Why, Hornady?! Why?!

1005 Views 16 Replies 7 Participants Last post by RACHGIER, 8 mo ago

RACHGIER

Discussion Starter · 8 mo ago

Picked up my usual Hornady 55gr FMJ-BT w/ Cann.

Automatically seated it to the cannelure, like I always do. Then I became confused...

The (1)Hornady 55gr SP and the (2&3)Hornady 55gr FMJ I just bought have the cannelure in the same spot. The (4)55gr I bought several years ago matches the cannelure location of my (5)Tula, Fed, LC, and Wolf.

Musical instrument Wood Bullet Toy Ammunition

Guess these girls will be flying with their slips showing, because I'm already running a little spicy and 2.199" isn't 2.260"

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RACHGIER

Discussion Starter · #4 · 8 mo ago

ajole said:
Well…..that sucks.

And is a good reminder to check things every time you open a new box of anything.

That's ~kind of~ how I caught it on the first round? I normally ignore the cannelure, so I don't ever measure it, and after several thousand rounds of it being in the same spot I never even considered they would move it. I set my calipers, bumped the projectile down to the cannelure to set the seating die, pulled it out for a measurement, then made the wtf face. My brain went in to worst case mode though. Did I trim too short, did I buy the wrong bullets, did the projectile slip due to a lack of neck tension, what did I do wrong? So then I started measuring EVERYTHING.
The only thing I really did "wrong" was not set the seating die with a round I knew was set to 2.255". And you best believe there is now a note about the cannelure measurement in my recipe for these bullets.

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RACHGIER

Discussion Starter · #6 · 8 mo ago

greg_r said:
I was curious if you had bought a different bullet intended for a different application, but your last post indicates not. Dosent makes sense that Hornady would change it though. ???

I don't know either. I was thinking maybe it was the AMP jacket tech Hornady uses, but as far as I know they've been using it as long as I've been reloading. Then I thought maybe it was a fluke in my seating die. But side by side with one of my own older 55gr bullets you can see the difference. I don't know why but the cannelure is now at the same height as the SP jacket. I may pick up 100 of their 55gr HP's and see if that's the same as well.

It actually just occurred to me that both purchases I made were bulk buys. The guy buys them in bulk, I would imagine in the 6k count packages from Hornady, then bags them up to order. So the first order was for 2k in 4 sandwich bags of 500+ each. He bags by weight, plus 5-10 pieces to ensure nobody ever gets shorted. This order was for 500. I'm wondering if I got something different both times.

It doesn't really matter in the long run for me because it's FAFO and target ammo, but it is just one of those oddities that may still even be my fault in the end.

I have an email in to them to see if I'm wrong.

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RACHGIER

Discussion Starter · #8 · 8 mo ago

ajole said:
I think you’re onto something. I just can’t imagine Hornady doing that without re-naming it, and I especially can’t imagine them doing it without the interwebz exploding.

I actually found a guy complaining that he got an order of ELD-X and his first batch came in baggies as a bulk order and his second, from the guy I got my Hornady from, came in factory packed Hornady boxes, a few years later and when he seated the first bullet something was off. He broke out a comparator though but the measurements he took between batches were 0.060" different and his thought was that he either got a batch of ELD-M and not ELD-X in the baggies or Hornady changed something. So it looks like I'm not the only person to have a similar issue that seems to lead back to either false advertising from the original sellers or a bullet construction change...

That's why I initially hit on the AMP jackets being the culprit, but I can't find a born on date for them. I started reloading in 2013, and I can find evidence of the AMP jackets as far back as 2014. So unless I somehow got some really NOS from the first guy Iikely didn't get Hornady bullets. With my luck I probably got some pulled pills from that crappy ass Malaysian ammo ~cough cough @Bull cough~ and I'm just now loading up with that good ish and it's going to throw me way off at the range.

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RACHGIER

Discussion Starter · #10 · 8 mo ago

GrumpyOlMan said:
I'd contact Hornady and ask. The bagged bullets in my experience are sold as 2nds by companies like Midway or different reload companies. I believe you said yours were boxed so that's weird. I've been switching to lead free bullets which have to be longer to equal weight and that can cause some problems in rounds like the 300 Hammer. Out of the five different weight rounds I load four are compressed.

I have an email out about it. It's not a major issue for me. Both of my orders came bagged and were listed as being sold in "bulk packaging". Having dealt with Wes on multiple occasions, I am 99.999% certain that what I have now are actual Hornady 55gr FMJ-BT.

I loaded up 60 so I can take them out and test them against some factory stuff and what's left of my first 2k round batch. I'm just using a standard load for LT-30 right now so I can get a good comparative baseline on function and performance. That way I can do shot groups at 50, 100, maybe 200, and hopefully 300; if it doesn't group like buckshot.

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RACHGIER

Discussion Starter · #12 · 8 mo ago

CamoDeafie said:
Did anyone ever get back to you, and did you shoot these yet? Edit. I remember a batch of Hornady's Frontier 55gr 5.56 being way too hot and a lot of threads elsewhere on them or some such after some ARs boomed from overpressure rounds?

No response as of yet, and my range date keeps postponing. Might go out this weekend if it isn't too windy.

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RACHGIER

Discussion Starter · #14 · 8 mo ago (Edited)

Very well could be. Deeper seated bullet leaves less interior space for gas expansion and increased potential for a compressed load. In theory the longer jump to the rifling would give SOME relief in an over pressure situation as the projectile moved only inhibited by the crimp/neck tension, but as quick as that pressure spike hits I don't believe it could entirely mitigate the overpressure from a too deeply seated bullet. I'm obviously not a physicist so I could be way off.

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RACHGIER

Discussion Starter · #17 · 8 mo ago

CamoDeafie said:
I don't know, all I know is that there were some instances of KBs with Hornady Frontier 55gr and some Frontier 62gr ammo, with one particular lot number sequence and no recall whatsoever, with Hornady doubling down and saying it had to be the guns or user error and not their ammo.

That's kind of like when Remington said I didn't know how to operate one of their bolt action 770's instead of admitting their QC sucked when I went to load another round and the bolt handle came back but the bolt didn't even cam over far enough to unlock...

So I sent them a picture of me holding an M40.

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