Key holes in targets

[JJC]

My friend has a rolling block, sharps and nef buffalo in 45 70. He gets key holes on occasion from a 500 grain boolit in each rifle. He uses BP, sized .459, spg lube and veggie wad. Sometimes all will fly fine but on average two will key out of 50 in each rifle. Sorry I can't offer more info, any thoughts why this happens?[smilie=b:

[zuke]

Tell him to measure a couple un-sized bullet's, load'em as is and try that way.

[JerryW]

Is the twist correct for the 500 gr.? How does it do with lighter ones? JerryW

[NickSS]

Has he measured his bullets? I have a lyman mold that casts them at .457 and I lube with a .459 lube die. If your rifle has a large bore its possible that he gets tumbling. I would slug the bore on his rifles and measure the bullets and see what you got for sure. As it is happening in three rifles I would bet that he is using hard alloy and an undersized bullet for the bores.

[montana_charlie]

As it is happening in three rifles I would bet that he is using hard alloy and an undersized bullet for the bores.
And, if that's true, all three bores may be full of lead.
CM

[mooman76]

Is he using hard or soft bullets? Sometimes softer bullets tend to work better with this cartridge especially with BP.

[August]

I know of no bullet that will go 50 rounds in the 45-70 that carries enough lube to prevent hard fouling from interfering with the bullet.

Clean them gunz after five shots.

[rhbrink]

I know of no bullet that will go 50 rounds in the 45-70 that carries enough lube to prevent hard fouling from interfering with the bullet.

Clean them gunz after five shots.

10-4 on that! I also know someone that has at least 3 different 45-70's all nice rifles but wants to use the same exact load in each one of them and has about the same problems as above with the same results. I can't get it through his head that each rifle has probably a slightly different bore, different groove, throat, chamber, twist and no telling what else. But he happily goes home after each range session and mines lead, pulls stuck boolits and comes back and try's it all over. OH WELL! :takinWiz:

[MtGun44]

Try soft and fat with lots of lube. Hard and small is a guaranteed mess.

Without slugging there is no way to know if .459 is small or not.

Ask him how he selects his shoe size. If he just uses the avg, the "normal" size
he should buy about 9 1/2 or so. Might not fit his feet very well. . . . . . .

Bill

[Don McDowell]

My friend has a rolling block, sharps and nef buffalo in 45 70. He gets key holes on occasion from a 500 grain boolit in each rifle. He uses BP, sized .459, spg lube and veggie wad. Sometimes all will fly fine but on average two will key out of 50 in each rifle. Sorry I can't offer more info, any thoughts why this happens?[smilie=b:


Need to know which bullet and what is he using for fouling control, blowtube or wiping.
Also need to know what distance. The lee 500 3r will do that when the distance gets much past 400 yds, and another bullet that was supposed to be the greatest thing ever to be, will do that everytime at 300 yds.
Also need to know if he's weighing his bullets and what sort of variance he's allowing.

[JJC]

He is knowledgeble on the subject as far as I know and I have asked simmilar questions. I will pass your suggestions along appreciate the time

[montana_charlie]

I know of no bullet that will go 50 rounds in the 45-70 that carries enough lube to prevent hard fouling from interfering with the bullet.
In a deal to get some more Bell brass, I got a bunch of loaded 45/90 ammo from a guy. The agreement was that I would shoot it up, and return the Starline cases while keeping the Bell. There was almost a hundred rounds of each.

The loads had the Paul Jones Creedmoor bullet and the Postell. Again, about half of each...and it was all lubed with SPG.

I invited two neighbors over to help me shoot up as much as we could stand, and they were totally new to BPCR and it's peculiarities.
I started off blowtubing, but that was something they weren't ready to put up with.

The target was a 24-inch gong, so small groups were not to be a factor. Therefore, we just sat back and banged away from 100, 200 and 300 yards.
Between us we did fire more than 50 rounds, and never once did anything in the way of 'fouling control'. We also had no trouble putting bullets on the gong.

We never hit a point where a round was hard to chamber and, after the session, the barrel had only a trace of leading in the bore.

The only thing about that ammunition that I would call 'special' was...it was loaded with Goex Express powder.

CM

[cajun shooter]

I agree that a proper load that fits the rifle and is of the correct alloy with top of the line lube and powder will have no problem. I have never fired 50 straight without running patches and cleaning but did do 40 rounds last summer without a hitch. Just used the blow tube and kept firing. Friends helped with some of the shooting. Rifle was fired with a compressed 68 gr load of Goex Cartridge, with a .30 vegetable wad and a 535 Postell with NASA lube and sized at .459

[JJC]

Out of a 50 round box of reloads he will get one or two that key hole. He is not shooting 50 at a time. He is puzzled. It happens in each rifle with a load for that specific rifle one ot two times out of 50. I don't know twist of many specifics but he has other molds and this is the only boolit giving him trouble. I don't know how much he has tinkered and trouble shot it.

[Boz330]

Sounds like some sort of loading issue if it is across the board. If using mixed brass and full length resizing the boolits may start out at .459 but he may be reducing the diameter when he seats the boolit in the case. Remington brass is thicker than WW and if the sized down case is for a jacketed bullet it could reduce a soft boolit undersize. Just one possibility.

Bob

[JJC]

I am almost sure his alloy is real soft. Remember one time his boolits were getting dinged up pretty good. I will pass that along, thanks