but never had snow expand a bullet unless ice or gravel was hit ?
I do not get the snow you get so shoot into snow bank from the snow thrower along driveway .
I also found some slow (800 f/s) 30 caliber 170 grain bullets seemed to go further in snow then full velocity ones (2040 f/s).

[Lloyd Smale]

I have noticed snow taking coating off bullets but never had snow expand a bullet unless ice or gravel was hit ?
I do not get the snow you get so shoot into snow bank from the snow thrower along driveway .
I also found some slow (800 f/s) 30 caliber 170 grain bullets seemed to go further in snow then full velocity ones (2040 f/s).

if it was the snow that scraping off the coating id think the nose would be the first place youd see it. Noses on these bullets were still coated.

[Lloyd Smale]

I cannot imagine gas cutting that removed every bit of PC from the bullet including the nose ? Were you firing them through a supressor ??

A picture might be worth 2,000 words .

Maybe the muzzle blast in the blast chamber of the can (if you are using one) is removing the PC ??

Bill

no can with these. Had some I did use a can with some plain base and gas checked bullets (not the ones that were gas checked designed not checked) and they were just fine.

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

Ok so you recovered more than the two gc bullet styles with & without check. You also recovered plain-based coated boolits that were fine (meaning the coating was intact on the groove-land riding surface.

Therefor the conclusion is gc-designed boolits need gc's no matter what. Plain based boolits are good to go.

[fingers284]

Ok so you recovered more than the two gc bullet styles with & without check. You also recovered plain-based coated boolits that were fine (meaning the coating was intact on the groove-land riding surface.

Therefor the conclusion is gc-designed boolits need gc's no matter what. Plain based boolits are good to go.

The part of the equation your forgetting with that statement is his stated fact that these slugs didn't lead the barrel so the PC was obviously doing its job even without GC. My own testing (30-30 & 38-55) with GC based boolits shot without a GC pretty much agrees with Lloyds observations of no barrel leading. I haven't recovered any bullets in that configuration so cant comment on weather they have any PC left on the riding bands.

One thing I did notice that Lloyd doesn't touch on is that I get the same accuracy with or without a GC on a GC shanked PC'd slug.

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

Fingers,

Very well. Good point.

[Lloyd Smale]

that's the conclusion I came away with. that said the gas cut bullets that lacked checks didn't seem to lead my gun and I did a couple 30 round mag dumps with them so if they were going to lead id think I would have saw some starting.

Ok so you recovered more than the two gc bullet styles with & without check. You also recovered plain-based coated boolits that were fine (meaning the coating was intact on the groove-land riding surface.

Therefor the conclusion is gc-designed boolits need gc's no matter what. Plain based boolits are good to go.

[Lloyd Smale]

that's correct. I haven't got around to testing yet but my thoughts are why fool with it. Ive got gas checked and plain base molds for every gun I have so if I don't want to use a check why not just use a plain base mold to start with. Now I will add to that that ive tested in the past conventionaly lubed gas checked bullets with and without checks installed and rarely did I not get better accuracy using the same alloys with the check installed. Some gas checked bullets sans the check gave downright miserable results and in all my testing ive never seen even once where they shot better without checks. So if checks aren't in your budget I question why a guy would even buy a gas checked mold. .

The part of the equation your forgetting with that statement is his stated fact that these slugs didn't lead the barrel so the PC was obviously doing its job even without GC. My own testing (30-30 & 38-55) with GC based boolits shot without a GC pretty much agrees with Lloyds observations of no barrel leading. I haven't recovered any bullets in that configuration so cant comment on weather they have any PC left on the riding bands.

One thing I did notice that Lloyd doesn't touch on is that I get the same accuracy with or without a GC on a GC shanked PC'd slug.