RUM 45 CONVERSION BRUX KEYHOLE WITH HORNADY FTX 250 GR

[alzheimershooter]

using my remington ultimate ML that longrangecustoms (levi) had done conversion on using a .45 cal brux barrel,,,,,, shooting 250 gr hornady ftx, using 86 gr by weight of bh209, sized in my sizing die to a decent diameter to load with easy-moderate pressure. have never worked well in my rum lrc conversion .45 cal. but today,, my son was shooting at 100 yds with them to warm up before using the expensive parker bullets we will use for actual hunting,,,any way, first shot ok,,,second shot did a full on keyhole about 12" below first shot,,, third shot was about an inch from first shot,,, we switched to parkers after that but like i said, the ftx's have never shot well but i have never had one tumble,,,what could have caused it? any thoughts? i do think the veggie wad was one of those that was undersized and just fell down the bore, i can't imagine that making that big of a difference,, according to my mark on rod,, everything was in it's usual place before firing

As far as the veggie wad,,,i have a big bag and every 20 wads or so i set on the funnel and it just falls in, assume a 40 cal wad got mixed in with the 45's

 

[ENCORE50A]

What charge were you shooting?

 

[alzheimershooter]

sorry,,, i have been using 86 gr by weight of bh209, weighed on my ridiculously accurate reloading scale

 

[alzheimershooter]

What charge were you shooting?

sorry,,, i have been using 86 gr by weight of bh209, weighed on my ridiculously accurate reloading scale

 

[BuckDoeHunter]

The FTX has a thick jacket compared to some. When I shot one out of my .45 Disc Elite with 120gr V of BH209, the bullet missed my intended target and went way left. The recovered bullet barely had rifling marks on it. I can see a loose wad causing a keyhole, less pressure built up when the shot was fired and the bullet didn't bump up into the rifling.

The recovered bullet, its very hard to see the rifling marks against the knurl marks.

This is a Barnes TEZ shot the same day, better rifling but still weak and produced a 2-3 inch 5 shot group at 100 yards.

 

[ported45]

I forgot the veggie wad once while shooting 250 monoflex ml and it did the exact same thing. Made sure I had a wad for the next shot and it went back in the same hole.

 

[D55]

Have you tried wool wads?

 

[45-70]

bullet doesn't fit

 

[alzheimershooter]

bullet doesn't fit

could you elaborate? i mean, when i sized them, i kept adjusting my sizing die until i could push them down the barrel with a decent amount of force, in fact, they are harder to push down than the parkers, which shoot great, but obviously the parkers have a much thinner jacket.

 

[ENCORE50A]

Post #5 pretty much explains it. If the bullet doesn't obturate into the rifling, they will not stabilize.

 

[ronlaughlin]

bullet doesn't fit

could you elaborate?

The wad being too small allowed the pressure surge to go through the rifling around the bullet. Thus the bullet never did obturate the bore. Therefor your rifle may as well been a smooth bore.

To engage the rifling the bullet needs to expand. The bullet cannot hold the pressured required to expand the bullet, because it is too small to fill the grooves. The wad, 'if proper sized' plugs the grooves. The wad holds the pressure required to expand the bullet so it engages the rifling.

The softer the jacket/lead, the easier it is, to make the bullet obturate the bore. One only needs 50 grain of powder for some bullets with thin jackets, and soft lead, but need much more for bullets with thick jackets.

 

[45-70]

bullet to small, good explanation

 

[BuckDoeHunter]

bullet to small, good explanation

I think you missed the post on loading force in the OP’s previous post #9. The bullet was not sized too small, the wad was too small.

 

[alzheimershooter]

I think you missed the post on loading force in the OP’s previous post #9. The bullet was not sized too small, the wad was too small.

that is correct, the bullet it self seemed to go down like normal,, it did not just fall down, i realize there needs to be some resistance.

 

[smokeeter]

the bullet isn't obturating, size the bullet for a tighter fit as mentioned. Try it without the wad. I regularly had keyholing occur when shooting monolithic bullets , I sized them so tightly in the bore I had to pound them down, ended up concaving the base ( similar to the Thor's) then they finally obturated enough to grab the rifling

here are some heavy jacketed nosler partitions that were also difficult to obturate prior to concaving the base.

 

[BuckDoeHunter]

The FTX's most likely won't shoot accurately at max BH pressures smooth sized, that's been my experience. The only time I had them shoot a nice group full bore, was with a wad and with a RemPac smokeless muzzleloader. That was with a mild load, smooth sized, that my youngest Daughter was practicing with.

My Daughter shot the low one, when I tried to load the next one for her, it was way too tight. I resized the bullets and shot a 4 shot group the next day, they shot very well but were still hard to load but doable.

I have a Full Form die for my Daughter's RemPac, I have a feeling that with BH max loads with the rifling already engraved into the bullet, they may shoot with some accuracy. I'll add it to the list of things I want to shoot, more range time is always a good thing

One of many nice things about a .45 Brux barrel is that you can get a Full Form die without having to have a piece of your barrel cut off, the Brux barrels are very consistent, I use the same FF die for two barrels.