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

[normmatzen]

I shoot both long range bench rest and F Class. I shoot a 6BRX light gun and 284 WIN heavy gun which I also use for F Class.
I use one of those yellow safety flag/barrel cooler.
I shot 105 and 162 A-MAX for a long time with success. Then along came the ELD-M . I have not had a problem with the 108gr 6mm for BR, but last year in the summer I "blew up" a couple 180's in an F Class practice match. Now, I started flying the 180's at close to 2900 fps but got tired of loose primer pockets so I re-characterized my barrel and found 2740 was an even better node. So, the end of July, I went to an F Class practice match and did my best score ever in 1000 yd F Class. Did I say the ELD-M's had been shooting better than the old A-MAX's? So, after the first relay with a great score, I proceeded to blow up 8 bullets! Two were sighters, but the other 6 were for score and lost 60 points for me! Not acceptable! It was a hot day here in Sacramento as it was last year when I lost 2 to blow ups. My rifle has a twist of 1-9
I contacted Hornady and they initiated a "Warranty" claim for me. I don't care about the warranty, I just wanted them to know they had a real problem! Anyway, I sent the last of that box of 180's to "test fire"
and I would bet I will get an e-mail telling me they shot perfect!! Makes no difference to me, I'll never use ELD-Ms again!!
Their new A Tip sounds too good to be true so I am assuming it is! I will wait to see what kind of luck folks have with them.
Meanwhile, I have some old 162 A-Max, 175 green box and 180 Hybrid yellow box I will shoot up.

 

[Turbulent Turtle]

Whoa, the video is approaching 2000 views. Maybe I should take Johnny's advice, move it to YouTube and get some sponsors. I'm thinking of hitting Sierra and Berger for sponsorships.

 

[johnnyi]

Whoa, the video is approaching 2000 views. Maybe I should take Johnny's advice, move it to YouTube and get some sponsors. I'm thinking of hitting Sierra and Berger for sponsorships.

You never listen to me...!

I super slow-mo and zoomed in... it was actually a squared up Texas super-sized Mosquito taken out in mid flight. The shooter had a perfect lead on it. So it was a really good shot

 

[Crow]

Whoa, the video is approaching 2000 views. Maybe I should take Johnny's advice, move it to YouTube and get some sponsors. I'm thinking of hitting Sierra and Berger for sponsorships.

Very cool video, but careful not to put too much stock in the view count. Any thread on the internet with a full compliment of keywords like 'rocket', 'blow up', 'centrifuge' and 'haboob' is bound to attract attention...

 

[BronzeArcher]

Here's a couple frames of video showing a 142 SMK blowing up on the way to the target. This rifle blows up 140 AMAXes also with some reliability once it is hot. We get lots more blow ups in the third match on hot days, and usually late in the 20 shots for record. The grey puff of smoke is the key signature, in addition to no evidence of the bullet hitting the target.

 

[davidjoe]

I don't think all missed shots on ShotMarker are a direct result of bullet failure. I suspect there are a subset of shots that aren't picked up as a result of bullets blowing up; but to your point outside of 147gr Hornadys, and somebody pushing 7mm bergers VERY fast, bullets blowing up is not a terribly common occurrence.

There are blows ups and “unready” discharges though, that do miss all targets. I have been giving thought to a modification like this, below.

Is there any technical reason why this would not work (for example microphones cannot signal two hubs), or help alleviate the possibility no-reads? I am assuming in the schematic that no-reads do not originate with a microphone problem.

To my thinking, if there is a very occasional no-read, the chances of it simultaneously happening on two HUBS is infinitesimally small. 17-B, in the diagram below, might not be calibrated exactly the same, but it would confirm whether 17A didn’t read, warranting a reshoot.

 

[Turbulent Turtle]

I'm not completely clear on what you're trying to do here, but I think it's not technically feasible to plug in dual microphone into two hubs. Certainly not with the current equipment. A hub is essentially a DSP (digital signal processor) that listens on 4 "dual" channels. It records the time when it detects a supersonic crack on the microphones, two per sensor. It knows which microphone is getting the noise so it can tag the timestamp accordingly. It then sends these tagged timestamps along with the temperature at the hub via LoRa to the Access Point, which can then figure out where the shot hit on the target by looking at the time differences for the mics and knowing the dimensions of the sensor array. If you were to connect a mic to two hubs, you would be changing the foundational paradigm of the entire concept and would confuse everything.

To accomplish what you are talking about would require a much more powerful DSP with a shipload of connections for multiple sensors or, have all the hubs networked together to have better synchrony and a saner data transmission architecture. You would also have to rewrite the software on the AP to handle a much broader array of sensors, effectively treating the whole line as one unit instead of dealing with each target as a discrete entity.

I won't get into the atomicity of each recording/transmission but the coding of it will be something else.

 

[davidjoe]

TT, my thought was that a target’s mikes might have sufficient output to signal two hubs, not just one.

The second of the two hubs would simply confirm whether the first hub missed reading a shot. (We know they do sometimes miss a shot and if no crossfire, we reshoot.).

The rules for pulled targets didn’t allow for reshooting, though. The practical effect would be that if we knew for certain that two hubs independently didn’t read a shot, then in all likelihood that bullet didn’t go through the mikes.

Say 1 in 700 is a hub-fault no read. The chances that two hubs fail to read the same shot is 1:490,000. Compare that to the chances of a blow-up, which I know to be much higher.

On the other hand, if hub B reads a shot that hub A misses, then the shooter fires again. Hub B is basically like the paper in Benchrest that runs at a slow rate behind the target to ensure all shots were made.

 

[ELR LVR]

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.

Your pic/vid says its been taken down/deleted?
I was about to ask
Was he using Hornady Bullets?
Notorious for blowing up if pushed past 2800 fps
maybe one will handle 3000 then the next wont etc
I avoid Hornadys if I can help it from 20 yrs ago due to this one major problem with their bullets
Their Jackets are like .023" when Sierra is .030" thick
There is a reason Hornadys are cheaper bullets
Because theyre cheaper made
Copper cost savings

 

[davidjoe]

Your pic/vid says its been taken down/deleted?
I was about to ask
Was he using Hornady Bullets?
Notorious for blowing up if pushed past 2800 fps
maybe one will handle 3000 then the next wont etc
I avoid Hornadys if I can help it from 20 yrs ago due to this one major problem with their bullets
Their Jackets are like .023" when Sierra is .030" thick
There is a reason Hornadys are cheaper bullets
Because theyre cheaper made
Copper cost savings

The jackets are more sensitive. They now represent both ends of the cost spectrum though, with the A-Tips.

I’m just wondering, ultimately, if one or two targets so equipped, say for use after a no-read happens, wouldn’t be a good idea.

 

[ELR LVR]

Hornady Amax's coming apart at the target, wont make it past 100 yds.
Either twist rate is too fast, gun is coppered slightly and not perfectly clean yet, or velocity is past 2800.
So pretty much all the time.
Only happens with Hornady's for me.

 

[ELR LVR]

The jackets are more sensitive. They now represent both ends of the cost spectrum now, though, with the A-Tips.

I’m just wondering, ultimately, if one or two targets so equipped, say for use after a no-read happens, wouldn’t be a good idea.

I did try A-tips and had little bit better luck with them but still some blew up, maybe 2/10
When they did hit they HAMMERED though, that Alum tip sure seems to make a significant difference than the polymer I'll tell ya .

 

[Turbulent Turtle]

Your pic/vid says its been taken down/deleted?
I was about to ask
Was he using Hornady Bullets?
Notorious for blowing up if pushed past 2800 fps
maybe one will handle 3000 then the next wont etc
I avoid Hornadys if I can help it from 20 yrs ago due to this one major problem with their bullets
Their Jackets are like .023" when Sierra is .030" thick
There is a reason Hornadys are cheaper bullets
Because theyre cheaper made
Copper cost savings

This was 6 years ago. I don't even remember what I did last month.

 

[davidjoe]

I did try A-tips and had little bit better luck with them but still some blew up, maybe 2/10
When they did hit they HAMMERED though, that Alum tip sure seems to make a significant difference than the polymer I'll tell ya .

Which ones did you shoot?

 

[ELR LVR]

Which ones did you shoot?

110 gr / 6mm

 

[Fuj]

This was 6 years ago. I don't even remember what I did last month.

Or even last week !! LOL There is a longer spread of 6 years on varying
forums of Hornady lipstick bullets coming apart, and not just one
caliber or weight......Makes me wonder why Hornady came out with the
Aero-Match bullets. Anybody do a rapid disassembly on these yet ??