Accuracy re. Bullet Seating, Distortion etc:

I've just read online a great experimental story about how and why seating 9mm projectiles crookedly into their cases - effects group sizes on target.

- Like that writer Brad Miller  - I guess that most thinking shootists would say that it's obvious that wonky bullets will fly wonkily and fail to go 'straight to the heart-of-the-matter'.

.. BLOODY OBVIOUS EH:

Well no - this well researched - carefully tested story - found the exactly opposite result.

.. 9mm Bullets deliberately seated crooked into the brass gave the best accuracy results.

Link to the American HANDGUNNER story:  
https://americanhandgunner.com/gear/exclusive-crooked-seated-bullets-and-accuracy

It's a well tested story & well worth the read .. however - I have previously looked at reports written about what happens to bullets when they are HAMMERED from the rear by the explosive acceleration forces of firing ..

Again - if you think about it - nobody is surprised that when a bullet impacts into some substance at the terminal end of it's flight .. it's residual energy causes it to deform and even expand. - But all the energy that the bullet has .. was first slammed into it's backside at the moment of ignition-acceleration BEFORE & AS it entered it's barrel .. how come that didn't deform it? - well of course it did.

When a bullet is subject to massive pressure & acceleration on firing - it's metal becomes as plastic as putty.
- here is my favorite photo of a .38" Special projectile collected after firing without a barrel:

Projectiles are re-shaped as they are driven up the barrel and one writer says that they don't settle-down or stabilize until after approx 10 inches of travel. - The base accelerates before the nose and forces the in-between metal to expand outwards into the grooves & lands shape as far as possible - only then fully transmitting that acceleration to the nose area.

It's mind-boggling stuff to think about eh .. but it doesn't 'upset' me that these huge forces can result in strange or unexpected effects. Check-out my earlier pieces about this:

https://flicense.blogspot.com/2017/10/bullet-expansion-by-upset.html

https://flicense.blogspot.com/2017/01/bullet-sizes-diameters-v-bore-sizes.html

My under-bond cargo store-man, non ballistician guess is that the huge pressures at firing will overwhelm any small size & shape imperfection or alignment deviation at the close ranges for handguns .. as long as the gun is strong enough not to go KABOOM.

- Here's a thought - considering the soft 'plastic' bullet having to leap from a revolver cylinder-chamber across the cylinder-gap and into the rear entrance of a barrel ... what condition will the two .22 WMR bullets be in when they pop-out side-by-side of the very short 1.25 inch barrels of Standard Manufacturing's S-333?

.. Here's another ridiculous thought: - What would you get in the way of expansion or "bullet set-up" if you fired a .30" caliber bullet up a barrel that taper-expanded progressively from the chamber e.g. .312" to .45" caliber in its first one or two plus inches before going parallel bored - and then you caught these slugs in a suitable medium? .. more powder .. PUT IN MORE POWDER! ..

Marty K.