Smoke Ring on a .223

[H2OBUG]

My son was shooting my 700 BDL Varmit in .223 on Tues. the wind was moving pretty good but I noticed on several of his shots about 10 yards down range I would get basketball size poof-- I am using 26.0 Grns of varget and a 50 Gr Hornady SX SP-- At first I thought the bullet was blowing up but he was shooting one of those very small rubber prarie dogs @ 200 yds and hitting it almost every time.. After seeing this --I shot an 8 shot group that was roughly 1" at 200 yards-- in the wind.. I had 8 impacts. I would not think they would still be that accurate if I was loosing the jacket??? has anyone ever seen this type of smoke ring??

 

[amamnn]

I've seen smoke rings mainly when observing black powder shooters. One guy I used to see regularly on the range would also produce the rings on a fairly regular basis. He set a record at one of the black powder silhouette shoots, so the ring had no adverse effects on his downrange performance. I have also seen rings produced when folks were using heavy charges of powder in magnum (smokeless) loads and were not observed to clean their bores at the range....I'm wondering if the rifle in question might have been (over) lubed prior to shooting? A .223 rem does not produce a lot of smoke normally........excess lube inside the neck might account for repeated instances of this kind of smoking.

 

[H2OBUG]

This is a very small poof you had to look hard to see it--overall the gun was vary clean --no excessive oil

 

[JohnW...ski]

This is a very small poof you had to look hard to see it--overall the gun was vary clean --no excessive oil

I see that all the time at the High Power matches. It seems to happen about 25 yards out from the muzzle. I have no idea what it is but my observation is the faster guns like the 6 XC seem to do it more consistantly.

John

 

[hogpatrol]

Is it smoke or water vapor? What was the humidity that day? Could be superheated air. See this on high speed passes at airshows held close to the ocean or on high humidity days.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=DQDJGlewGIU

 

[JohnW...ski]

Good point, it can't be actual smoke out that far, and I do live in the "Ocean State".

Is it smoke or water vapor? What was the humidity that day? Could be superheated air. See this on high speed passes at airshows held close to the ocean or on high humidity days.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=DQDJGlewGIU

 

[necchi]

hogpatrol got it,
I'm guessing your seeing a phenominon of super sonic speed in the right atmosphere conditions. Temp, Moisture and Pressure has to be just right.
The air being pulled along behind the bullet creates a low pressure. Air around it falls into the low pressure pocket and condences into fog, Poof!
Just a quick moving puff and it's gone. It's part of the "sonic boom".

Where's Bill Nie the science guy when ya need him?

 

[ssv1761982]

I have seen vapor trails when it is really humid. My .204 does it even more than the 223.

 

[kentuckytroutbum]

This is a very small poof you had to look hard to see it--overall the gun was vary clean --no excessive oil

I see that all the time at the High Power matches. It seems to happen about 25 yards out from the muzzle. I have no idea what it is but my observation is the faster guns like the 6 XC seem to do it more consistantly.

John

Same here, all the time at HP matches. Especially if its a hot humid day. Scoring for another competitor with a spotting scope, you can see the "trace" as we call it, and you can follow the path of the bullet all the way out to the 600 yd target. Kinda cool to watch the arch of the bullet till it hits the paper.

 

[FroggyOne2]

In the fall here at Oak Ridge, when the sun is in the right place, you can actually see the bullet itself travel to the target when shooting at 1K. It is quite impressive to see.