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Thread: Keyholing with Gallant bullets

  1. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by GyroF-16 View Post
    Okay- I took a look at the barrel with an eye to leading…
    I was surprised to find some in the recessed crown of the barrel. Generally when I clean this gun (every 700 rds or so), the carbon on the recessed crown can be rubbed off with some solvent on a patch, and sometimes a toothpick.
    I admittedly did not look at the crown on the last cleaning (which was immediately after the lot of keyholing bullets), but 254 rds after that cleaning, this is what the crown looked like:
    Attachment 77870
    I’ve never seen leading like that on this gun before.
    I cleaned the barrel with solvent, a brass bore brush, and patches, then used a dental pick to scrape the lead from the barrel crown.
    Now it looks like this:
    Attachment 77871
    I can’t really see much evidence of leading in the bore, but, then I’ve never seen leading in a bore before.
    What do you guys think?
    Attachment 77872
    Attachment 77873
    Attachment 77874

    While I can see a bit of something in the edge of some of the lands (especially in photo A), it doesn’t look like a lot to me.

    Questions:
    1. If 100 of the last 354 rounds fired from this gun were from a defective lot that was shedding the coating, could that result in the leading on the crown?
    2. Do any of you see evidence of significant leading in the bore that would lead to keyholing?

    At the moment, my working theory is that the most recent lot of Gallant bullets (the first 100 of the 354 mentioned above) are shedding their coating in the barrel, causing leading of the crown and instability in the 20% of the bullets I saw keyholing in the practice session where I took the photos posted earlier.

    What do you see to support or refute that theory?
    If I’m doing something wrong, I want to fix it. And I want to be pretty certain before I tell Gallant that they sent me a bad lot of bullets.
    The bore doesn't look terrible. Maybe had some prior to cleaning? I'd be be curious to see what that crown looks like after 100 rounds of jacketed. Cleaning an inset crown like that can sure cure some accuracy woes on some guns.

    What powder are you running? Once I literally cured tumbling bullets out of two different guns a Glock and an M&P simultaneously by handing a couple of guys a handful of my loads to try. We were chrono testing prior to an Area match and they had bumped their powder charge up, suddenly got tumbling bullets, and couldn't figure it out. They had shot 1000's of that load before they decided to bump their charge to actually make PF. They were running Titegroup, I was running WST. We were all shooting the same plain lead wax lubed 147 grain bullets and the manufacturer was the one shooting the Glock! Theirs tumbled, mine didn't. The only known variable was the powder. They ran to buy a jug of WST and never looked back.

  2. #32
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    Quote Originally Posted by Spartan1980 View Post
    The bore doesn't look terrible. Maybe had some prior to cleaning? I'd be be curious to see what that crown looks like after 100 rounds of jacketed. Cleaning an inset crown like that can sure cure some accuracy woes on some guns.

    What powder are you running? Once I literally cured tumbling bullets out of two different guns a Glock and an M&P simultaneously by handing a couple of guys a handful of my loads to try. We were chrono testing prior to an Area match and they had bumped their powder charge up, suddenly got tumbling bullets, and couldn't figure it out. They had shot 1000's of that load before they decided to bump their charge to actually make PF. They were running Titegroup, I was running WST. We were all shooting the same plain lead wax lubed 147 grain bullets and the manufacturer was the one shooting the Glock! Theirs tumbled, mine didn't. The only known variable was the powder. They ran to buy a jug of WST and never looked back.
    Funny you should mention that. I’m using 3.5 gr of HP-38. I recently went up from 3.4 gr after I barely made PF at a regional match when it was unexpectedly cold the morning of chrono, and my submitted rounds had sat out all night in a can.
    But I’d be really surprised if a bump from 870 fps to 910 would suddenly cause bullets to tumble.
    I’d imagined that tumbling would be caused by either poor engagement with the rifling, very low velocity (low spin rate), or crazy fast velocity causing the coating to peel off.

    I have plenty of jacketed ammo, as well as a fair amount of Federal Syntech. I suppose I could run an experiment and see how either of those effect the crown leading. It’s just funny- at LEAST 10,000 rds through this gun were essentially the same load with the same Gallant bullets (just 0.1 less HP-38), and I didn’t see any leading on the crown before.

  3. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by GyroF-16 View Post
    Funny you should mention that. I’m using 3.5 gr of HP-38. I recently went up from 3.4 gr after I barely made PF at a regional match when it was unexpectedly cold the morning of chrono, and my submitted rounds had sat out all night in a can.
    But I’d be really surprised if a bump from 870 fps to 910 would suddenly cause bullets to tumble.
    I’d imagined that tumbling would be caused by either poor engagement with the rifling, very low velocity (low spin rate), or crazy fast velocity causing the coating to peel off.

    I have plenty of jacketed ammo, as well as a fair amount of Federal Syntech. I suppose I could run an experiment and see how either of those effect the crown leading. It’s just funny- at LEAST 10,000 rds through this gun were essentially the same load with the same Gallant bullets (just 0.1 less HP-38), and I didn’t see any leading on the crown before.
    I think you are correct in your thinking. If you look at Scheumann Barrel's website you'll see they recommend .002"-.003" oversize bullets (to the groove diameter) for lead and even with jacketed they state .001"-.002" oversize. I think that's approaching overkill on the upper end but can totally see the lower end being reasonable. Maybe if you are running light bullets really fast to make major PF you need them that tight but I've never heard of it nor have I dabbled in the arena of open guns.

    On 2nd page here



    HP-38 and 231 have launched many many tons of lead bullets. In my case above it was the Titegroup and probably not the velocity. Titegroup burns at a very high temp and it's not a good choice for cast bullets IME unless you are at ridiculously low power factors like they had been. They had been loading 2.7 grains and had bumped up past 3.0 to make PF. And those loads smoked terribly too no matter the velocity. The Hi-Tek coating supposedly holds up to it and it is good stuff, but I only use Titegroup with jacketed bullets. I've shot with others that have had no issue using it with coated bullets.

    Are you sure it was leading in the crown vs. just carbon? HP38 isn't the cleanest powder out there but either type of buildup in the crown could cause an issue. If it's uneven, it'll impart uneven pressure on the base of the bullet as it leaves the barrel. I'm still looking at that FC die but the crown could be the culprit too.

  4. #34
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    Quote Originally Posted by Spartan1980 View Post
    Are you sure it was leading in the crown vs. just carbon? HP38 isn't the cleanest powder out there but either type of buildup in the crown could cause an issue. If it's uneven, it'll impart uneven pressure on the base of the bullet as it leaves the barrel. I'm still looking at that FC die but the crown could be the culprit too.
    Well, I’m not positive, since I don’t have a way to analyze the silver lumps I scraped off with a dental pick, but: 1) the substance was silvery, rounded globs (see photo below), and 2) Didn’t come off using solvent.
    My prior experience with carbon buildup was it being black and somewhat flaky, mostly coming off when rubbed with solvent.
    Name:  1785F359-633F-45E7-A9BE-FACA035FF1F4.jpg
Views: 134
Size:  24.3 KB

    I appreciate your input, and will try a 100 rd lot of reloads with the crimp dialed way back, and another with the FC die removed altogether.
    If I still get keyholing and leading at the muzzle, I’ll contact Gallant about the quality of the hardness and/or coating.
    Oh, and I’ll smash a few bullets today, too.

    ETA- Funny how the focus in the photos gets less “sharp” after they’re uploaded, even at high-res. The detail of the texture of the leading is pretty clear in the original, and the machining marks on the flat end of the muzzle are very obvious. Some of that detail is lost when posting here.
    Last edited by GyroF-16; 10-02-2021 at 11:21 AM.

  5. #35
    Quote Originally Posted by GyroF-16 View Post
    Well, I’m not positive, since I don’t have a way to analyze the silver lumps I scraped off with a dental pick, but: 1) the substance was silvery, rounded globs (see photo below), and 2) Didn’t come off using solvent.
    My prior experience with carbon buildup was it being black and somewhat flaky, mostly coming off when rubbed with solvent.
    Name:  1785F359-633F-45E7-A9BE-FACA035FF1F4.jpg
Views: 134
Size:  24.3 KB

    I appreciate your input, and will try a 100 rd lot of reloads with the crimp dialed way back, and another with the FC die removed altogether.
    If I still get keyholing and leading at the muzzle, I’ll contact Gallant about the quality of the hardness and/or coating.
    Oh, and I’ll smash a few bullets today, too.

    ETA- Funny how the focus in the photos gets less “sharp” after they’re uploaded, even at high-res. The detail of the texture of the leading is pretty clear in the original, and the machining marks on the flat end of the muzzle are very obvious. Some of that detail is lost when posting here.
    Well that pic is much better and your description sure sounds like lead. I have a Leatherman MUT tool which has a brass carbon scraper. It's proven the most valuable thing on the tool for me. Try to dig more of that out with a brass tool of some sort. You may have found your problem. Fingers crossed for you.

  6. #36
    Quote Originally Posted by GyroF-16 View Post

    With this particular lot, I’d switched from Federal brass to Winchester, and had to adjust the bullet seating depth, as the initial setting was giving a COAL of 1.095. So I adjusted the bullet seating die to seat the bullet deeper (than I’d needed to with Fed brass to get the same COAL). This was the only adjustment made since loading several thousand rounds of the same recipe using Fed brass- and not having any keyholing in all of those rounds.
    I feel like throwing my 2 cents in on this comment.

    Can you make another batch using different brass to see if the problem with this lot of bullets persists? In my experience, mostly with 45, sometimes I run into winchester brass that is thicker/has less spring back compared to the rest of my mixed brass. Given you're using a FCD, it could be the carbine ring is hitting some potentially thicker brass than you're used to and swaging down your bullets.

  7. #37
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    Quote Originally Posted by Toddles View Post
    I feel like throwing my 2 cents in on this comment.

    Can you make another batch using different brass to see if the problem with this lot of bullets persists? In my experience, mostly with 45, sometimes I run into winchester brass that is thicker/has less spring back compared to the rest of my mixed brass. Given you're using a FCD, it could be the carbine ring is hitting some potentially thicker brass than you're used to and swaging down your bullets.
    Good idea.
    I’ll try that in the next lot I make.

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