The above pic is a photo of a bullet hole on target and is an example of an issue a coworker had the other day during a qual run. This occurred on about 5 or 6 rounds from a distance of 25-75 yards. Aside from the apparent, the rifle ran fine otherwise with no malfunctions or accuracy issues.
He was running a 16" Spike’s Tactical Mid Length upper with the following specs: (copied and pasted from dsgarms.com)
-1:7 Twist, Mil-spec Grade Chromoly Vanadium Barrel
-Extended M4 Feedramps
-Mil-spec Hard Chrome 5.56 NATO Chamber & Bore
-1/2x28 Muzzle Threading
-Government Barrel Profile, Mid Length Gas System
-Barrel is HP Tested & MP Inspected
-F-marked A2 Front Sight Base, .750" Diameter Gas Seat
-Spike’s Tactical Mil-spec M16 Bolt Carrier Group
-Bolt is shot peened, HP Tested, & MP Inspected
-Forged Mil-spec Charging Handle
-Laser Engraved T-Markings
-Mil-spec Dry film Lube inside Upper Receiver
-A2 flashider
The rifle is practically new with I’m guessing about 300 round fired.
Ammo was department issued Federal LE .223, 55 grain Sierra GAMEKING BTHP, TACTICAL TRU.
The only time I’ve seen this before was with a shot out barrel just before it started key holing. Like I said, however, this was a practically new rifle.
Any input is appreciated. Ammo related? Barrel? Twist rate vs. projectile weight? Casing and/or projectile deformation?
That’s a beautiful picture of a cattail.
You don’t see them that often.
The back of the bullet is actually melted while it is going down barrel.
If you shoot paper close enough, you will see the lead being slung off of the bullet in what appears to be a cattail shape just like in the picture above.
It’s also known as a symptom of using a bullet that is being spun too fast as bullets start making cattails right before they start blowing up from being over-spun.
I have seen these on a couple of occasion when shoot 22-250 and hot 243 loads. It also happens when you push a bullet faster than it was designed for. I had 2 holes look just like this and then the next 3 blew up before they hit the target, I had always heard this could happen but had never seen it until i played with a 22-250 and some 55 gr hornady jhp bullets. Later on I had some 80 gr 6mm bullets do it out of a 1-7.5 twist.
I’d say I had those same swirls for about 90% of the ammo fired. We zeroed at 100 yards and you could still make out the swirls. However it was more prevelant inside 50 yards.
The coolest thing was, while shooting 100-300 yards, there was an actual smoke trail from the bullet. It acted like a tracer only with a greyish smoke.
Needless to say, this was the same ammo that was giving me several issues in my other rifles. Accuracy, muzzle velocity and ejection issues. This particular barrel liked the ammo ok.
No. The solution is to use a bullet with a more durable jacket or to reduce bullet RPM by either decreasing velocity or using a slower twist. The reason this phenomena is not usually seen with heavier bullets is they generally have thicker jackets and velocity is lower
I guess everyone has heard about G forces in fighter jets, and how they can cause a pilot to black out because the G forces sling the blood down into the legs and do not let it go to the head. Increase the G forces enough, and the pilot’s legs will split open and human tissue will squirt out.
That is what is happening to that bullet. It is being pushed so hard that its guts are coming out.
I have seen the same thing from a 22-250 where the bullets would shatter into gray puffs between the barrel and the target, leaving no mark on the target.
I would prefer a bullet that is not literally tearing itself apart in the barrel of my gun. Therefore I would discontinue use of that particular bullet and get different ammo.
I would too. However, this is dept. issued ammo. I don’t see us changing loads any time soon. This was an Officer’s personal duty weapon. Our department allows Officers to carry approved and personally owned rifles on duty but must use dept. issued ammo.
This appears to be a rare occurrence and, based on what I’ve read from the responses, doesn’t seem to be too much of a cause for concern. We have been issuing this same ammo for duty and training for years and this is the only occurrence I’m aware of.
We will continue to shoot the rifle and see if this occurs again or if there is any apparent degradation in accuracy. Granted, if this was more widespread with other rifles, begins to occur with some frequency (or if bullets start disintegrating before impact) there would be much cause for concern and they would have to take a hard look at changing loads.
This may have been stated sometime before, but I have not read it anywhere, and forgive me if it has been said, but how many actual rpm’s is a 55 grain .223 turning when being fired from a 1/7 twist 16 and 20 inch barrel
Vapor and powder trails are common on high velocity, small caliber loads so it is not always the jackets coming apart. I have seen powder on paper which can look either solid or spiral out to 100 yards using .22-250 and .17 rem when dialing in loads, eg., inefficient burn rates.
Could a possibility be the bullets that caused the cattail markings could of had a thinner copper jacket than what would be standard from the company, basically a few bullets got a thin jacket while the others were fine. Could make a lighter bullet which would increase the rpm’s of the bullet.
However I can’t remember if that ammo is bonded. If thats the case maybe the bonding did not take like it should.
I saw this thread initially, and it came to mind when I was at the range Monday…
I had the exact same phenomenon with a number of rounds being shot from a brand new Knights SR-15 that I was breaking in. I was shooting from about 10-15 yards. After looking more closely, I noticed a few keyholes too, which brought greater concern. I didn’t have time to really analyze it, and I thought I was shooting all XM193, but I realized I had shot a mag of Hornady 75 gr match that I had for zeroing a different rifle, and maybe one mag of something else.
I can’t say if it was ammo related, so I need to get back out and shoot various types of ammo to see if I can replicate the issue.
Ive never seen a bullet split up before the target, kinda scary is it the ammo quality or just a bad batch or the rifle that would cause something like this.
