aladin,

there is enough drivel in print without me adding to the pile. Besides that, nobody is interested in reading after an uneducated hillbilly from the hills of eastern Kentucky.

Most authors, unless writing pure fiction, are subjected to the most assinine critics who dispute everything the author prints and thereby become the catchbasin for the most rife ridicule imaginable. I've suffered enough ridicule as it is!

You know what? People just can't take plain talk, the straight dope...they want and expect to fed a bill of goods.

Now, allow me to digress a bit and return to the bent bullet theory: Take your electric drill and chuck up a drill bit and pull the trigger....that bastard will spin at maximum rpms and stay straight as a poker. Now, take a piece of soft copper wire and try the same trick....see what happens? cetrifugal force sends the soft wire out at a 90 degree angle to the chuck..which represents the muzzle of a gun...the shank of wire in the chuck remains straight because it is supported...but that portion beyond the chuck (muzzle) bends. I theorize that the soft bullet bends as it loses muzzle support on exit...thus the banana shape of recovered projectiles. Obviously, they fly off to points unknown, being ballistcally unstable.

I've been through the race with cast in old swedes a few times.
IMHO the "copper wire" theory is closest to the truth. I believe the rotational energy exceeds the bullets ability to stay integral. Sometimes the bullet takes a wicked bend and flies off, sometimes it breaks. I've yet to see one do the "Grey Puff" you get when you over rotate a condom slug in a fast twist .22, (1:7 3800 fps and over, puff of "what was that? ", as you wipe your eyes and walk down to find no hole in the target). I've found that the swede when pushed hard will throw, (hesitent to say "shoot" in this context), really poor groups. When pushed even farther the old swedes will put them in the dirt, or WAY off target, (six feet to the left at 200 yards). I belive that they break into big bits as I've occasionally seen bits striking the ground and off to the side while leaving no hole in the paper. IMHO the over rotated condoms are held together by the jacket material until the rotational energy exceeds the strength of the condom, then they burst suddenly. The cast boolits, lacking the condom, just go to pieces as the weakest point fails. Be it a void, or a bend off the muzzle, they just can't seem to stand more than 1,800 fps or so out of the 1:7 twist. And things can start to go south as soon as 1,700 if the bullets aren't perfect. IMHO the longer and thinner the cast bullet, the less resistence to rotational energy they exibit. The swede wins the longer/skinnier/fast twist contest easily. The moral of the story is: larger, slower twist wins the high fps hunting contest. 'Course I'm not letting go of any of my swedes. It's a rare rifle which will do what they can do with condoms at the pressures they run at. BD

Very interastin'. Do I smell come crow pie a cookin'?

Puff of smoke I do understand-- been there of course. Methinks/suggested the bullet being just over rotational stability and loosing grip/slugging in the last couple inches causes instability.

I like orange sauce on crow... Not there all the way yet though!

I hate to bustup anybodys pet theory, but the real truth is that there is a place down in the Missouri Ozarks just north of the Arkansas line that is like the elephant graveyard in Africa. All those 6.5 bullets that don't make it to the target gravitate to that spot. I have never seen it myself but it's commonly known in this part of the country. They say that pile of 6.5's just keeps getting bigger every day. It contains both cast and condom styles. If any of you get down that way you can check to see how many are banana shaped and how many are more like plantains and other fruits. <GGG>


Ed B