Weird marks on my target paper

Hhhmm, frontier plated bullets.

I am not a great fan of these plated bullets purely because they are such a newcomer to the reloading universe.
Face it, we have tons of cast lead bullet data, and we also have tons of copper jacketed bullet data. Both of these are well proven options, over many decades of frequent use.

But there is not a great amount of corporate knowledge reloading data for electroplated bullets at modern rifle velocities, launched via semi-automatic rifles.

Frontier says their plated rifle bullets work fine at these upper velocities. But does anyone else confirm this that does not have their iron in the fire??

^The most likely culprit imo.....
 
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LUTNIT said:
Disintegrating/crumbling lead? Possibly.
Melting lead? No way.

Check different ranges. Maybe 50 and 100yds; see if the marks still show up.
I find it odd that the lead would disintegrate and leave a pattern like that. Wouldn't it be more common with the large number of cast bullet shooters out there?
Some guys on the other forums that Juster posted links to said they got a pattern like that on the target with closed base jacketed (not plated) bullets. Hornady 75gr .224" bullets.

Maybe we wont know unless someone happens to have a high speed camera that they'll let you shoot dangerously close to.
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I will shoot at the max 50 yards on sunday and see how it performs.

Brutus said:
Hhhmm, frontier plated bullets.

^The most likely culprit imo.....
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i doubt it, the manufacturer specifically told me their bullets can handle 2200+FPS. i shot a good 5 clips worth of frontier ammo i loaded in my garand prior to today and all performed fine with no keyhole or residue. i will try again on sunday and see what happens.

also see
http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php/764905-Mono-metal-bullets
 
Serbinator, I've owned a Garand for many years. Not once have I experienced what you have just shown here. And I have never even once, tried Frontier plated bullets from this rifle.
You say you have a brand new Criterion barrel and I believe you. The only other possible explanation is therefor the suspect projectiles.

My opinion only.

Good luck sir.
 
Check to see if your bullets are under sized,OR,too large barrel dia.My experience is from shooting 308 bullets out of a large dia 303 barrel......and using dirty powder/low pressure loads.As a reason for my thought was powder residue on the out side of the bullet,coated by gas leakage and pressure going down the barrel.Only thing closest to this was poorly coated moly bullets.

My 2cents!!
 
Brutus said:
Serbinator, I've owned a Garand for many years. Not once have I experienced what you have just shown here. And I have never even once, tried Frontier plated bullets from this rifle.
You say you have a brand new Criterion barrel and I believe you. The only other possible explanation is therefor the suspect projectiles.

My opinion only.

Good luck sir.
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I will try them one more time and see how they perform. 37 gr of 4895 should yield me 2200 ish fps. I will also load one clip at 36 grains and see if that's enough to cycle the action.

I also have hornady 150gr fmj BT bullets that I will test out.
 
I'm still confused as to why I put about 30-40 frontier rounds through and they ran fine and now all of a sudden this is happening...:rolleyes::(
 
I go with the exposed lead tips vaporizing. It certainly isn't key holing.

I have seen similar swirls even further out. I had a Remington 700 in 338WM that had such issues. Ordinary red box Federal factory loads were constantly giving me grief. At two hundred yards I couldn't get on the paper. With other loads the rifle was very accurate without issues. One winter to get rid of some Federal I had picked up at a gun show, I set up the two hundred yard target with the same accuracy issues. I was trying to salvage the brass and it was pretty obvious the bullets were the main problem. About one hundred fifty yards out I saw the powdery snow being disturbed. I walked out to see what was causing this and I found bullet jackets that had separated from the lead cores. The bullets were light 185 grain SPs. They just weren't built for the stresses of the velocities they were being subjected to by the 1/9 twist rate of that barrel.

Obviously your Garand doesn't have these problems. For 25 yard shooting, your groups are terrible. If the ammo is soft point with exposed lead I would say that is the point vaporizing. If it's FMJs you are shooting maybe powder residue following in the vortex behind the bullet? The crud produced while shooting is surprising.
 
I have seen something like this before. Bought a second hand 22-250 at a gun show, took it home and didn't bother to clean it before I shot it. I was getting marks like that with my loads. When I cleaned it, there was a copper build up just ahead of the chamber. The clean barrel didn't leave marks on the target. All I can think is the fouling was so bad, the trip down the barrel damaged the bullet jacket enough that the lead was spraying from the bullet.
I guess I am thinking the bullet is being damaged in it's trip down the barrel. Do you have another rifle, not a gas operated semi, that you could fire your rounds in? You have mentioned cleaning the barrel and not said anything about fouling, could it be the gas port damaging the bullet coating?
 
LUTNIT said:
The fact that those marks are only on 5-6 of the holes makes me really curious.
Any chance the Norinco bullets were mispackaged tracers by accident and just hadn't fully ignited yet? From my understanding most modern tracers don't ignite in the barrel; they ignite after 25-75yds. Bit of a stretch but just thinking with my keyboard.
It does look like marks from powder but I can't see it being that close to the bullet impact and that tightly concentrated at 25yds. It should have dissipated to several feet at least after 25yds. It would have to be something coming off the bullet itself at that range.

Could try again but fire the different loads at different targets and see where the marks show up.
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My thoughts too, there is something burning on the bullet
 
Going to hopefully go tomorrow to the range and test it out. I will clean the barrel and chamber once again tonight. Rest of the gun is now clean with new grease. I will try some jacketed hornady fmj and some frontiers and see how it runs
 
Maybe the crap in the barrel is cutting through the edge of the jacketing, or what little there might be and exposing lead, or just powder/carbon deposits in the grove on the bullet getting spun off?
 
i measured the diameter of the frontier bullets. i randomly pulled 5 out of the box and they all measured exactly .308 on my digital mitutoyo caliper. i also measured 150gr Hornady FMJBT bullets i had and they were also .308. I loaded 10 rounds of each bullet with 37gr of H4895 with CCI LR magnum primers & once fired PPU brass trimmed to 2.005 seated at 2.8OAL. gonna test them out tomorrow night at 50 yards benchrest and see what happens.
 
There was a similar topic on another forum, many experts came to conclusion that it's sign of bullet jacket coming apart, little more velocity and they'll probably blow up.
Few reasons that come to mind are
Too dirty barrel, so bore is getting tight
Too rough barrel
Too much twist for given bullet
Too thin of a jacket(for application)
 
calgarycanada said:
There was a similar topic on another forum, many experts came to conclusion that it's sign of bullet jacket coming apart, little more velocity and they'll probably blow up.
Few reasons that come to mind are
Too dirty barrel, so bore is getting tight
Too rough barrel
Too much twist for given bullet
Too thin of a jacket(for application)
Click to expand...

i think its the barrel getting dirty, i shot a few clips with the frontier bullets at higher velocities up to 2500 fps and it showed no swirls like these lower velocity bullets.. o_O i am going tomorrow night to test, will see what happens :)
 
serbinator said:
i think its the barrel getting dirty, i shot a few clips with the frontier bullets at higher velocities up to 2500 fps and it showed no swirls like these lower velocity bullets.. o_O i am going tomorrow night to test, will see what happens :)
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Sometimes using thicker jacket bullets can solve such issue(if it's not because of dirty bore). Goodluck and keep us posted.
 
I have the same experience / results with Frontier bullets ( .224) like yours. but partly its my fault, was trying to push their projectiles over the limit of 3300fps, and fired in a 1/7 twist bbl. As long I keep it under or around 2800 its okay.
 
shot 10 rounds of the frontier 155gr and 10 rounds of the 150gr hornady FMJBT. all bullets performed fine ( my grouping sucked cuz i only used a front rest bag). no swirl marks at all or any keyhole. looks like the fouling in the barrel from the ####ty norinco powder caused my frontier bullets to either wear off the plating too early.
 
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