Key holeing .40 thru an eagle

[FF423]

So I was at the Orlando gun show on the 4th of January looking for some allusive powder when I stumbled upon a local company selling ammo.

I needed some .40 s&w for a upcoming match so I bought 150 rounds of 180g Hp .40 s&w claiming 1000fps. From 'COMPANY NAME REMOVED BY ADMIN'. For 18 bucks per 50 rounds a pretty good deal if you ask me.

Little back story I'm a competitive shooter shoot IDPA and USPSA probably shoot 2k rounds a month I was shooting a STI eagle in .40 at the upcoming match.

Get to said match yesterday down in Frostproof FL load up my mags with said .40 cal first stage of the day shoot 29 rounds exactly go down range to score the targets and what do I see key holed shots almost all of them.

Talking with the other competitors that were down there that day we came to the same conclusion it was the ammo. Specifically the crimp of the ammunition. Most of us load our own ammo and knows the process. So I unload my mags and load up my other ammo I brought with me and finish out the day.

That brings us to this morning I call up the company and talked to Darrin on the phone seems like a nice guy I tell him my story and says I'm the first to call and complain about his ammo. After a short discussion I told him I believe that it's the crimp of his loaded ammo. He then told me I didn't know what I was talking about said no way a crimp on a round causes key holed rounds and insisted it was my gun.

After further background I explained to him my knowledge of reloading and indeed it could be the crimp. At that time he call me a few choice names and hung up the phone.

Needless to say I will not be purchasing more ammo in the future.

I was wondering what your thoughts of the issue are. And has anyone else had this same problem.

Edited July 30, 2014 by benos
One side of an "industry bashing"

[sigsauerfan]

he may crimp for insurance issues like bullet set back doing pooouf in the user's face. we all know .40 must be very lightly crimped to avoid a set back, but when the round leaves what seems a boat on papers,you know it's a little too much crimp

[FF423]

I knew I was preaching to the choir but I had to ask if I was in the wrong on this issue

[snertley]

I was wondering why you would use ammo for a match that you had never even fired out of your gun before the match?

[Paul-the new guy]

We shoot local matches around here for practice. Kind of like test and tune night at the drag strip... What bullets did he use? Plated, Moly or jacketed?

Edited January 13, 2014 by Paul-the new guy

[FF423]

It was a local uspsa match not a major match

They look like the extremes HP 180gr they are plated

Edited January 13, 2014 by FF423

[Justsomeguy]

Ah... ok... Plated bullets are going to be much more susceptible to over crimping than most. You should pull a few of those loaded bullets and see if there is an impression on the plating. If there is a pretty deep impression then it may indeed be the cause of the key holing. And... just for those newer to reloading, a crimp is not going to prevent set back issues in any caliber. The bullet is held with case tension from a good sizing die. Crimping is about feeding, not about set back.

[FF423]

The plan is to pull them and if they are not marked up re load the lot. The OAL was a little low also so I can seat them at the proper OAL this time. They are set at 1.125 and I'm going to set them at 1.180.

What pissed me off enough to write that out was the complete lack of trying to make it right. If I was truly the first to complain about his product why wouldn't he go out of his way to fix the issue.

I think there is a lot of competition out there and really wanted to give this local company a try maybe promote his Business but after his lack of customer service I will do the complete opposite.

[noylj]

I have never seen crimp have an effect of key-holing.

Just to be clear, you are talking about the bullets tumbling in flight and leaving silhouettes of the bullets in the paper--not just an oval hole in the target cause the paper moved due to lack of firm backing?

In my experience, and everyone who shoots 9x19 has probably gotten experience in bullet tumbling I'll bet, it is usually a too-small bullet (plated bullets are often less than 0.355" and groove diameters are often more than 0.355" and often the shooter has never checked either), worn or damaged rifling, twist rate completely wrong for bullet weight, and muzzle damage (though this is more likely to cause shotgun patterns than true key-holing). In no case that I have ever worked with was crimping either a cause or a cure. The best I could imagine would be a crimp so severe that it cut through the plating on the bullet and the plating was scrapped off and the bare lead contacted the bore and leading built up.

Many people have their reloading step that they blame all problems on, and crimping is often the most popular.

[Doc Hunter]

I my experience plated bullets are a fail.

[fastarget]

Same experience here, but not with all plated , have had excellent luck with extreme FP, and most Berry's, but RN extreme 147s keyholed about one round per ten.

There is a good probability it is the diameter of the bullet and its relationship with the spec of the barrel, twist rate and rifling, possibly made worse by a distorted bullet(too much crimp).

Also the twist rate , bullet weight and velocity can be a factor.

[sigsauerfan]

intempestive crimp does induce bullet tumbling on his way to the target then leaving a '''boat'' print on targets. however a round with so much crimp can be diagnosed easy, the ''bottle''' effect is very apparent, an exagerated bottle shape.

[bowenbuilt]

The number one reason that people have problems with plated and coated bullets is a direct result of over crimping them. You have to think about what you are doing to a bullet when you run it into a "taper" crimp die. The die is tapered being larger at the bottom and getting progressively smaller toward the top. If you run a softer plated or coated bullet too far into the taper you reduce the diameter of the bullet so that only the base of the bullet firmly engages the rifling in the barrel. This causes the bullet to violently wobble down the bore and when it leaves the muzzle it is totally unstable. If you taper crimp a bullet enough to cause the slightest mark you have reduced the diameter of the bullet forward of the base enough to cause all kinds of problems. With coated bullets it causes tumbling, leading and smoke.

High quality plated bullets are sized after the plating and so are coated bullets, after the coating is applied. There is absolutely no reason with a little work that a high quality plated bullet will not shoot as well as any other if you don't commit the ultimate sin of over crimping them. If you weigh them and measure them and they are consistent in weight, profile and diameter and you can't make them shoot look in the mirror, that is the problem not the bullet.

[Justsomeguy]

This ^^! Overcrimping reduces the bullet diameter and so ruins the fit to the barrel.

[FF423]

I load my own plated bullets, the same ones I bought that day and never had a issue of key holeing I set my crimp die at .424 .024 over the bullet size when I asked the guy what his crimp is set at he told me he does it by feel. Right there I knew I was on to something.

[Idoktr]

Thanks for the heads up !

[kamikaze1a]

You pulled the bullets from the problem ammo, loaded the pulled bullets and then they were fine?

Or did you also buy bullets from the seller?

[GlockGuru]

For what it's worth... I have dealt with Darrin at ZLS Ammunition on several occasions. I also shoot tournaments. There are probably many of us here that do. I have shot several thousand rounds of ammo from ZLS in tournaments as well as at the range. Most of the ammo I shoot is 40's. I have never experienced a failure to fire, failure to eject, hang fire, keyhole, or any other malfunction related to ammunition. I had a problem one time and actually went to Darrin's shop. Come to find out my firing pin spring was weak and worn which caused a couple of rounds not to discharge. Darrin actually was very helpful in diagnosing the problem which I had overlooked. Hey nobody's perfect. I would hate for everyone to judge Darrin or ZLS Ammunition based on one bad story or experience. Maybe it was a problem with his gun. Maybe not. Either way Darrin and his guys have always been very helpful. My last bit of input is this. The last tournament I shot was down in Okeechobee, FL and there were just over 1000 competitors. I shot about 300 rounds of ammo from ZLS and finished in 10th place. Good shooter + Good ammo = Good results. My point is this. If his ammo was no good everyone would be on here or some other forum bashing him. Don't let one persons bad experience shy you away from a good company or a good group of people.

[Croomrider]

GlockGuru, did you join just to tell us that? Wouldn't be sponsored would you?

Mike

[stickboy44]

I'm see bullets tumbling out of my wife Edge also...I was loading with WST and Extreme bullets and seen 1 or 2 out of 300 or so tumbling..really did not pay much attention to it

Switched powder to TiteGroup and noticed 1 out of 5 tumbling...so I pulled a bullet to find out I have been over crimping them.

Now 1 or 2 out of 100 still tumble so back to the drawling board with that.

I don't understand how switching powders made them tumble more with TiteGroup than with WST?

[noylj]

Real keyholing (and not just oval holes in paper from the paper moving when hit, but real bullet silhouettes) has always, in my experience only, been due to a bullet or barrel issue. Bullet too small or muzzle or bullet damage. Did you pull any unfired rounds and inspect the bullet and see any damage from the "crimp" or any swaging down of the bullet OD? Are the bullets 0.355" or larger? Have you inspected your muzzle for damage--even a small scratch extending into the rifling only a little can cause huge problems? Have you slugged your barrel and is the plated bullet the same diameter or 0.001" larger than the groove diameter? I have seen several batches of plated bullets that run 0.352-0.353".

For .40, I crimp just like all "head space on case mouth" cartridges--just enough so the round drops in the barrel with no residual case mouth flare dragging in the barrel.

This is one area where I think many people should inspect and copy factory rounds.

Edited May 31, 2014 by noylj

[hotrodder]

This may be something to consider. I was experiencing bullet setback in 9mm. Then I experienced key holing from over crimping. This happened with three different brands of bullets. I removed the sizing funnel die from my powder measure spun it in a lathe with 600 grit paper for a few seconds. Then followed up with some semichrome polish and a clean rag. Reset my crimp die and both problems were solved. I am assuming that all cases are not equal in thickness especially after several reloads. I probably only removed 1 or 2 tenths of a thousandth, but that was all it took. A drill would probably work for this also, rather than a lathe. By the way this is my first post after joining a few years ago, hope it helps.

[GlockGuru]

No Mike - Croomrider I am not sponsored by them. I saw the post and figured I would share my two cents worth about my experience with their ammo and customer relations.

[noylj]

Bullet setback is checked by the old finger/thumb push test. Those rounds that fail are broken down and the cases disposed of (generally about 2 cases in 500 from range pick-up). There are a LOT of 9x19 cases (haven't seen any .40 S&W cases) that have walls so thin that the sizing die isn't tight enough to reduce the case ID enough to firmly hold the bullet (and taper crimp in NOT going to increase bullet tension enough to counter the bullet damage it can do) and the "cost" of tossing a couple of cases isn't enough to justify undersized sizing dies. Since every case has to be checked with the push test, it just isn't worth it to me.

Be sure case ID is small enough (ideally about 0.001 to 0.002" less than bullet OD) and be sure there is just enough "crimp" to remove the case mouth flare.

[Croomrider]

Bullet setback is checked by the old finger/thumb push test. ................. Since every case has to be checked with the push test, it just isn't worth it to me.

I use an EGW U-die and never check anything, no push test, and no chamber gage. I never have a problem. If you get your setup right, checking is pretty much a waste of time. It may be worth the peace of mind for a major match, but no way for a local or practice.

Mike