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Blue Bullets undersized


ProfessorGascan

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Greetings,

 

I've been lurking on this sight for a while(this forum in particular) as I'm new to reloading.

 

Anyway, I've bough at sample pack of 147gr RN 9mm bullets from Blue Bullets and as I was making a test round for oal I noticed that the bullet slipped into the case up to the ogive with just finger pressure. I tried it with an unflared case and it did the same thing, grabbed the calipers and checked bullet diameter, out of the 20 or so I measured I got 0.353-0.354.

 

I've loaded 1500 rounds of other bullet manufacturers and had no problems until now. Has anyone else gotten undersized bullets from BB?

Edited by ProfessorGascan
Measurement typo .333-.334 should be .353-.354
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Perhaps you didn't re-size the case prior to trying to fit the bullet.

 

The case expands when fired.

 

.333"-.334" makes no sense for 9mm. 

Edited by TDA
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38 minutes ago, TDA said:

Perhaps you didn't re-size the case prior to trying to fit the bullet.

 

The case expands when fired.

 

.333"-.334" makes no sense for 9mm. 

Diameter of bullet should be .355" or more.   Yikes, if they actually are .333".  

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18 hours ago, jaques said:

So far, I have not had a problem with any of the ones I loaded. Hopefully it stays like that. 

This was not my experience. I experimented with the Blue's in my open gun just to see what would happen. I found the 115 grain bullet undersized and oversized and the weight was all over the place. My experiment also taught me that at over 1400 fps the coating would not stand up and got significant leading. Lesson learned with the Blue's.

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20 hours ago, ProfessorGascan said:

Greetings,

 

I've been lurking on this sight for a while(this forum in particular) as I'm new to reloading.

 

Anyway, I've bough at sample pack of 147gr RN 9mm bullets from Blue Bullets and as I was making a test round for oal I noticed that the bullet slipped into the case up to the ogive with just finger pressure. I tried it with an unflared case and it did the same thing, grabbed the calipers and checked bullet diameter, out of the 20 or so I measured I got 0.353-0.354.

 

I've loaded 1500 rounds of other bullet manufacturers and had no problems until now. Has anyone else gotten undersized bullets from BB?

 

As you're new to reloading. How did you measure the bullet diameter? Did you use a good micrometer? Or a $25 set of calipers? You're talking about .001-.002, you'd need to be pretty skilled with a good set of calipers to measure the diameter that well. BB uses micrometers for QC. The .333 number you post first was pretty scary, this makes a little more sense.

 

As someone else mentioned, did you remember to size the case before you tried putting the bullet in it? Because a .002 undersized bullet still probably would not just drop into a sized case like you're seeing.

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A fellow shooter gave me a small baggie of 9mm blue bullets. They weigh 127 grains so I'm thinking they s/b 125, not a big deal. I measured their diameter and came out with 0.3550

 

I thought that's kinda small for coated lead bullets and went and loaded up a few anyways.

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On 10/16/2017 at 9:07 PM, HI5-O said:

A fellow shooter gave me a small baggie of 9mm blue bullets. They weigh 127 grains so I'm thinking they s/b 125, not a big deal. I measured their diameter and came out with 0.3550

 

I thought that's kinda small for coated lead bullets and went and loaded up a few anyways.

Nope - .355 is what they size them. You can special order .356 or even .357 IIRC. 

I've shoot quite a few and found them to be a very good bullet. My spot checks have yielded .355 +/_ 0.0005.

That said, everyone has QC issues on occasion - its customer service that keeps me coming back to a product. Give them a call.

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On 10/10/2017 at 1:55 AM, 191138sc said:

This was not my experience. I experimented with the Blue's in my open gun just to see what would happen. I found the 115 grain bullet undersized and oversized and the weight was all over the place. My experiment also taught me that at over 1400 fps the coating would not stand up and got significant leading. Lesson learned with the Blue's.

I’ve been running blue bullets for a couple of years including 115’s in my open gun at 1500fps with no leading

most cast bullets I’ve tried vary in weight slightly, and accuracy was about the same as fmj

last year we had a impact berm that got washed out due to heavy rains, and it left big deposits bullets that the scooped up quick

one of the guys told me when he melted it to cast bullets, he had complete blue bullet “jackets” come floating up

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Black Bullets mic .356” with boring consistency if you’re looking for an alternative. They cost a bit more than blues but weight, coating, and size are extremely consistent.

 

I will also back up the guy who pointed out that if you’re looking to differentiate .354” from .355” that a dial caliper lacks the resolution for this task. Almost every manufacturer lists their accuracy at +\- .001” or even .002”

 

Use a micrometer for this, or take your numbers with a huge grain of salt.

 

And all bullets will, of course, plunge into a fired case that hasn’t been resized.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/18/2017 at 2:27 PM, rishii said:

I’ve been running blue bullets for a couple of years including 115’s in my open gun at 1500fps with no leading

most cast bullets I’ve tried vary in weight slightly, and accuracy was about the same as fmj

last year we had a impact berm that got washed out due to heavy rains, and it left big deposits bullets that the scooped up quick

one of the guys told me when he melted it to cast bullets, he had complete blue bullet “jackets” come floating up

Ive also been using the blue bullets in my 9mm major open gun with no issues at all

Also use them in my limited and PCC guns..

great service, quick & quick shipping is why i keep buying them. 

I have never had any issues in over 8k rounds

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