My Flat Tipped Bullets - Again

[Rick Teal]

As some of you may recall, I've been wanting to make a flat tipped version of my bullet.  My basic design is to resize and form a .22 jacket into a hollow (and pointed) tip insert for a bullet.  My desire is to flatten this tip so that it can make a shorter bullet (where that's needed) or a bullet to be used in a tubular magazine rifle.

Using my current tooling I'm able to make a .210 tip that is slightly concave - but works well in my dies.

My concern is that the tip, being metallic, the recoil in the magazine of a Winchester '94 AE in .356 may set off a magazine discharge (if the tips didn't line up squarely with the primer of the cartridge ahead).

On Saturday, I traded for a '94 AE in .356.  With the deal, I got 1 1/2 boxes of ammo.  I checked the diameter of my tips with the flat tips on the factory ammo, and found that mine were larger. :?  

So what I want to do now is try a little experiment to see if there's any danger with my flat tips.  What I'm thinking of doing is loading up some "dummy" rounds with live primers that weigh the same as a loaded rounds, and loading them into the tube magazine.  Then firing live rounds off, and examining the rounds in the mag to see if they're marked in any way (or if the primer(s) have discharged).  I would to do this several times if there are no marks at first.

What I want to know is if doing this would likely damage the gun, or cause personal injury?

Your input would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Rick

[Smokin7mm]

This should provide you the results you need.  The only suggestion I can make would be to load the dummy rounds with inert material in place of the powder to give you a closer weight to the actual round you would load.  The inertia under recoil would then be more representative.  Good luck.
Bret

[Rick Teal]

It seems to me that the heaviest I've seen loaded in this cartridge are 250 grain bullets, and assuming up to 50 grains of powder, I'd be looking at about 300 grains.  I was thinking I'd just make 300 grain bullets for my dummy magazine loads.

This opens an interesting question.  Maybe detonation would be more likely with lighter bullets in the mag.  I should probably do the test with 200 grain bullets as well.

What do you think?

[John Duarte]

Rick,
If you detonate the primer in the dummy round it would drive the bullet out of the case and may or may not cause any damage to the magazine, just a thought.

[Graybeard]

While rumors of detonation of live rounds in tubular magazines have persisted for many years I'm not sure there has ever actually been a documented case of it happening. Me thinks it is much harder to do than most assume.

I do recall reading of a study on the subject awhile back. They finally were able to force a round to go off with much difficulty and no harm was done to the firearm at all. Because there is no chamber to confine the round it is much like holding the case in a vise and making it fire. The case NOT the bullet is what is likely to move. Gases are rather free to escape from a tube magazine. While there is unlikely to be a well planned safe route for those gases they still aren't confined and thus don't really pose the threat many assume.

While I sure don't recommend loading pointy nose bullets in such magzines I am convinced the danger is more perceived than real. People have been using flat and round nose bullets in such guns for perhaps 150 years and yet I've never seen a real honest to goodness document case of it happening. Rumors sure but documentation no. Have you?

[Cat Whisperer]

My concern is that the tip, being metallic, the recoil in the magazine of a Winchester '94 AE in .356 may set off a magazine discharge (if the tips didn't line up squarely with the primer of the cartridge ahead).

On Saturday, I traded for a '94 AE in .356.  With the deal, I got 1 1/2 boxes of ammo. ....Rick

Rick - I'm both interested and envious.  I've long respected the 358Win and the 356 comes right-much close to it.

I've read the warnings about not putting pointey bullets into a tubular magazine, as you have, but you're going one step further and getting emperical evidence.

You might want to try several brands of primers, noteably those that are more sensitive that others and perhaps even putting pistol primers (as they are a little more sensitve than rifle primers) into the design of experiment.

I don't think a fired primer under a crimped bullet in an empty shell would do much.  (I've had some fired primers that didn't ignite, just toasted the powder.)

You might find that the primer may fire WITHOUT being marked much on the outside.

[Graybeard]

Primers are not as sensitive and for darn sure not as easy to make go off as folks commonly assume.

I've deprimed probably several hundred cases just as I would a fired case but with live primers in them over a span of 35 years or more of reloading. Never yet has one gone off as is so commonly assumed they will. Sure the next might but several hundred haven't.

I've crushed who knows how many of them in all sorts of ways using my Lee Auto Prime over those same years. I've had them flip upside down, side ways and most every way imaginable and just crush the dickens out of them and never fired one yet. Do I recommend such? Heck no but I've done it when priming and never had one fire.

Matter of fact the ONLY way I've ever had a primer fire is when it was in a case and the firing pin stuck it.

Long  years ago I heard about putting a primer in the hollow cavity of a handgun bullet to make it go off when the bullet hit. Yeah right. I shot them suckers into eveything I could including rocks and haven't heard one fire yet.

So while they are and can be dangerous, primers really aren't the little bombs many seem to think of them. It takes a lot more to make one fire than most think it does.

[Clint Starke]

I totally agree with Graybeard. The area of impact, and the force, needed to ignite a primer is much smaller (and greater) than you will encounter in your situation. If you were to leave just a small amount of lead exposed at the metplat, one or two grains at most, you will be just fine.

Clint Starke.

[Cat Whisperer]

I know of two cases where a pointy bullet set off the rest of the cartridges in the magazine.  It's been some 40 years ago, one was one that I read about and one my step-dad told me about.  In one of the cases most all the rounds in the tube went off.  Not a severe injury, but the tubular mag and foreend were trashed.

Other than that I agree with how 'insensitive' they are.  I too have loaded them upside down, sideways and crushed them; and removed them without hesitation.

[Graybeard]

Tim, please pardon me if I question the veracity of either incident.

One you read about long ago. We all know quite well just because someone somewhere some time print it don't make it fact. The other your step dad reported but I'm betting if you question this further it will be a third or fourth person report and not somethign he personally witnessed.

That all rounds in the mag fired is generally the needed proof of a falsified report. Test conducted to try to force this to happen even with a magazine fully loaded with pointed tip bullets and even with plastic and other such haven't been able to duplicate such a situation. Generally only one goes off. Why? Well the bullet is NOT forced forward in an uncofined area like the magazine tube. The case of the round that ignites (if one in fact does) might be forced backward some but the bullet is too heavy and has no pressure acting on it so doesn't move forward to set off others.

The lab test results I've read of say tube damage is generally minimal to none and gun continued to function fine.

I still am waiting for anyone to come forward with a FIRST HAND account and photos to back up that an incident of this type has EVER happened in the real world. For sure I won't say NEVER as always and never are words that will get you in trouble more often than not. But in the 150 years or so of the use of tubular magazines I've yet to see any actual documented proof a round in the tube has ever gone off in a real world use situation as opposed to a lab environment. Even in the lab they had to have the magazine fully loaded and had to use bullet no one would ever consider loading in a tube magazine. And even then it was nearly impossible to make it happen.

Put me in the column of doubting Thomas until I see proof as opposed to third and forth party stories related of things from long long ago. I'm willing to believe once I see the evidence. Kinda like with bigfoot and ghosts and such.

[Rick Teal]

Clint:

My bullet design doesn't have any lead protruding from the tip.  Picture a Remington Bronze Point (externally only) with the tip flat rather than pointed.  So that approach isn't an option.

Everyone:

My tip has a .210  flat, which is the same size as a primer.  I've checked both the 200 grain Winchester Power point and the 180 grain Speer flat point, and both have smallet flats (meplats) on the tip than my bullet - though their tips are lead and not gilding metal.

This leads me to believe that if there is any reasonable degree of flatness to the meplat, the primer will not discharge from the amount of impact generated in a tubular magazine.  I'd hardly think these large companies would risk lawsuits if the size of the meplats on their flat tipped bullets weren't sufficient to remove any risk of detonation.