9mm bullets sitting on the snow after being fired?

Brianma65

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I tryed some hand loads today and found 5 or 6 bullets sitting on the snow, undamaged. It's as if they just skipped across the snow , for about 30 ft and then came to a stop. I was using a S&W M&P 9 , loaded with 9 mm Hornady hp xtp 115g and 5.5 g CFE pistol . I was going by this load data from hodgens. I was shooting at a can , sitting on the snow at 25 yards . When shooting at paper at 25 yards ,all shots were hitting center mass. Is this ok or should I load them a bit hotter?image.jpgimage.jpg
 

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I load lead cast 45acp and if they dont hit something solid i find them in the snow all the time. Matter of fact if I hit a snow bank I can dig them out unscathed.
 
Right on, I thought they were going super slow. I put 400 into the snow bank, but couldn't find them, guess I'll have to wait a few wks for the snow to melt... Thanks
 
As long as the firearm functioned normally everything is fine.Those bullets have been slowed down by the snow (like shooting into water)and actually you're lucky to see bullets in that good shape after firing.This way you can diagnose any issues with that load by getting a visual on the lands and groove marks on the bullet.They look like plated (not jacketed) bullets in normal condition after firing but I could be wrong.I used to shoot into a bundle (16 inchs or more stack wired together) of wet newspapers at 50 yards to see if I could catch my .357 and .44 mags bullets and it worked pretty good.Wet newspaper is very dense (my wife wouldn't let me shoot at her roast)and the bullets that came out, after cutting the wire and sorting thru it, were very revealing in their performance.Speer would have jacket separation almost 90%.Nosler and Sierra bullets were 100% textbook in appearance,perfect mushrooms every one,and copper jackets still on the core and looking good.Finding rifle bullets is harder.We found 2 in all the years hunting moose.Both were Sierra 180 gr. Pro Hunter models and both looked very good and hardly lost any weight if I recollect.
 
Snow is an excellent backstop for retrieving bullets undamaged. Some black powder shooters use snow banks for testing loads, very useful.
 
Well I have about a 1000 rnds into a snowbank , over the past month. Question is , are they gonna be any good , when the snow melts in a month or so?
 
I have bags of .45 picked up after the snow melts. In the spring it looks like they grew there.
 
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Are they reusable with the grooves from the lands already in them?

I've known two guys that would reload them & they seemed to work just fine... 9mm out of a Glock & Ruger... Not sure if they got to fire them a 3rd time, chuckle!

Cheers
Jay
 
Have found 270 win bullets that were shot in to the snow no damage other than the rifling imprinted in to the bullet . Didn't try reloading them .
 
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