This has me worried. Today we took our guns out to the desert to sight them in. My father in law started first with his AR15 shooting at 25 yards. It shot two times and on the 3rd shot the bullet either exploded in flight or as it came out of the barrel. On the target you can see where the fragments hit the target. No he didn't hit the dirt in front of the target. He said it just sounded funny when he shot it. I checked out the barrel and ran a patch down it to see if any thing was left in the barrel but it came out clean. The empty brass didn't show any bad signs either. I've never seen this before so I'm posting pics of the target and the ammo. This was the only round that did this, the rest were fine. What do you guys think?
bullet explodes coming out of barrel
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Crazycastor
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I don't have the rifling of the barrel but I do know its a 20 inch barrel. I do know it will shoot .223 and 5.56. But I would think that any modern day AR15 type of gun would be able to handle modern loads. Wished I knew to look what grain the bullet was but didn't think about at the time. Do 20 inch barrels all have the same twist to them?
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I stand corrected, who gets the 5 bucks?Crazycastor said:
Twist rates and barrel lengths are not necessarily tied together. I still don't think federal should be marketing ammo to the civilian market if it won't hold up to civilian firearms but I must recant my previous statements about velocity and rotation because that is quite a bit of difference.
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I just checked on the weight of the bullet. It's a 55 grain Nosler tip bullet if that helps. Bullet velocity is 3220 fps. Father in law can,t read the writing on the barrel to tell what twist it is.
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Now that's interesting because I hand load that bullet with CFE 223 (can't remember the charge) and it goes through the chrono at 3100 fps from my 16" psma (1in 7 chrome lined) with no problems at all... When is the last time that barrel had the copper fouling removed from it?Crazycastor said:
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It's brand new. Prior to that day it only had 20 bullets shot thru it and I cleaned it after that.
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Probably a defective bullet, thinner than needed jacket or out of balance. I seriously doubt this is any reflection on quality of the rifle.
I knew a guy once that had a bunch of these once. He was trying to hot rod a .17 Remington.
Useless, and kind of funny, but it never really hurt anything.
I knew a guy once that had a bunch of these once. He was trying to hot rod a .17 Remington.
Useless, and kind of funny, but it never really hurt anything.
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Is it stainless or chrome lined..Crazycastor said:
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You're probably right it's most likely just a fluke.Overkill0084 said:
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Its chrome lined
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I don't have the box with me. Its at my father in laws house but it is .223 not .5.56
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What if it was as simple as a small barrel obstruction? The target was hit with sand and the bullet tumbled from its path. Flash suppressors on M-16 very often loaded up with dirt. There would be a "Wack" report and funny smoke.
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It's kinda rare to find a factory 20" gun with a chrome lined 1 in 7' twist barrel most of them are 1 in 9 I'm really beginning to think this is a mole hill being made into mountain.
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No there was no sand in or on the gun. It was taken out of its case and placed on the shooters stand. Two bullets were fired through it no problem, it was the third bullet that came apart. If it was sand, I would think the first two bullets would have blown anything out or off the flash suppresor. I thinks its just one of those thing that make you go hmmmm lol
Yeah. See, now the lighter weight bullets in .223 are
not designed to be shot from a 5.56 --1/7 barrel.
Not a mystery, not a problem, the lighter projectile
is simply going to break up after leaving the barrel,
from time to time.
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Whats concidered a heavy projectile in .223 or 5.56 ?
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And the gun can shot either .223 or the 5.56. Whats the difference between the two?
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Usually something in the high 60's grains and up.
1:7 is usually best for the high 70's and up but 60's with premium heavier construction bullets like the Gold Dots works Ok.
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There are small differences between the two and it is usually not recommended that you shoot 5.56 in a gun chambered for .223. What you'll find is that morst people ignore this and manufacturers like Federal in their website mix the two and sell the ammo labeled as 5.56/.223.
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