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

“D” arnit
“WE”
“E” xploded
“B” ullets
“S” unday
 
Yep, I’ve seen that.

Bullets I’m shooting as well as those of others.

Oddly I have one friend, long-time long range shooter who was using a 6.5-284 last year that was showing something very much like that too but just about 50-60’ in front of the muzzle.

But his bullets were making it to the target for a score!

Not seen before or since and not yet ever seen anything quite like this when scoring for anyone else in 16-odd years.
 
I didn't read through the whole thread but, i had some issues with 147 ELDM last weekend too.

I got about 1500 of these bullets left. :(
 

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Watched Boots Obermeyer lose a Cauterrucio out of his 7Mag in a shoot-off at Perry for the Leech Cup circa 1994. Ouch.

Lost one in the final 1000yd match while leading our state LR championship in 2000. A 105 A-Max from a 6/250. The FNG-type scorekeeper blurted out, "hey, I just saw your bullet blow up". Last Red Box Booolit I ever shot in a LR event.

Lost another booolit in South Africa (their issue ammo with a cloned SIE2155) during a shootoff at 900yds at the World's in 1999. It was my ONLY sighter and it never made the target (one sighter and 3 to count). Still won the shootoff over Mitch, so that was kind of satisfying :) Pays to gave a rock solid zero when you are dialing in 13-1/2 MOA windage.
 
Oddly I have one friend, long-time long range shooter who was using a 6.5-284 last year that was showing something very much like that too but just about 50-60’ in front of the muzzle.

But his bullets were making it to the target for a score!

We were having a similar problem with the rounds I mentioned above. The heavy core of the bullet was continuing in one piece after the jacket had come away, just not in its intended direction, which was causing the major safety problem.
 
Just to update. We scoped the rifle yesterday and found nothing to indicate that the rifle itself was causing damage to the rounds.
I presume these rounds don't 'jam' in the lands(being factory loads)? Some factory barrels, of Savage make, have been known to have short throats on occasion.

Robin
 
I presume these rounds don't 'jam' in the lands(being factory loads)? Some factory barrels, of Savage make, have been known to have short throats on occasion.



They do not. I ran some 140 handloads the same day; those were loaded out a little bit longer than the factory 140's and they didn't jam either.
 
We have a 1 in 8" twist 6.5 barrel in the stable that will regularly blow up the 140 AMAX, especially late in strings on hot summer days. Later, we learned that it will also blow up 142 SMKs. The 139 Lapua Scenar does just fine.

Coating the 142 SMKs with HBN seems to have fixed the problem, but we'll be more confident after we put a few hundred more rounds down range.
 
We have a 1 in 8" twist 6.5 barrel in the stable that will regularly blow up the 140 AMAX, especially late in strings on hot summer days. Later, we learned that it will also blow up 142 SMKs. The 139 Lapua Scenar does just fine.

Coating the 142 SMKs with HBN seems to have fixed the problem, but we'll be more confident after we put a few hundred more rounds down range.



Dang, good to know. I just bought some 142 smk's to load this weekend and try out. Is it happening fairly often with the smk's?
 
Dang, good to know. I just bought some 142 smk's to load this weekend and try out. Is it happening fairly often with the smk's?

Depends on what you mean by "fairly often." We've shot thousands of SMKs through lots of barrels, and only one barrel blows them up. But the barrel that does it will blow up 3-5 bullets in a 60 shot practice "tournament." Most blow ups happen late in a 20 shot string, and more happen in the third "match" of the day after it has gotten hot. No one wants to shoot that barrel in real competition until we get it sorted out.

I wouldn't worry about it unless your barrel has shown the problem with other bullets.
 
Depends on what you mean by "fairly often." We've shot thousands of SMKs through lots of barrels, and only one barrel blows them up. But the barrel that does it will blow up 3-5 bullets in a 60 shot practice "tournament." Most blow ups happen late in a 20 shot string, and more happen in the third "match" of the day after it has gotten hot. No one wants to shoot that barrel in real competition until we get it sorted out.

I wouldn't worry about it unless your barrel has shown the problem with other bullets.

I haven't seen it happen with any of the 140's I've put through it, only the 147's. It was also the second string when it started happening. It was pretty hot in the day already at that point and I swapped back to 140's for the third string.
 
South Africa known for high winds? This is the Palma next venue!

Well, we shot in a Haboob one day while firing 3 to a mound. That was a challenge up until they shut the range down. Picked fine red sand out of my gear for the next 4 or 5 years. I have experienced wind like that in a microburst.....

SA is now a first class S-hole that I would only go to if I could carry an MP-5 and a backpack full of mags. It was bad in 99 and now it is infinitely worse. There are pages on Facebook devoted to murders of Caucasians and Caucasian farmers especially.
 
The video is approaching 1000 views. You folks just can't seem to get enough of it.

I'm also shocked at how often this seems to happen. I have not figured out why a few degrees hotter outside would make a difference. Especially since we all use extreme temperature insensitive powders.
 
For me, TT, only one caliber has been capable of exploding target bullets. From .223 to 50 BMG, some 50 competition-capable rifles I maintain at a time in ~10 cartridges, optimized for heavy-for-caliber bullets, only the RSAUM has pushed match grade bullets fast/hard enough to explode them before the case head expands and releases the primer. Like you, I don’t shoot 6.5’s so I have no info on them.

Example, there is 100% overlap in bullet choice between .284 Win and Saum. I shoot blue, yellow, red and green boxes. My .284’s have not blown up a single one of any of them, and I’ve pushed them brass-smashing hard at times, surprise. Since premature brass destruction with heavy loads of slow magnum powders is the absolute speed limit, at least in my experience a .284 will not explode a bullet.

On the other hand I have “immolated” all except green box bullets in Saums. The relative fragility is red, blue, yellow, then yellow’s special - “orange”, now.

There is 100% overlap between .308 and 300 magnum match bullet choices. Neither cartridge, not even the fastest 300 Winchester loads has blown a bullet.

Aside from match calibers, I haven’t been able to blow up a bullet in some 15 other calibers between .17 and 30-378. My varmint loads go up to an estimated 4,500 FPS in my 6 Remington AI. Not one lost. Of course I don’t heat these up as much as 25 round shot strings do, either, though.

But I’ve heated .338 LM barrels in matches hot enough to steam and almost ignite alcohol soaked hand towels mid-string, and they as well have never blown up a yellow or blue box bullet.

That’s how “special” the Saum truly is. It doesn’t kick at all in a 22 pound rifle, it forgives ho-hum wind calls and it tempts you to push it harder but it’s a sports car without built-in active electronics to save your butt in a turn, because it absolutely can unpeel contemporary bullets.
 

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