Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Polycarbonate tips melt in flight?

Bullets with thin jackets can come apart because the barrel starts to get rough from erosion at the throat. I had this happen with 6mm 70 grain bullets going only about 3200 fps. Had to rebarrel.

This barrel has had less than 500 rounds down the bore..

And it sure is fun to see gophers blow up on arrival..

My 17Rem routinely vaporized Bergers but not the V-Maxes with the same load.

Are these factory barrels you guys are using?




Dave

The V-Max has been fine - that's what I've been using now..

It is on mine... Original Rem M700 (GASP!) BDL that I bought back in late '97 or early '98.. It's been quite accurate since day one..

Yup--off shelf 700Classic.

sst

I actually spent some time reviewing the original report from Hornady that led to them going to a more heat resistant polymer. I think they got it right in their discription of the tips deforming in flight as they heated up. The fact that the decrease in BC stopped when they went to a higher melting point polymer pretty much proves the point.

I have already seen ads from another bullet manufacturer claiming that their polymer tips are just as heat resistant as the new hornady tips.I don't know if they have recently changed to keep up or not.

shoot bergers problem solved.........

It's funny, because the guy that started the conversation was trying to figure out how to get cleaning media out of the tip of his Berger VLD. (He apparently tumbled them after loading?) The comment of "Well, since plastic tips all melt away during flight, I would think the media would just burn up and not be an issue."

I thought I"d read somewhere that the new tips come with a new bullet and new ogive design?

If thats the case nothign has been proven.

Keep the same bullet, but switch tips only, then you can prove something as long as the shape of the tip and weight of the tip is all the same, just a tougher tip.

Jeff,

They did that when testing the new poly.

It is a marketing decision to keep the new poly only in the new bullet line.

I have seen them shoot at 1K with repeated groups of 10 shots with 4" vertical or less. The doppler radar tested proved something was happening and the change to a higher temp fixed the problem.

That's odd those .17's were coming apart. I've shot everything in multiple rifle since the mid-90's and never had any issues.

I know Carmichael had reports of some of the original Remington stuff being too thin, but that was 70's era stuff.





Travis

A .17 cal SST?




Dave

Hornady doesn't make a .17 SST..

Very good to hear that. Then its a proven for sure.

I"d wondered about that years ago but never had issues, and as you see by posts, likely never quite hit the right area, plus if the degradation was consistent, one would have never known... not by my simple use of results based shooting.

Had a Pac-Nor bbl Ruger #1 with Kepplinger trigger, put 3 105 Amax = first production runs, in UNDER 1/2" @330 yds in that 6BR. No sign of melting per target In fact, it may have at 200 yds on a spine shot I made on a buck, but moments later at 400 yds I double lunged a buck and it held up just fine

Seriously, never had an issue, shot sub-half inch groups at 200 yds in a 260 with 130 AB and another Stiller actioned 6BR shot 1/4" at 200 yds......oh and there was a Dakota Predator I had that would put 3 95BTs in a 1/2" all day at 200 yds....

Nope, no trouble IME.