First experience with famous disappearing bullet

jonk

I have a savage 12 with a 1:9 twist. It does best with 50 gr v-max (go figure... would have bet on a 62-69 gr), at least of the 6 bullets I've tried so far.

A buddy gave me some 45 gr sierras as they did not shoot well out of his gun, a Remington 700 with 1:12 twist.

Not figuring on much accuracy I still figured, hey, free bullets, right? So I loaded them up with H335 starting at 23 grains.

23 grains- nothing great. 2 1/2" group at 100.
24- about the same.
25- group getting tighter but only 4 of 5 fired on target.
26- only 1 of 5 fired on target.

No pressure signs otherwise.

I reckon that somewhere around 25 grains, the fairly fast twist proved too much for the little 45 gr soft point varminters and they were just spinning apart. Fortunately he only gave me 30 or so of the bullets so I can fire the others off for kicks and be done with them.

Just thought I'd share. It's a hoot to fire the gun with the sun to your back and see a cloud of bullet parts about 10-20 yards down range go 'poof,' which you could see if you were looking for them once I knew what was happening.

Ambrose

That's interesting. I fired some 45 gr. Hornady "hornet" bullets in my Sako (1:12 twist) with 26.5 gr. of H335. Velocity over my Oehler screens was 3327 fps and four 5-shot groups averaged .91". I haven't tried the 45 Sierras. Interesting to know what the extra rotation of a 1:9 twist will do. I tried some Hornady 50 gr. SX at 3373 fps and the bullets were getting a little "hinkey"--you could see on the paper that they were starting to yaw. Groups weren't too bad at 1.07 but going through the target sideways just doesn't seem right! (It's harder to find the center of the bullet hole to measure the group!) I slowed them down 100 fps and they straightened right out.

Fun to experiment with this stuff, isn't it?!

Hawk Carse

A 6.5 twist meant for 90 grain .224" bullets will blow a 75 gr A-Max to smithereens in midair. The ones that don't break up are accurate, though. I had one string at a match that was nothing but Xs, 10s, and misses. I loaded the rest down a bit for shorter ranges and they did ok.