Searched for 147 ELDM jacket separation or bullets blowing up/coming apart down range on here and one dead thread with 7 posts about the 147 and another on the 180 ELDMs.
Over the past 2 weeks i've talked to at least 15 people who have experienced both factory Hornady 6.5PRC and reloads using 147gr ELDM bullets coming apart between 40 and 150 yards down range.
June 13/14th and 20/21st I had back to back matches. The NF ELR outside of casper and SnipersHide Cup in eastern Washington. I planned on shooting factory 300PRC 225ELDM for the ELR and factory 6.5PRC for the hide cup. Normally I would reload but I bought a house just before the covid bullshit and i've been putting in new flooring. I haven't even unpacked my reloading equipment. I had time to prep and test the 300PRC which was showing good results, I didn't bother testing the 6.5PRC because I was going to shoot the same lot and barrel that I shot at the NF ELR last year and had zero issue.
At the NF match, the factory 300 worked pretty well, yet one of the guys in my squad (Steve) was going to shoot factory Hornady 6.5prc. During zero, he got 5 round on target which grouped around 1-1.5 inches. Pretty horrible really considering last year that same rifle with the same lot of ammo was shooting 1/2 inch. He asked me to zero his rifle to double check he wasn't just screwing something up majorly. I got behind the rifle, double checked turrets were zeroed, picked a fresh shoot-n-see and broke a shot. Nothing. I had @NoLegs24 get behind me and watch over top to look for anything out of the ordinary. Second shot I took, I watched a banana appear about 6 inches away from point of impact and I hear laughing behind me as he said there was a white puff around 40 yards down range.
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I passed the target around to a few people at the match and multiple people spoke up saying they have either experienced the same thing themselves with the 147gr ELDM or they know of some who has had the same issue.
Luckily we drove to Wyoming and most of us brought 2 guns. Steve was able to use a 6x47 which he got some hits at 1400 with.
After the match, we drove home and because the SH cup requires short action calibers, I swapped to my 6.5PRC barrel (Bartlein 5r - 1:8) and had a bunch of factory hornady. It worked great last year so I figured it would be fine this year as well. Fast forward to thursday and we flew out to Spokane. Pulled my rifle out to check zero since I didn't even have a chance to shoot between getting home from Wyoming and flying to Spokane.
Fuck me, wouldn't group for shit and bullets were blowing up just past the 100 yard line.
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Here is a link to the video of it blowing up. set playback speed to .25 and quality as high as can go and you will see them pop then impact the dirt
Cleaned the shit out of the barrel to see if maybe there was a carbon ring increasing pressure as velocity was at 3060. Removed all carbon and no luck. still popping them.
This was damn frustrating because of all the time and money spent to get to this match just to have the rifle go down due to factory ammo , which worked fine last year.
@NoLegs24 was shooting a 6.5PRC also, our barrels were ordered together and probably came off the line one after another from bartlein, they were both chambered one after another by Matt at Sawtooth rifles. He hand loaded 140 Nosler RDFs at 2950 and had no issues. The issue here comes down to the 147 ELDM. Factory ammo should not come apart like this.
According to the RPM formula (12/8 = 1.5*3060 = 4590*60 = 275,400RPM) these 147s should not have been coming apart. Anything over 290,000 rpm is the danger zone for bullets coming apart.
Ended up getting lucky and borrowed 2 separate rifles. Most of the match I shot an Axial Precision chambered in 25SST in a manners EH1A and a steiner m7xi MSR2 with a prototype Elite Iron suppressor. When ammo was getting low, I swapped and shot a 6.5cm
anyone else see the 147ELDMs come apart on them?
"Liked" you just for your Patriotism postscript. Likewise. For your post, this and you are way beyond me. I just shoot 140 grain ELDM with sub-max loads and have no problems, but am not pushing limits like you are. Good luck finding a solution, it's NUTS when things don't work.
