Black crap on Berger Bullets

cwinner

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I just bought two boxes of 140 VLD to try in my 284 and both boxes have some black crap near the bullet tip.......has anyone else ever experienced this? It almost looks like dry mold and can be scratched off, I threw them in my tumbler and cleaned them up but what a pain.


I guess I'm hoping this is a rare occurance, has anyone else eve seen this?
 

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I got some .30 cal 155.5's like that before and wondered if and how much it would affect the bullets flight. I shot them, along with clean ones, in the Palma try-outs (.308 win at 1000 yards) a couple years ago. The dirty bullets were indiscernible from the clean ones in terms of accuracy.

My understanding is this is caused by the wash water being too dirty that the bullets are cleaned in.

Yours are a little blacker than mine were, but I can tell you it's a rare occurrence. In the 10's of thousands of Berger bullets I've loaded and shot, I only had the one 'dirty' batch.

-Bryan
 
Maybe you should not have cleaned them up . You should have sent them back. They are crap looking bullets . Were the seals on the box's intact ?
It appears to me that the cores were wet with something or some kind of contamination is inside or outside the bullet , old swage lube possibly but I have never seen it turn black like that . Possibly black mold growing on old swage lube . However they may still shoot ok as long as no imbalance is present but when you see that kind of presentation it does not give you much confidence .
Two box's will not break the bank but if that was a batch of 1000 I would be sending them back . It is a rare occurance and the vast majority of Berger stuff is good but every production line has it's failures at times.
However I think that is old stock as they seem dull but the label on the box is quoting a G7 BC so that label is not that old ?
I make my own bullets and I do a final wash with dilute sulfamic acid in warm water . It removes everything and leaves the bullets super shinny and clean and once they are properly dried , then ready for moly coating.
bsl135 ( " Bryan " might be Bryan Litz of Berger anyway so he should know ) may well be right it could be contamination in the final washing process . I can't see a bulk manufacturer using an expensive agent like Sulfamic Acid . I bet they are just using soapy water and not changing it often enough .
We get this kind of thing in Australia , they send out the second quality stuff to us. That is why I make my own now. New Mexico might be getting the same treatment as downunder. Many years ago I got six box's of Berger 55 grain 224 bullets sent out and 20% had split jackets at the ogive . Some never made it to the target . Might have been just bad luck but that was the catalyst to start making my own . I may not be able to match some of the accuracy of the specialised VLD stuff but If I do make a faulty bullet I can see that and not use it . It is not so bad when you can just take it back to your local gunshop but when you bring it in from overseas it is very dissapointing .
You still have to buy jackets and some batch's are not as good as others but I redraw any crook batch of jackets to true them up more .
This is what some of my 6mm bullets look like just incase you think I am all BS .
 

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Maybe you should not have cleaned them up . You should have sent them back. They are crap looking bullets . Were the seals on the box's intact ?
It appears to me that the cores were wet with something or some kind of contamination is inside or outside the bullet , old swage lube possibly but I have never seen it turn black like that . Possibly black mold growing on old swage lube . However they may still shoot ok as long as no imbalance is present but when you see that kind of presentation it does not give you much confidence .
Two box's will not break the bank but if that was a batch of 1000 I would be sending them back . It is a rare occurance and the vast majority of Berger stuff is good but every production line has it's failures at times.
However I think that is old stock as they seem dull but the label on the box is quoting a G7 BC so that label is not that old ?
I make my own bullets and I do a final wash with dilute sulfamic acid in warm water . It removes everything and leaves the bullets super shinny and clean and once they are properly dried , then ready for moly coating.
bsl135 ( " Bryan " might be Bryan Litz of Berger anyway so he should know ) may well be right it could be contamination in the final washing process . I can't see a bulk manufacturer using an expensive agent like Sulfamic Acid . I bet they are just using soapy water and not changing it often enough .
We get this kind of thing in Australia , they send out the second quality stuff to us. That is why I make my own now. New Mexico might be getting the same treatment as downunder. Many years ago I got six box's of Berger 55 grain 224 bullets sent out and 20% had split jackets at the ogive . Some never made it to the target . Might have been just bad luck but that was the catalyst to start making my own . I may not be able to match some of the accuracy of the specialised VLD stuff but If I do make a faulty bullet I can see that and not use it . It is not so bad when you can just take it back to your local gunshop but when you bring it in from overseas it is very dissapointing .
You still have to buy jackets and some batch's are not as good as others but I redraw any crook batch of jackets to true them up more .
This is what some of my 6mm bullets look like just incase you think I am all BS .

I agree that it was probably in the washing. They might have even been boxed with moisture inside the hollow points? I am not familiar with the Berger process so am just guessing. Acid core bonding will cause these kinds of problems around the tip if it isn't "completely" neutralized but Berger doesn't bond.......Rich
 
I agree that it was probably in the washing. They might have even been boxed with moisture inside the hollow points? I am not familiar with the Berger process so am just guessing. Acid core bonding will cause these kinds of problems around the tip if it isn't "completely" neutralized but Berger doesn't bond.......Rich

You are right mate any kind of bonding can have some leakage or corrosive elements at the meplat . I bond some off mine with the " heat gun , solder process " using Bakers flux ( Zinc Chloride ) on the core and inside the jacket. It can be difficult to completely remove the flux residues from inside the jacket before , core seating takes place . If you don't get it all out it tends to squeeze forward on point forming . Even after final washing it can still start some corrosion around the meplat after long storage if it has not been properly removed . Shooting them quickly is no issue though but it can also be an issue for moly coating as it may look patchy around the meplat. Only cosmetic really as that part does not touch the barrel but still can look bad. Presentation is important. I brush the inside of the jacket and the surface of the core to break up the flux residue and then tumble in Med Tech solution . It is an Acid based medical instrument cleaner that seems to get it out with agitation , however it is not perfect so I am going to experiment with ultra sonic cleaning also . as I feel that might be the ticket in this case .
Another trick I use on core bonded bullets is to place a small amount of colored nail polish in the meplat to seal the core in and prevent any corrosive element from reacting with Oxygen or moisture in the air . This also serves to identify the corbonded from no bonded bullets. No ! I don't paint my nails .
 
To me it looks like tarnish.
Maybe there was some water in the tips when the bullets were closed up in the boxes. Then, the boxes(the whole lot from that store) may have been subjected to relatively high temps in shipping/storing.
This accelerating surface corrosion.

Might want to let the store know to check a few boxes of that purchase, & see if they were all affected.
I have & use a good amount of Bergers, and have only seen occasional speckles of tarnish.
 
I thought I would post an update.....I agree with the cause of this blemish being mointure in the bullet tips prior to being put in the box.

Here are a couple five shot group I shot with this lot of bullets while trying to work up a load for them. Overall they shot qute well but I'm getting some fliers. It's not the bedding or the scope....this rifle will drive the 120TTSX into 1 ragged hole. I'm not sure if the imperfectons may be causing this....I'm planning to pick up a few more boxes as they are showing promise and the BC rocks that of the TTSX.......I had this rifle re-barreled with a 1:11 twist and now wish I would have gotten a little faster so I could stabalise the 160's.
 

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