Keyholeing Pellets

PFribley · Post by **PFribley** » Fri Mar 11, 2011 10:21 pm

FWB C5 with RWS R-10. Practicing shooting last night and the pellets started keyholeing. Whats up????

Spencer · Post by **Spencer** » Sat Mar 12, 2011 12:53 am

step 1 - check velocity is 390 to 410 fps. Keyholing is usually too low a velocity (<350 fps)

peterz · Post by **peterz** » Sat Mar 12, 2011 1:50 am

Refill the CO2 container. You were probably pretty low on liquid gas and so were getting pressure variations.

william · Post by **william** » Sat Mar 12, 2011 8:36 am

Before going overboard, are you getting keyholing or tearing of the targets? The paper can look much the same. Tearing is a result of some combination of low (but not prohibitively low) velocity, low quality targets and perhaps excess moisture (do you practice in your basement?) in the target paper.

Keyholing is more serious, and I've never seen it except when gas pressure got down to literally "last gasp" territory. If you think about how bad things must be to allow a pellet to start tumbling in such a short distance, I think you may find yourself to be observing something else entirely.

Here's the off-topic part: my only firsthand experience with keyholing has been with my standard pistol on a couple of occasions when Mr. Eley forgot to put sufficient powder in the case. The bullet went sideways through the target at a very low 6 o'clock. That's keyholing! There was very little report, and the empty case ejected perfectly in a cloud of powder smoke. When I picked the case up off the bench it was covered in soot. Obviously there was not enough pressure to expand the case out to the chamber walls, but still enough to launch the bullet fifty feet.

PFribley · Post by **PFribley** » Sat Mar 12, 2011 9:15 am

Thanks all for the response. Soon afterwards I ran out of gas. LOL. I might have also. LOL. New pistol. Getting used to this pressure stuff from a pump pistol. Sure does shoot nice. It might have been tearing. Looked similiar to what my .32 does at 50yrds.

peterz · Post by **peterz** » Sat Mar 12, 2011 12:03 pm

I have had some problems with keyholing pellets from my C-20, always within the last few shots one could get to fire out of the barrel. But torn targets do look a bit like keyholing; the only solution there is to switch to better targets such as Krueger.