Written by Bob Birmley Cimarron, NM & Photos by Doug Baribeau, this article appeared in the May/June, 2003 #163 issue of the Fouling Shot.
You’re shooting for score in heavy class. It’s 100 yards and you’re running a string of fourteen consecutive tens with five or six X’s thrown in for good measure. Then on your fifteenth shot you miss and I’m not talking about dropping a point - I’m talking two points! You just shot an eight. You calm yourself down and finish up with a 198. A respectable score? Sure, but it could have been perfect. That one bad shot cost you a “200” sticker and possibly the match. What happened? Was it me, was it the wind, was it my bench technique?
Wait a minute. I know what it was. It has to be a bad bullet! If I’ve heard it once I’ve heard it a hundred times, “It must be the bullet.” I’ve said it plenty of times myself although to be honest I always thought blaming the bullet was an easy way out for just plain poor shooting. But alas my fellow shooters, I think I may have stumbled across something that may explain where that occasional bad shot comes from and you know what, it just might be the bullet.
In March of 2002 the Modesto Rifle Club had its first CBA shoot of the season. On the first morning I settled in on the bench at 100 yards. We were shooting for score. I dropped one on the fifth shot and another on my twelfth shot. Okay, so my luck was starting to run out. Then on my sixteenth shot I dropped two points with an eight. I ended up with a 196. Boy, the Red Gods had just gotten their revenge.
I’ve shot plenty of nines at 100 yards but never an eight. I started checking everything I could think of that could make me drop two points in one shot. Was it the gun? The gun is a Dave Lee built heavy with all the bells and whistles. The rifle finished off the 2001 season with five consecutive 200’s at 100 yards. In the off sea-son it never missed a beat. I don’t say this to boast but to stress the fact that the gun has always done its job. In my case the gun makes the shooter, not the other way around. Was it my bench technique? No, I haven’t changed a thing since my mentor and shooting partner, Bob Thompson, slapped me upside the head for squeezing the rear bag. And that was almost three years ago. Was it the wind? Could be. I have a long way to go before I figure out how to “read the wind.” But on this day the wind was down and at 100 yards my heavy gun spits out tens with boring regularity.
Well, that leaves my loads. I load at the bench. Nothing changes from shot to shot. Same case, same charge, same primer, same bullet. I shoot a .30 BR using the Eagan MX 4-30 ARD “old cherry.” The bullets come out looking as pretty as the mold they come from. (Note: This is straight lino.) My bullets are indexed and I weigh them with the gas checks seated. After weighing them and lubing, I put them in loading blocks in 1/10-grain increments. They are also marked so I can tell each time the weight of the bullet increases 1/10 of a grain. Between each step of my bullet making routine every bullet is checked under a large, well-lit magnifying glass. There’s only one problem with this routine—my aging eyes and the glare of the bright light. After an hour or so my eyes become fatigued so I started looking for a solution to my problem of looking at bright silver bullets under a bright light.
Then the light between my ears came on. I remembered how Dave Lee’s bullets looked after he moly coated them. They came out a very dull gray color. The color probably comes from the moly but what the hell, I threw 50 bullets into my Lyman 600 tumbler. After about two hours I checked them out. Sure enough, they were a dark gray. All the cosmetic blemishes had been removed and no more glare from the bright bullets. But there was something else I found. Four of the bullets had holes in them. I didn’t notice any holes before running them through the tumbler. I grabbed 100 unprocessed bullets from my casting table and sat down at my reloading bench. I carefully checked all 100 newly cast bullets under my large magnifying glass. All the bullets looked perfect. I dumped all 100 bullets into my Lyman tumbler. I turned it on and came back four hours later. Like the ones before, they came out a dark gray. Out of 100 bullets I found seven with holes.
You’re shooting for score in heavy class. It’s 100 yards and you’re running a string of fourteen consecutive tens with five or six X’s thrown in for good measure. Then on your fifteenth shot you miss and I’m not talking about dropping a point - I’m talking two points! You just shot an eight. You calm yourself down and finish up with a 198. A respectable score? Sure, but it could have been perfect. That one bad shot cost you a “200” sticker and possibly the match. What happened? Was it me, was it the wind, was it my bench technique?
Wait a minute. I know what it was. It has to be a bad bullet! If I’ve heard it once I’ve heard it a hundred times, “It must be the bullet.” I’ve said it plenty of times myself although to be honest I always thought blaming the bullet was an easy way out for just plain poor shooting. But alas my fellow shooters, I think I may have stumbled across something that may explain where that occasional bad shot comes from and you know what, it just might be the bullet.
In March of 2002 the Modesto Rifle Club had its first CBA shoot of the season. On the first morning I settled in on the bench at 100 yards. We were shooting for score. I dropped one on the fifth shot and another on my twelfth shot. Okay, so my luck was starting to run out. Then on my sixteenth shot I dropped two points with an eight. I ended up with a 196. Boy, the Red Gods had just gotten their revenge.
I’ve shot plenty of nines at 100 yards but never an eight. I started checking everything I could think of that could make me drop two points in one shot. Was it the gun? The gun is a Dave Lee built heavy with all the bells and whistles. The rifle finished off the 2001 season with five consecutive 200’s at 100 yards. In the off sea-son it never missed a beat. I don’t say this to boast but to stress the fact that the gun has always done its job. In my case the gun makes the shooter, not the other way around. Was it my bench technique? No, I haven’t changed a thing since my mentor and shooting partner, Bob Thompson, slapped me upside the head for squeezing the rear bag. And that was almost three years ago. Was it the wind? Could be. I have a long way to go before I figure out how to “read the wind.” But on this day the wind was down and at 100 yards my heavy gun spits out tens with boring regularity.
Well, that leaves my loads. I load at the bench. Nothing changes from shot to shot. Same case, same charge, same primer, same bullet. I shoot a .30 BR using the Eagan MX 4-30 ARD “old cherry.” The bullets come out looking as pretty as the mold they come from. (Note: This is straight lino.) My bullets are indexed and I weigh them with the gas checks seated. After weighing them and lubing, I put them in loading blocks in 1/10-grain increments. They are also marked so I can tell each time the weight of the bullet increases 1/10 of a grain. Between each step of my bullet making routine every bullet is checked under a large, well-lit magnifying glass. There’s only one problem with this routine—my aging eyes and the glare of the bright light. After an hour or so my eyes become fatigued so I started looking for a solution to my problem of looking at bright silver bullets under a bright light.
Then the light between my ears came on. I remembered how Dave Lee’s bullets looked after he moly coated them. They came out a very dull gray color. The color probably comes from the moly but what the hell, I threw 50 bullets into my Lyman 600 tumbler. After about two hours I checked them out. Sure enough, they were a dark gray. All the cosmetic blemishes had been removed and no more glare from the bright bullets. But there was something else I found. Four of the bullets had holes in them. I didn’t notice any holes before running them through the tumbler. I grabbed 100 unprocessed bullets from my casting table and sat down at my reloading bench. I carefully checked all 100 newly cast bullets under my large magnifying glass. All the bullets looked perfect. I dumped all 100 bullets into my Lyman tumbler. I turned it on and came back four hours later. Like the ones before, they came out a dark gray. Out of 100 bullets I found seven with holes.
Typical voids found in bullets that weighed in the expected range for the batch.The bullet on the right actually weighed .3 grain above the average. My theory is that the small granules of the tum-bling media break through the thin skin of the holes as the holes have granules stuck in them. I started setting any bullets I found with holes off to the side in hopes of doing some experiments at a later date. Well, after several months I had well over 100 bullets with defects in them. I figured it was about time to see what effect, if any, these holes have on accuracy.
Now for the interesting part—I separated the bullets by weight. Some were as much as three to four grains light. Of course these would be spotted on a scale as having voids and be rejected immediately.
Now for the interesting part—I separated the bullets by weight. Some were as much as three to four grains light. Of course these would be spotted on a scale as having voids and be rejected immediately.
But what I found interesting was that many of them weighed in close to or on the average weight for this particular bullet. In other words, many of these bullets would never have been spotted using a scale and yet they had small to large voids in them. I’m sure this is due to bullets that occasionally weigh on the high side. With the void they come in about the middle of a batch.
I put the gas checks on and lubed them. Then it was off to the range. The following information is from my notes.
I took 40 bullets to the range for testing. The conditions at the range were perfect. The time 6:30 a.m. and the temperature was 38 with no wind. It was a ‘trigger pull” morning. The bullets were divided into lots with each lot weighing the same. All weights were equal to the weight of my match ready bullets. After getting set up I cleaned the barrel then fired two foulers. I was shooting at the standard CBA score target. I sighted in to hit the ten-ring dead on. Then as a reference I shot five match-grade bullets at the sighter. The group measured .427”. Then I began shooting the flawed bullets in five shot groups. With the first group, all shots hit the 10-ring. It was a large group but they were all tens.
I put the gas checks on and lubed them. Then it was off to the range. The following information is from my notes.
I took 40 bullets to the range for testing. The conditions at the range were perfect. The time 6:30 a.m. and the temperature was 38 with no wind. It was a ‘trigger pull” morning. The bullets were divided into lots with each lot weighing the same. All weights were equal to the weight of my match ready bullets. After getting set up I cleaned the barrel then fired two foulers. I was shooting at the standard CBA score target. I sighted in to hit the ten-ring dead on. Then as a reference I shot five match-grade bullets at the sighter. The group measured .427”. Then I began shooting the flawed bullets in five shot groups. With the first group, all shots hit the 10-ring. It was a large group but they were all tens.
Bob Thompson found these voids by bumping. The second group was a repeat of the first. Two inside the ring with three nippers. So far so good. They weren’t good looking groups but they were all tens. On to the third target, the first three shots were all solid tens then on the 4th shot the bottom fell out. A solid eight at 11:00 o’clock. The fifth shot was a nipper ten. On the fourth target the first shot was a nine at 3 o’clock. The next three were tens and the last shot was another nine but this time at 6 o’clock. That left me with a score of 196.
Before going on with the next series of targets and before cleaning my barrel, I fired a five-shot group with match grade bullets.
Before going on with the next series of targets and before cleaning my barrel, I fired a five-shot group with match grade bullets.
This group came in at .392”. That verified that a dirty barrel was not responsible for the fliers. On the next four targets I had approximately the same results as before. I dropped three, which gave me a 197. I shot a five-shot group with match bullets both before the first target and after the last one. The groups were .532” and .422”.
Again, my theory is a lot of us are casting some flawed bullets that are probably finding their way into our loading blocks and getting mixed in with our match bullets. The scary part is that these bullets are just good enough that when we shoot them we don’t see anything wrong. Then one of them decides to take a walk out to the eight-ring and become one of those famous “Oh S—t!” shots.
I know that 40 bad bullets fired at a few targets is not an in-depth test. But, saving enough bad bullets for the test took several months. Further testing will have to wait another six months or so. From what I’ve seen so far, I am convinced that catching bad bullets by running them through my Lyman 600 has helped my scores. Remember, these bullets had small enough voids in them that they would not have been caught by my scale. And, they would not have been seen even under a magnifying glass.
Summary
1 . I use only untreated (no cleaning or polishing agents) granulated washed walnut hulls in my tum-bler. So far I haven’t detected any bore damage to my barrels. How this process will affect your barrel I can’t say. Proceed with caution! Frankly, if the only medium I could get had detergents or chemicals or polishing agents, I would be very reluctant to add this process to my bullet preparation.
2. I haven’t tried a conventional tumbler so I don’t know how or if it would work. The Lyman 600 is called a tumbler, but it uses the vibrating method of polishing.
3. The dimensions of my bullets haven’t changed. The edges of the lube grooves and bases look just as sharp after this process as in the beginning. All the dimensions mic out the same.
Again remember, out of all the bad bullets I found over seven months, only 40 of these bullets would have made it into my match-ready loading block. If you spread that out over six or seven matches we’re talking three or four bad bullets per match. Of these, most would be okay but somewhere along the line you will drop a point and when you check the wind, it’ll be okay. You go back to your bench technique and everything will look all right. That’s when you turn to the shooter on the bench next to you and say, “It must have been a bad bullet.” And you know what, it probably was!
Again, my theory is a lot of us are casting some flawed bullets that are probably finding their way into our loading blocks and getting mixed in with our match bullets. The scary part is that these bullets are just good enough that when we shoot them we don’t see anything wrong. Then one of them decides to take a walk out to the eight-ring and become one of those famous “Oh S—t!” shots.
I know that 40 bad bullets fired at a few targets is not an in-depth test. But, saving enough bad bullets for the test took several months. Further testing will have to wait another six months or so. From what I’ve seen so far, I am convinced that catching bad bullets by running them through my Lyman 600 has helped my scores. Remember, these bullets had small enough voids in them that they would not have been caught by my scale. And, they would not have been seen even under a magnifying glass.
Summary
1 . I use only untreated (no cleaning or polishing agents) granulated washed walnut hulls in my tum-bler. So far I haven’t detected any bore damage to my barrels. How this process will affect your barrel I can’t say. Proceed with caution! Frankly, if the only medium I could get had detergents or chemicals or polishing agents, I would be very reluctant to add this process to my bullet preparation.
2. I haven’t tried a conventional tumbler so I don’t know how or if it would work. The Lyman 600 is called a tumbler, but it uses the vibrating method of polishing.
3. The dimensions of my bullets haven’t changed. The edges of the lube grooves and bases look just as sharp after this process as in the beginning. All the dimensions mic out the same.
Again remember, out of all the bad bullets I found over seven months, only 40 of these bullets would have made it into my match-ready loading block. If you spread that out over six or seven matches we’re talking three or four bad bullets per match. Of these, most would be okay but somewhere along the line you will drop a point and when you check the wind, it’ll be okay. You go back to your bench technique and everything will look all right. That’s when you turn to the shooter on the bench next to you and say, “It must have been a bad bullet.” And you know what, it probably was!
