- Joined
- Dec 4, 2009
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All too often we hear the good and some bad, not always do we hear the ugly. You know, those things that really happen and that most won’t talk about? Well this is one of those stories where something went wrong, something I most likely did and I don’t mind keeping things real. Someone down the road may learn from this.
Saturday the weather prompted me to head to the club and shoot some long range targets. The plan was to shoot the 300gr Fury star tip2’s that I had sized to load at 19# with BH209 and develop a drop chart. I’d shot them at home over the chronograph to verify the velocity and then entered the velocity and the published BC into JBM for approximate drops.
Again I ended up the only person on the range, so up went the targets at 2,3,4,5 and even a 600yd target (why not?). Things went really well and for an old rusty fella, I was still keeping them moa or less out to 400yds. The mirage wasn’t bad, so it made shooting nice.
It was time to send five rounds at 500 to determine how close the estimate from JBM was. The first round impacted low right, so I sent a second and it was VERY close to the first. DUNAMIS will shoot and the 300gr Fury ST2’s were shooting great at long range. I made my vertical adjustment, and a slight wind adjustment and fired the third round. Height was about as perfect as one could ask for and at 500yds, one can’t complain about a 2”+ right. So now it’s time to send two more and find out how well I can do, then on to 600yds for fun.
I don’t know if I varied from my procedure or exactly what happened, but this is where things turned UGLY. Really ugly. I’m assuming that like I always do, I swabbed the bore with a 50/50 mix of alcohol and Hoppes, then ran two dry patches. I pulled out a powder tube and poured it down through the funnel, then placed my veggie wad in the funnel and ran that down into the barrel. Picked up one of the bullets, dropped it into the funnel and started to push the bullet down and seat it on the propellant. The bullet started and was pushing down the barrel with the same force as all previous bullets. However this time I felt a hard stop. Experience told me a couple things, first my hand on the ramrod wasn’t low enough and second, my witness mark was way above the funnel and not even close to where it should have been. Hummmm??? So in a moment of unthinking, I put the “T” handle over the end of the ramrod and pushed harder to seat that bullet. It flat out would not move. Not one single bit of movement of that bullet down the barrel.
Knowing the only thing to do was to remove the breech plug, dump the propellant and push the bullet out the muzzle. Yup, a big clean up job was ahead of me. So I went through that process and the bullet would not move by pushing. I hit the end of the “T” handle and the bullet would not move. I knew that ended my day’s shooting and I’d have to take it home to remove the stuck bullet. Loaded everything up, drove down and remove my targets and headed home.
Once home I cleaned up most of the propellant mess, then took a 3/8” aluminum rod and tried to dislodge the bullet. It would not move. I communicated with Jeff, who told me to get a 7/16’. I ran all over tarnation before finding that. More tapping to hard and the bullet would not move. I had the rod marked and that bullet would not move. Stuck at the end of the forearm. Time for plan B.
Plan B was a discussion with Jeff this morning, who is creating what should be the fix to the issue and a hard lesson learned for me. The intent is to use hydraulics and push the bullet out with a modified breech plug with a grease zerk. It is known that this system has worked for badly stuck bullets and we’re hoping it’s going to fix this issue, or my mistake. And yes, I’ll have a messy cleanup, but sometimes ugly requires nasty fixes.
So……… everything isn’t all rosy. I don’t mind discussing issues, rather created by myself or something else. Jeff is sending me the modified breech plug and hopefully I’ll quickly get that bullet removed and possibly find out what went wrong or, what I may have done wrong. I’ll report back on the progress. Hopefully this may prevent someone in the future from having the same issue, or making the same mistake, or using the same fix. It’s always a learning experience of some kind or another, some good, some bad, some ugly.
Thanks to Bestill (Jeff) for all his help and guidance.
Saturday the weather prompted me to head to the club and shoot some long range targets. The plan was to shoot the 300gr Fury star tip2’s that I had sized to load at 19# with BH209 and develop a drop chart. I’d shot them at home over the chronograph to verify the velocity and then entered the velocity and the published BC into JBM for approximate drops.
Again I ended up the only person on the range, so up went the targets at 2,3,4,5 and even a 600yd target (why not?). Things went really well and for an old rusty fella, I was still keeping them moa or less out to 400yds. The mirage wasn’t bad, so it made shooting nice.
It was time to send five rounds at 500 to determine how close the estimate from JBM was. The first round impacted low right, so I sent a second and it was VERY close to the first. DUNAMIS will shoot and the 300gr Fury ST2’s were shooting great at long range. I made my vertical adjustment, and a slight wind adjustment and fired the third round. Height was about as perfect as one could ask for and at 500yds, one can’t complain about a 2”+ right. So now it’s time to send two more and find out how well I can do, then on to 600yds for fun.
I don’t know if I varied from my procedure or exactly what happened, but this is where things turned UGLY. Really ugly. I’m assuming that like I always do, I swabbed the bore with a 50/50 mix of alcohol and Hoppes, then ran two dry patches. I pulled out a powder tube and poured it down through the funnel, then placed my veggie wad in the funnel and ran that down into the barrel. Picked up one of the bullets, dropped it into the funnel and started to push the bullet down and seat it on the propellant. The bullet started and was pushing down the barrel with the same force as all previous bullets. However this time I felt a hard stop. Experience told me a couple things, first my hand on the ramrod wasn’t low enough and second, my witness mark was way above the funnel and not even close to where it should have been. Hummmm??? So in a moment of unthinking, I put the “T” handle over the end of the ramrod and pushed harder to seat that bullet. It flat out would not move. Not one single bit of movement of that bullet down the barrel.
Knowing the only thing to do was to remove the breech plug, dump the propellant and push the bullet out the muzzle. Yup, a big clean up job was ahead of me. So I went through that process and the bullet would not move by pushing. I hit the end of the “T” handle and the bullet would not move. I knew that ended my day’s shooting and I’d have to take it home to remove the stuck bullet. Loaded everything up, drove down and remove my targets and headed home.
Once home I cleaned up most of the propellant mess, then took a 3/8” aluminum rod and tried to dislodge the bullet. It would not move. I communicated with Jeff, who told me to get a 7/16’. I ran all over tarnation before finding that. More tapping to hard and the bullet would not move. I had the rod marked and that bullet would not move. Stuck at the end of the forearm. Time for plan B.
Plan B was a discussion with Jeff this morning, who is creating what should be the fix to the issue and a hard lesson learned for me. The intent is to use hydraulics and push the bullet out with a modified breech plug with a grease zerk. It is known that this system has worked for badly stuck bullets and we’re hoping it’s going to fix this issue, or my mistake. And yes, I’ll have a messy cleanup, but sometimes ugly requires nasty fixes.
So……… everything isn’t all rosy. I don’t mind discussing issues, rather created by myself or something else. Jeff is sending me the modified breech plug and hopefully I’ll quickly get that bullet removed and possibly find out what went wrong or, what I may have done wrong. I’ll report back on the progress. Hopefully this may prevent someone in the future from having the same issue, or making the same mistake, or using the same fix. It’s always a learning experience of some kind or another, some good, some bad, some ugly.
Thanks to Bestill (Jeff) for all his help and guidance.