What makes bullets tumble

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The Dillon Precision Calendar is now available! Click Here to Order. We recently published a series of video instructions for our products. More to come! We are famously known for our reloaders, but did you know we also carry a large assortment of gear, reloading supplies, and accessories for our machines? Slow-motion videos of ballistics tests clearly illustrate this difference. Watch the. Developed in the early s, the. The U. In the macabre world of terminal ballistics, the study of what happens when projectiles actually strike, much can be made of over-penetration: the phenomenon of bullets passing clean through their targets.

Rifle rounds have an elongated, oblong shape and so they often tumble. When they strike, the bullets rotate, and more of their surface hits the body. Bullets can also increase the surface area that transfers energy to targets by expanding, as in the case of hollow-point rounds. The wider bullet also creates a bigger cavity in whatever it passes through.

Hollow points also create a larger temporary cavity. The temporary cavity is the hole in the target that briefly expands after immediate impact, only to collapse a fraction of a second later. In one case study of a year-old man struck in the chest by a. Though the patient survived and only had a small wound, he suffered extensive contusions throughout his lungs. Four ribs had essentially turned to dust. The damage was far too extensive. He died in our E. He was Ballistics engineers try to balance speed, mass, and surface area to make the most effective round possible.

At The Trace, we examine what happens after bullets are sold, shot, and wound human beings. The damage is often extensive, and not just for those who die.

Shooting survivors and their caregivers describe a lifetime of chronic pain, repeated surgeries years after being shot, and challenges to everyday living that come from losing parts of vital organs, like a woman who has to buy her son expensive protein shakes after he lost much of his stomach. We are currently looking for shooting survivors to discuss their experience and their recovery. Next, are you getting a sideways imprint of the bullet on the target paper or is the occasional shot simply a flier that could be operator error?

True key holing is generally due to use of plated bullets, generally in 9x19, where the bullet diameter is too small. Other leading cause is damage to the muzzle. Both coated and plated can be inconsistent in dimensions and you might want to check them with a micrometer and slug your barrel. If nothing else, scrub that barrel completely clean and run one or two thousand Precision Delta jacketed bullets through it.

It's the Xtreme bullets. Something changed with Xtreme in recent years and they now seem to ship undersized bullets more than usual. I even reached out and asked them to send me new ones. Still undersized. Have you put a set of calipers on the bullets to see if this is a problem for you? Also have you slugged the barrel? I know you said you're also having an occasional issue with your coated bullets, but I'd ditch the Xtremes if I were you.

Also what's your concern about running the coated bullets for larger matches? They certainly aren't lower quality than plated. Check the diameter of the projectiles. A few years ago I got a batch that had. They were not accurate and had about the same tumble rate as yours.

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