Video of Bullet Blow Up (was: The things one sees at a match)

[Turbulent Turtle]

This past weekend, yesterday to be exact, we held the August edition of the Bayou Rifles Monthly Long Range (1000 yards) match. We use the Shot Marker e-target scoring system and yesterday we had 10 targets operating flawlessly for the entire day. We ran 32 shooters through the 3 matches in just under 4 hours.

As I was walking the line, I heard someone complaining that shots were not registering properly on the target. I walked over to that target to see if I could help. The shooter had just taken a shot at the target and it had not registered. This was shooter #4 on that target, and he was new to us. He was about 15 shots through his string and some shots were just not registering. I instructed him to take another one again and it showed up on the screen. Maybe he was missing sometimes. As I was waling away he took another shot and out of the corner of my eye, I saw something that gave me pause. I thought I saw a little white cloud just 60-70 yards down. So I stopped. Soon enough the shooter was again complaining his shot didn't show up on the target.

At that point, I was sure of what I thought I had seen. It had been several years since the last time I saw such a thing, but I had just witnessed a bullet blowing up in flight. I told the shooter that his bullets were blowing up, just not getting to the target at all. As he got ready to shoot again, I pulled out my smartphone, started the camera app, selected telephoto and started recording. This is what I captured:

http://img.gg/m9TAt9y

As you can see, the bullet blows up, self-immolates in the blink of an eye. If you do not know what to look for, you will miss it. When everyone is focused on their scopes for the trace or the tablet to see the results, they miss the event.

This was a 6.5 Creedmoor, factory Hornady 147gr ammo in a factory rifle with a 1:8 twist.

 

[PatMiles]

Just curious, how did the shooter react to the fact his bullets were self destructing?
Any idea why?

 

[Turbulent Turtle]

It's always a surprise to be told your bullets are exploding soon after leaving the barrel. To his credit, the shooter took it calmly and concentrated on getting the remainder of his shots downrange. That's the proper thing to do.

As to why, I don't know for sure. I'm not familiar with the 6.5CM but my understanding is that the 1:8 twist is not too fast for that cartridge. My personal hypothesis is that the jacket is getting damaged in the rifle (it's a very new rifle) perhaps by some burr left over from chambering. I believe the shooter was planning to take the rifle to a gunsmith for analysis. We did witness a few rounds going downrange trailing some white smoke behind it, as if there was some damage but the jacket held up.

It could be that the twist is not what was advertised but I was not about to perform a rifling twist rate check on the line. If I find out more, I'll post here. I told the shooter there would be a thread here with a link to the video. What I have here is just 3-4 seconds of a 3 minute video. I was just lucky enough to detect the event and was able to capture it on video.

 

[MikeMcCasland]

FWIW - I was shooting 147 ELD-Ms at Bayou yesterday on a rifle with ~2200 rounds on it, and didn't have a problem (right at 2800FPS). Not sure what to make of that. That said, I saw the same thing on my lane with some 7mm bullets blowing up; go figure.

 

[STOMP442]

Its the bullets. The 147s have come apart for me in at least three rifles so far, all with match grade barrels of different makers. I no longer use a Hornady bullet unless the client specifically requests them. Even then, I try to talk them out of them. Just can't trust them anymore.

 

[Ned Ludd]

That little white puff is something an F-Class shooter never wants to see. Nonetheless, very nice video capture, Denys, probably the best example I've ever seen.

 

[ryanjay11]

Its the bullets. The 147s have come apart for me in at least three rifles so far, all with match grade barrels of different makers. I no longer use a Hornady bullet unless the client specifically requests them. Even then, I try to talk them out of them. Just can't trust them anymore.

I've seen it happen to Bergers as well. It was the last 3 out of 4 shots in an 800 agg match where the shooter was going to set the range record.

He didn't have a single one blow up in the first 76 shots, but shots 77, 78, and 79 never made it to the target. His last shot was a pinwheel X.

 

[Bob L.]

I’ve seen it happen with Hornady bullets also, a white puff exactly like the video, at the same distance from the shooter.

 

[johnnyi]

Great capture Denys! From lane zero I could hear a second crack after the shot was fired.

I hope he gets it corrected and comes back. Many ideas to check but a good gunsmith should help him diagnose the issue.

 

[ratguner]

We had a shooter having this happen with his 6.5-08 gun. Using varmint bullets at 200, his belief was the faster they traveled the better. Some made the target, others were a puff of smoke at 75 yards....

 

[338 dude]

Its the bullets. The 147s have come apart for me in at least three rifles so far, all with match grade barrels of different makers. I no longer use a Hornady bullet unless the client specifically requests them. Even then, I try to talk them out of them. Just can't trust them anymore.

Not a big fan of hornady products myself

 

[STOMP442]

I've seen it happen to Bergers as well. It was the last 3 out of 4 shots in an 800 agg match where the shooter was going to set the range record.

He didn't have a single one blow up in the first 76 shots, but shots 77, 78, and 79 never made it to the target. His last shot was a pinwheel X.

Shots 77-79 is understandable. Shots 1-5 are the ones I'm having problems with.

 

[Rtheurer]

More 147gr ELD's blowing up. Not surprised. Pretty well documented already, that particular bullet is prone to letting loose.

 

[swd]

One of my best friends had the same thing happen 2 weeks ago at an F Match with the same ammo. And there was lots of talk in the pits about Hornady jacket failures. It’s a newer barrel but is hand lapped.

 

[Turbulent Turtle]

Let's understand a few things here. The MV of the 147 ELD 6.5 CM is stated at 2700FPS. This translates to a rotational velocity of 243,000RPM. This is fast, but not very high compared to some others. My 80grainer leave my 7.7 twisted F-TR rifle at 262,000RPM. The 75 A-max that I used to shoot, left even faster and never blew up. A 55gr bulllet in an AR-15 with a 1:7 twist will be spinning at 329,000RPM.

As I was looking at the shots, I noticed that a few of them left a "smoke" trail but still made it to the target. Others just flew to the target trailing nothing.

Since the rifle was brand-new or very new, I could not help but think that something was nicking the jackets of the bullets and in some cases, the damage was enough to destroy the integrity of the jacket and cause the blowup. Sometimes the damage was not as severe and the jacket held but did shed a bit of material at the start of the journey.

I have a hard time believing that Hornady would produce bullets with such poor jackets, but then again, we are talking Hornady here, not Berger or even Sierra.

So unless the barrel is damaged in some way, I would look at the remnants of tool marks from the chambering process.

 

[Jdne5b]

What smartphone was able to capture that?.. impressive.

 

[Turbulent Turtle]

What smartphone was able to capture that?.. impressive.

You should know that I'm a tech guy. Been in IT for 45 years, so I carefully select by personal electronics. This was taken with a Samsung Galaxy Note 8, the only smartphone worthy of the name. It's almost 2 years old now, but the Notes are so far ahead of everything else, lesser brands and models take 2 or more years to catch up.

This one has two cameras in the rear, one with a mild telephoto lens and the other with a mild wide-angle lens. I used the mild-telephoto for that shot and I was pointed at the appropriate distance so it came out really clear. I was set for slow-mo for subsequent shots, but there were no breakups in the last 4 shots.

 

[swd]

It definitely takes impressive video!

For this weekends match my friend that lost 4 147's during the last match is loading 142SMK's. We'll see if the problem goes away.

 

[Jdne5b]

You should know that I'm a tech guy. Been in IT for 45 years, so I carefully select by personal electronics. This was taken with a Samsung Galaxy Note 8, the only smartphone worthy of the name. It's almost 2 years old now, but the Notes are so far ahead of everything else, lesser brands and models take 2 or more years to catch up.

This one has two cameras in the rear, one with a mild telephoto lens and the other with a mild wide-angle lens. I used the mild-telephoto for that shot and I was pointed at the appropriate distance so it came out really clear. I was set for slow-mo for subsequent shots, but there were no breakups in the last 4 shots.

I should have known.

- sent from Note 8

 

[Turbulent Turtle]

I should have known.

- sent from Note 8

Bestest smartphone on the planet. The Note 9 has a slightly better S-pen, not enough to cause me to upgrade. I'm looking forward to the Fold in a year or two.