Anyone having bullets blow up?

[transdude]

Here's what I have going on.

The rifle is a .204 Ruger AR-15 that I screwed together. The barrel is a Shilen select match at 24" with a 9 twist.

The first bullet, powder, primer combination that I tried is a 39 grain Sierra Blitzking over H4895 with new Win. brass and Rem. 7 1/2 BR primers.

At 26.6 grains of powder, the group that I shot at 300 yards measured 1.484 inches, if the one flyer was disregarded, the group for four shots measured .699

The problem is at just 26.8 grains and over most of my bullets started blowing up on their way to the target, about 50 feet from the muzzle. Sorry, not chronographed yet.

To me, this is a great load but seems to be much too close to having the bullets blow up. I'm planning to use this rifle in Wy. on my next PD trip and with the much higher altitude that is involved,4500 feet), I'd hate to get there and have the little extra velocity cause problems.

I know that the simple answer is to slow it down but it doesn't shoot nearly as well.

Also, I shot some factory Hornady 32 V-max and Federal 39 Blitzking loaded ammo with no problems, which I would guess is a bit hotter than my handloads.

Anyone have any ideas?
Any bullets a little tougher like a 40 V-max or Nosler BT?

Thanks.

-John Lombardo

 

[harvey13118]

I had the same issue with speers. I shooting AR15 1-9. There is a warning on speer site not to exceed some fps. Many of the lighter bullets are very thin skinned. I also had problem in 22-250 shooting 40-50 gr bullets in 1-14 at 4000+ FPS. The hornady varmints as low as 40 gr seem to hold together.

There is a great thread on here somewhere about RPM leaving muzzle and jackets coming apart.

 

[Preacher]

Change to a different bullet, that one is not designed to travel so far so fast....
you are definitely over stressing it....... the 40 BT will serve you better.....

 

[NateHaler]

Nosler BT and the Hornady VMax should yield better results. What you want is for the bullet to reach the PDs before they blow up.

 

[jo191145]

Nates correct!
The Sierra pills are the weakest jacket/core design available in .204 cal. I've seen countless blowups,keyholes and unexplained huge fliers in 5 204R barrels. I'm just not the type to run a 204 at a measely 3500fps.

Putting them through a nine twist should really impart some extra G's.

Try the 40's. If it were my gun I'd buy a few boxes of Berger 50gn for testing. The Bergers won't give you the splat factor your looking for but they should make a good LR target load if accurate.
Between the three 40gn pills available the Nosler is said to be the most explosive.

 

[transdude]

Thanks for all the replies. I guess I see what the consensuses is..

I'm glad to hear that the Nosler is as explosive.

With a few other calibers that I have had, it seemed that the Nosler BT's and the Blitzkings were almost interchangeable in the same bullet weights as far as group size and point of impact go.

Is the same true with the 20 calibers?

-John Lombardo

 

[halfmile]

Blowing up some speers, in a 9 twist LRPV, changed powder and it quit.

Watch temperature, On a PD trip once my rounds wouldn't work,blowing apart) till I put them in the soda cooler and took them out a few at a time. I have to admit I had increased my load and that's waht caused the problem.

HM