Round nose bullets in a lever gun

[rbgfishboy]

Hey folks, I'm new to this forum, but since I'm a lever gun junkie, I'm certain I'll enjoy it. I have a question for those who have owned lever guns for a long time. I recently watched one of Hikok45's vediows about a 92 Winchester he had recently bought. During the video, he made the coment that round nose bullets should not be used in rifles with a tube magazine, since the nose rests against the primer of the one in front of it. I've heard this before, but more about the 1860 Henry repros where you drop the rounds in from the end of the barrel when loading it. I can see how one might go off, but I can't see where recoil would be enough to ignite the primer on a round in the magazine. Anyway, with that long explanation, I would like to know if anyone has ever witnessed a round going off while still in a tube magazine. I have a Rossi R92 in .38/.357, and after I heard what Hikok45 said, I looked at my stockpile of about 500 rounds of .38 special, and nearly all are round nose bullets. I guess I'd like to find out if this is something I need to be concerned with.

By the way, and I know I'm preaching to the choir when I say this, but shooting a lever rifle is about the best shooting fun there is, particularly when it is in a pistol caliber. I own a Henry .22 and the Rossi, both bought in the last year, and at age 57, my only regret is that I didn't buy a lever gun sooner!

Thanks to anyone who responds to this!

[JerryB]

Factory lever gun ammo comes with round nose bullets.

[Chuck 100 yd]

Round nose bullets have been used for ages in tubular magazines. There are differences in round nose bullets though. I would NOT use bullets that are NOT blunt on the end. Some RN bullets are not very blunt.
Griff has some pictures that explain this better. He should be along with them soon.

[Topside]

Hey, welcome to the forum. See you're in Greensboro. I spent a year at Guilford many years ago. Now I pass through fairly often on my way from Richmond, Va. to Blowing Rock to visit my sister. G-boro......nice town.

T.

[Griff]

Round nose bullets have been used for ages in tubular magazines. There are differences in round nose bullets though. I would NOT use bullets that are NOT blunt on the end. Some RN bullets are not very blunt.
Griff has some pictures that explain this better. He should be along with them soon.

Fellar can't even get a good nite's rest without bein' called out...
"Round" is a rather inaccurate term.





Both of those are "round" noses as defined by their makers... but apart from being a .30-30 and .38Spl, they show how two different nose shapes are both called "round".

and Welcome to THE Forum!

[El Chivo]

Round nose is usually ok, but I ran across a Fiocci load that had a "round nose truncated cone" that looked pointy. I single loaded those. Remington round nose look reasonable, but I have some Sierra round nose that look pretty pointy too. If in doubt, just load two; if you're hunting that's all you need anyway.

[MrMurphy]

Round nose are fine.

Spitzer (pointy) loads are not, and can lead to spontaneous explosive rifle disassembly........


The French figured that out with the Lebel in the 1880s and invented a load that had a special ring around the primer, kept the pointy bit from hitting the primer under recoil.

Yet another reason tube magazines died off in military use, aside from changing the point of balance of the rifle as the magazine depleted, being glacially slow to reload, etc.....

There's a reason box magazines were invented and stayed around.

However, with pistol rounds and tube mags, round nose loads are perfectly fine, and for most common levergun rifle rounds intended for them, the 'round' nose will be rounded with a bit of flat point.

[AJMD429]

Keep in mind the weight of the gun and the intensity of the load are factors as well.

It would be hard to make even a 16" Rossi levergun recoil much with any 38 Special load, or even any 357 Mag level load I've come across. On the other hand, my 20" Rossi in 454 Casull jumps right smart with some of the hotter factory loads, so if I had pointy-tip Casull rounds I'd not keep more than one in the magazine tube, but wouldn't hesitate to shoot a 357 with a tube-full of the relatively blunt lead round nose bullets available.

Someone on here posted a thread about testing this issue by making a 'magazine tube' out of a long piece of conduit or something, and dropping various rounds down it; not really simulating 'recoil' as much as the tube-loading impacts that happen, but even with a long tube I don't think they managed to get anything to detonate.

P.S. Welcome to the forum...

[rbgfishboy]

I appreciate all the replies! I have already fired round nose ammo through this gun without any problem. I suppose Hikok45 has to pass those things along, as I have heard him say similar things about different firearms. I can't see how this would happen with .38 special or .357, but I thought I would learn a few things if I asked. I did, and thanks again to all who replied!

I plan to go this evening and happily sling some lead!!

[Pete44ru]

.

If I was concerned about lead RN boolits in a tube magazine, and I'm not, I would rig up a simple boolit OD hole in a small steel plate, insert the loded shells from the bottom until just a bit of the nose protrudes up/out & file a small flat on the tip - similarly to the way I used to make lead RN .22LR slugs more effective on small game (a million years before CCI-SGB's came along).



.

[J Miller]

Here is a personal anecdote about shooting round nose bullets from a tubular magazine rifle.

Many summers ago, way back in the Arizona territory, I loaded up some 230 gr hard cast RN bullets intended for the .45 ACP in .45 Colt cases. The powder charge was some outrageous Unique load that was a max Ruger - T/C load. These bullets were very hard, very round, had no flat on the nose at all and I fired many of them from my Win 94AE Trapper without any troubles at all. No magazine detonations, no nothing.

And for the record the load was so hot that these hard cast bullets shot through an abandoned car from end to end.

Then, I'd never heard that you shouldn't use RN bullets in a tube magazine. Now, I still don't worry about it.

Joe

[Griff]

I can totally understand why these things can take on a life of their own. Take a couple of these bullets:

cast in a hard alloy, then add a soft primer and you might get a detonation with the left one. Or with one of these:

or maybe a:

Or look at these:

compared to these:

Both are called a "round nose", but one is certainly "more round" than the other.

Cast them hard and if using a Federal or Winchester primer, I would feel much more comfortable with the last one than any of the 3 above it.

I have loaded, literally, many, many thousands of these 158 grain round nose bullets

for use in CAS by my wife and son outta their Colt SAAs and Rossi 92 leverguns and never, even using almost exclusively, Winchester SP primers had a dented primer caused by a bullet nose, let alone a detonation. And I cast them using a fairly hard alloy, 6:1 (WW:Linotype).

It's not the label "round" that bothers me, it's the actual roundness of the bullet that I take note of.

And, as you can see in my first post, those .30-30 bullets don't actually touch the primer of the bullet in front of it when laid end-to-end.

I will add the caveat that, cartridges are not really "static" when in the mag tube, during recoil they are likely to jump and slightly change position; but, in having loaded and shot many thousands of round nose bullets I've never had a detonation using those particular bullets.

[Nath]

This old one keeps popping up don't it.
It won't happen. It is a theoretical problem not an actually occurance. A little like evolution...it's a theory. Nobody actually nows it ever happened that way.

Primers dont get set off by lead firing pins slightly bumping into one. No, they need something much harder than themselves and percussion.

Would I load FMJ spitzers or semi spitzers.....nope.

Go shoot.

Nath.

[KiwiKev]

I shoot lots of LRN from my 38/357 Rossi 24inch octagonal. On another forum I saw pictures when someone managed to blow their tubular magazine up. So it can happen. I can load 13 but I usually only load 5 at a time.

Personally I don't get a very good group out of LRN, with my rifle LRNFP is much better.

[1894c]

rbgfishboy -- WELCOME...i'm in my 50's too, but have been using leverguns since I was in my 20's, never too late to discover the best design in a rifle...Hicok45 is a good guy, but sometimes good guys don't have all the right answers... :)

[rbgfishboy]

Thanks again to all of you! I really didn't think I would experience this, but I was curious if anyone had actually seen this happen or know someone who has.

That being said, one thing I left out - a lot of the rounds I have are FMJ. Should I be worried about those?

Thanks again, everybody!

[Chas.]

It's always been my contention that kinetics prevails. When the rifle suddenly recoils backwards, the static kinetics tends to keep the cartridge stationary - at least until the spring in the mag tube shoves them back. Consequently, primer detonation is dependent on the strength of the mag tube spring, not the violence of the recoil.

[J Miller]

30wcf, rbgfishboy,

Gotcha beat. I'm 61 ( ewww I hate getting old ) and have been shooting tube magazine lever guns since I was 14.
In that time I have never seen a tube magazine destroyed by a detonation caused by round nosed bullet of any shape, caliber or material.

Pointed or semi pointed FMJ causing magazine detonations ... that I have heard of, but not seen.

I have fired 110 gr 30 Carbine FMJ bullets from my 30-30 with no incidents, but those are round and although the fire balls from the IMR 3031 loads were extraordinary the recoil was negligible.
I have also fired pointed FMJ bullets from a lever gun, but they were fed singly into the chamber.

Joe

[mark08]

I saw a lever that had had a tube fire and I passed on a win 94 in 35 cal because I didn't know the value or cost of repair.The guy who wanted to sell it loaded "pointee points" ,,,,, slammed the rifle butt on the ground to break his fall from a stand. Made a knot with a split in the tube and tube plug went missing. He was not hurt, thankfully. It can happen but not with rn bulits.

load em and shoot.

[loader]

I was curious about 38 158 gr round noses going off in my marlin so I did some experimenting on my own. Primed several empty cases with various brands of primers and put them mouth down in a vise. Then placed one my hard cast bullets in a set of vise grips held it directly in contact with the primer and hit it with a ball peen hammer no boom hit it harder no boom, after third try I noticed the nose of the bullet had flattened so I replaced it. Finally had to give them a severe whack with a 3 lb sledge to get the primers to go off. I do not believe recoil in a spring loaded tube could provide that kind of force, so it's not something I worry about any longer. I also tried this with 30-30 cases and 150 spire points and it took at least three hits to make them pop. They only went off when the exposed lead was flattened and the jacket material came in contact with the prime

[AJMD429]

And for the record the load was so hot that these hard cast bullets shot through an abandoned car from end to end.

What Joe ain't tellin' ya is that the car was 'abandoned' after he shot it. . .

[rbgfishboy]

Well, I took that beauty out this evening and fired about thirty of those round nose rounds, and of course, she shot like a dream, and no problems (I really didn't expect any).

For years, I have wanted a couple of single action revolvers, and finally got one two years ago, and the other earlier this year. I love them, but I think I have died and gone to shooting heaven when I take this Rossi out (I also feel nearly the same when I shoot my little Henry H001). On the way back from shooting the Rossi, I start to think that maybe I'll have to trade one of those revolvers for another Rossi!!

Sorry, but I had to foam at the mouth a little. I love these lever guns!!

[Ysabel Kid]

Welcome to the fire!

I looked at my stockpile of about 500 rounds of .38 special, and nearly all are round nose bullets.

Do you own a revolver that fires .38 Special? If so, you can use this for that firearm, and use LRN-FP for the leveraction. Most of my reloading is with LRN-FP bullets. For the most part, I wouldn't worry about LRN at .38 Special due to the low recoil, but again, if you have an option to use the ammo you have elsewhere (or trade for some LRN-FP stuff), why not?

[Mike Rintoul]

It is a common belief that cartridges in the magazine tube of a lever gun are positioned with the noses down, in a staggered manner, not nose-to-base. In a lot of instances this is true. With a horizontal rifle, picture all the cartridges with the bullet laying on the bottom of the mag tube, touching the bottom of the cartridge rim in front of it. If this is an absolute, then a wide, hard nosed bullet would be more likely to have its sharp edge come in contact with the primer in front of it than a round nose would. Some companies use a small rifle primer in large, hard-recoiling ammunition to prevent this. Other attempts to uncover what goes on in the magazine used video and other means and determined that at rest the cartridges are in all different positions based on spring pressure. In the moment of recoil the more spring pressure (from strong springs and also the more cartridges that are in the magazine) the less the cartridges move around. However, regardless of the spring pressure when the cartridges do move, they move in a random way and come to rest in a different way each time. These are not my studies, I am reporting the tests of others through the years. There are very few magazine ignition instances, but they have been recorded. Handloads with slightly protruding, damaged or "sensitive" primers are usually the culprit. Round nose bullets in factory loads are widely accepted as "safe" and have been in use for a century. Best of luck with your rifle!

[rbgfishboy]

Mike, and to everyone else, thanks! So far, I have been using factory new ammo, but I am planning to start reloading in the next few months. I plan to reload as close to a factory load as I can. I don't care to experiment with reloads.

Mike, I hadn't thought about how the cartridges lay in the magazine, until you and a couple others mentioned it. I guess I probably had it in my head that these rounds would touch each other horizontally like they would if stacked vertically, which of course, is nuts.

I have really enjoyed reading all of these responses, and I need to think of something else to ask. You folks are great, and I'm certain I am going to have a great time on this forum. Thanks!!

[cshold]

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