A video about "FMJ-ish" bullets I happened to find a while back:Originally Posted by SteveL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVlb-xTdSbk
I don't know that Fiocchi is superior but when it's cheap I stack it deep. There's two kinds now: "Training Dynamics" in Italian cases with the brass jacketed bullets seen in the video, and "Range Dynamics" with cases marked "Assembled in America" and copper (plated?) bullets.
Welp,.. once again, I got a thank somebody for posting some thing that describes an issue that I just noticed and did not know what exactly what’s going on. 🤣👍🏻
This was my G 48 barrel after shooting that stuff. I also noticed the apparent bronze-ish brass color in the grooves?
I wondered why the end of the barrel had all that gray shit on it. 🤷*♂️🤣
…and with ALL that unjacketed lead gas/vapor/particles shooting out the muzzle and into the air, no wonder my blood lead level has doubled! 😉🤣🤦🤷
I’ve used Blazer Brass for years, and have never seen anything resembling a plated bullet. I tried vigorously to scrap the jacket off the bullet pictured above, and could not reach lead.
This is interesting. I'm about to finish a recently acquired case of 1,000 rounds of Blazer Brass 124gr, but I haven't had any issues with it. I'm probably shooting the last of it on Saturday, so I'll get a little closer to the targets and see if I observe what some you have experienced.
It's my understanding that any fully encapsulated bullet is plated; that being said, there are different levels of plating, i.e., the Speer TMJs are plated, but the plating is much thicker and robust than the very thin plating you might find on a Berry's Bullet.
To be fair, any bullet with an exposed base will deposit molten lead on the muzzle crown, muzzle device, your lungs, etc. I wish "TMJ"s were cheaper if only to make cleaning compensators easier. Sheesh. Anyway, I've shot probably a literal ton of Blazer Brass and will continue to shoot it.
I've shot somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000 rounds of Blazer Brass or equivalent in the last three years.
I have seen fragments of the jacket in targets when engaging at 5 yards or less sometimes. I have also seen the swirls on the target at 5 yards or less sometimes. It hasn't been consistent as in a predictable phenomenon from even one round to the next. I will shoot a demo in front of the class and we'll go up to make the teaching points and sometimes I will see where generally just one round shed some of its jacket or left behind some swirling. When I see it on my target or on student targets, I point it out.
As a reference, I've used primarily a Gen5 G17 with a factory barrel, a Gen5 G17 with a KKM barrel, and two M&P's with Apex barrels. I did a very small amount through a Beretta 92. I haven't seen leading or any unusual buildup in the barrels of any of those guns using Blazer brass. I haven't had any clients report that they are seeing any unusual buildup in their barrels using BB either. Most of those folks are using Glocks, M&P's, and Sigs with a smattering of H&K's and FNs mixed in.
In teaching with others like Tom I've seen plenty of targets where there was evidence of the occasional jacket fragmentation, but to my memory I've not seen anyone have it consistently round after round after round...and Tom's classes usually do a fair bit of work at 5 yards.
Just as an example, in a typical IDC with Tom if there's two relays and he's having them do holster work at 3 yards I'll see one or two shooters with evidence of jacket fragmentation on their target with a percentage of the shots they fired. I usually explain what it is (most are flabbergasted that it's even a thing) and we move on. I've not yet come across someone who has it happening consistently shot to shot.
So far in my observation...and I'm just one dude who is on the range a lot, but not enough to have anything like a comprehensive view so YMMV, tablespoon full of salt, consult your doctor, etc...it hasn't been enough of an issue in my view to be really concerned with apart from being another minor reason why I don't truck with ported and compensated guns for serious use.
When Federal introduced their polymer coated bullets I had hoped those would catch on and become a cheaper but still highly effective alternative to copper washing/jacketing for bulk target ammo, but that doesn't seem to have caught on for some reason. Fiocchi's plastic coated shotgun slugs are magnificent at reducing leading in the barrel and, consequently, leading into the gas system of semi-autos. So I'm a fan of the general concept.
3/15/2016
Something else worthy of note:
It is difficult to comprehend the number of loaded cartridges that are produced on a daily basis in this country. A single plant can load tens of millions of rounds per day. Anyone who is involved in manufacturing can appreciate that producing that many units with even incredibly low defect rates will result in what a normal person would consider large numbers of cartridges that aren't quite up to snuff.
The fact that something like a squib with factory ammunition is such an infrequent occurrence on the range is frankly close to miraculous when you ponder just how many cartridges these factories are cranking out.
So I expect ammunition to have problems. I expect that somewhere out there somebody has some HST or Gold Dot that will shed jacket and perform sub-optimally when called on, or primers that won't light properly, etc...but it's going to be a very, very small percentage of that ammo. The extra quality control and higher quality components used in those cartridges make the error rate a lot lower...but not zero. It's a low enough number that I'm pretty sure the rounds in my magazines right now aren't going to be a problem should I need them.
3/15/2016
yeah,… With everybody commenting on this, I was beginning to come to that conclusion myself. It’s just I hadn’t seen this before, and I was worried that these fragments might be able to cause damage to the pistol, the barrel, ….ME! 🤣
Seems to be the consensus that it’s not something to worry about. And as I said, I hadn’t noticed it before it might just be this one batch or this one box because I’ve shot other boxes of this same case. although with the 147 that is almost exclusively, my PCC practice round. I only shot them in this pistol as part of vetting those PSA magazines. So normally I would never be shooting 147 in that close. To notice a problem.
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