Bloodlines not performing

[jbeaumont21]

To those of you calling b.s I don't really care what you think... go police some other thread. I just wanted to get the story out there to see if anyone else has had issues with these bullets. I wanted to know if it was an anomaly or if others had experienced a similar issue. I wanted to know if I should still try and use these bullets again next year since everything I had read about them sounded awesome.  I wanted to have a discussion about what possibly went wrong. This post was not intended to trash talk Leigh bullets. I practiced all summer with the bloodlines and loved how they were performing on paper, however during the instance as described above they did not perform as expected. 

As to the facts I can tell you that each shot was loaded with between 100 to 110 grains of Triple 7 ffg.  Fact... The 2 bullets pictured above were shot through a brand new Knight Disc Extreme and were recovered on the back side of the animal with little to no damage to the bullets... I noticed a little bit of dented spiraling on one of the bullets. I am more than happy to send both bullets to Leigh for inspection or even perhaps have a discussion with them.  As to whether or not moisture or the plastic from the previous sabot affected the velocity I cannot say.  It was snowing out all morning but it was not snowing at the time I shot this cow. 

[jbeaumont21]

I have a hard time believing that... I shot a cow slightly quartering away at 75yds with the 275 grain bloodlines using 100 gr ffg. She ran maybe 20 yds and cartwheeled backwards while trying to run up hill. I hit her through the lungs and recovered the bullet against the shoulder, the lungs were destroyed and the bloodline performed flawlessly with all the petals gone.  I have watched two animals die with this exact load with one shot each, neither animal went more than 25yds. Is it possible the powder was measured incorrectly or had moisture in it causing lack of velocity?

I had a hard time believing it too.  I was using a T/C red speedloader that can only take 110 grains of powder and I know it was filled to the top and watched all of the powder pour into the barrel.  After talking with Sabotloader he roughly estimated that at a minimum it would take around 75 grains of powder to produce enough velocity for the bullets to perform.  So even if a few grains of powder missed the barrel during my excitement of loading and reloading I'm positive that I had enough in there.  This cow was broadsided maybe 40 to 50 yards away for each shot.

[Sabotloader]

'j'

Wait until spring and we will figure this all out... I did talk to to Lehigh Dave about all this also.

Save those two bullets unless Dave requests them cause - I will want you to try a couple of things with them in the spring. Or when ever you have time to do a shoot.

One thing you could do right now. On the bullet that has a fairly clean nose... compare the inside of the nose to the inside of a new bullet.  At the joint where the petals come together - there should be a very small u of v shaped groove that runs from the top of the petal to the bottom.  There should be 6 of these grooves. If you insert a pin in the nose and turn the bullet you should feel the pin drop into the grooves.

[Chesapeake]

I tried those bullets and still have most of 3 boxes. I was looking for passthroughs for blood trails, but they are so hard to load I gave up on them after 3 or 4 shots. You could barely get one down the barrel.

I believe you must have had low velocity. This is why: I shoot 345, 360, and 375 grain lead bullets. They mushroom extensively and almost always make the off-side hide. Your bullets mushroomed none, remained fairly sharp pointed, and still stopped on the offside. To me this says they had much less energy, or such a streamlined bullet would have gone through like a full metal jacket.

Maybe your entire can of powder is bad? You should chrono a few shots from it. I could see the load in the barrel being wet, but then to have the loads in the speed loaders do the same seems odd.

Did you send it to a butcher? Maybe they will find the missing bullet.