Keyholing with Gallant bullets

[TOTS]

If you’re sure they are keyholing whereas the same bullets were not, take a picture and send them back to Gallant. They have been great to deal with customer service wise. I’ve exclusively been shooting Gallant for a couple of years.

[GyroF-16]

Have you shot them out of this gun before? It wouldn't be the first time I heard of a Beretta needing a slightly larger bullet (.357 or .358) to obtain better accuracy and prevent leading.

As I mentioned in post #6 above, I’ve shot probably 10,000 of these .356 Gallant bullets through this gun. No keyholes until this lot.
Tried .357 and groups were larger.

[GyroF-16]

If you’re sure they are keyholing whereas the same bullets were not, take a picture and send them back to Gallant. They have been great to deal with customer service wise. I’ve exclusively been shooting Gallant for a couple of years.

Thanks- before I reached out to Gallant, I wanted to make sure there wasn’t some other variable that I hadn’t accounted for.

[GyroF-16]

What kind of target? A limp paper target can tear in a way that looks like a key holing bullet.

But things can go awry without obvious cause. I had some plated bullets to keyhole, a local guy got them in wholesale from a maker in Florida. They looked the same profile and miked the same diameter as the Xtremes I had been loading but they did not shoot the same.

After oblong tears in relatively flimsy targets, I put 10 rds into a B-8 on thick paper. I took pics, and will try to post them in the next 2 days.

[Suvorov]

I’m sure you have thought about this already but are these the the loads you are shooting when you are having stove pipe issues?

[GyroF-16]

I’m sure you have thought about this already but are these the the loads you are shooting when you are having stove pipe issues?

Kinda-sorta. The stovepipe has happened with factory Federal 150 gr Syntech and my 147 gr reloads that were loaded over the last 6 months, but fired in matches in the last 3 months or so.
The keyholing (in about 20% of the rounds fired) showed up in my first batch of 100 rds reloaded with the latest lot of Gallant bullets that arrived last month. Same load recipe (charge, primer, COAL, and bullet type and weight) in both instances - the only variable was the new lot of bullets. I have not noticed keyholing prior to that lot of bullets.

[GyroF-16]

After oblong tears in relatively flimsy targets, I put 10 rds into a B-8 on thick paper. I took pics, and will try to post them in the next 2 days.

Replying own post to show some photos.

Here’s a string of 5 intentionally spread out to avoid “doubles”
Note the 2 obvious keyholes.


Close-up of the top left keyhole, as originally seen, and then held closed from behind to see the marks from the bullet coating.




Same sequence for the bottom keyhole.





And finally, a close-up of one of the 3 “normal” holes from a bullet that wasn’t tumbling.

[UNK]

I wonder if there is a difference in hardness. As in coming apart in flight.
ETA I think I would weigh some projectiles in the known good batch and compare deviations against projectiles in the problem batch.
I can check the hardness if you think its worthwhile.

[Spartan1980]

I seriously doubt they are coming apart in flight at 900 fps. You might check the hardness though. If they got a soft batch of metal it may not be gripping the rifling enough to stabilize. Gripping the rifling seems to be the issue whatever the cause since your gun has shot heavies in the past. Is your barrel leaded? When I've seen keyholing or maybe just on the verge of keyholing the accuracy sucked. How do they group? My bet is worse than before.

[UNK]

I seriously doubt they are coming apart in flight at 900 fps. You might check the hardness though. If they got a soft batch of metal it may not be gripping the rifling enough to stabilize. Gripping the rifling seems to be the issue whatever the cause since your gun has shot heavies in the past. Is your barrel leaded? When I've seen keyholing or maybe just on the verge of keyholing the accuracy sucked. How do they group? My bet is worse than before.

Sorry Im the worst at expressing in words. Not as in coming apart as in pieces but maybe delaminating would be a better description. Im not that familiar with keyholing I know Ive seen it but not more than a very few times. Those holes just look odd to my untrained eye. Whatever it is I hope we find out, if there is an explanation.
The first two pics after the group pic in particular look odd.