I have a Savage 110E .223 that I bought a long time ago when I was a young teen. Its always been a good shooter with 55gr FMJ's. I've also shot Hornady Custom 60gr soft points as my deer ammo the few times I took it to the stand. I shot a decent buck with it when I was a teenager and it dropped him in his tracks. My son is now 8yrs old and wants to kill a deer this weekend with it. He's been shooting it and is doing pretty well. The other day I bought some 62gr Federal Fusion soft points and figured they would be a decent round to let him shoot his first deer with. We went to the range today and the Federal Fusion's (62gr) were keyholing at 50 yards. I couldn't believe they were tumbling like this but it was obvious that they were hitting sideways. My question is, why would this gun stabalize and shoot accurately a 60gr Hornady Custom and no be able to stabalize a 62gr Federal Fusion? I realize that the barrel must have a slow twist and is probably suited for a lighter bullet, but would 2 grains in bullet weight make this much of a difference? To go from shooting a 60gr soft point very accurately to totally tumbling a 62gr soft point seems pretty extreme. Is it possible that the gun just doesn't like the Federal Fusions or is it a bullet weight issue? Its not really a big deal, just curious what your toughts are. Thanks in advance.

Whens the last time you cleaned the gun? How does the crown/muzzle look? Any abnormalities? Maybe you can call savage and get the rate of twist to confirm your suspicions.

EDIT according to savage the twist is 1-9 soo it should handle the 62 gr bullet just fine.

I honestly don't think it has anything to do with a dirty barrel and there isn't any damage to the crown. The gun shoots 55gr fmj's and the Hornady Custom 60gr very well. The strange thing is I literally went from shooting the 60gr soft points to the 62gr Fusions and the Fusions were tumbling by the time they were hitting the target at 50yrds. I just can't figure out what would cause this unless the rifle just doesn't like that specific bullet for some reason.

I appreciate you looking up the twist rate. Is that the current twist rate on the 110 in .223? If so, I wonder if it was different when my rifle was made, I'm guessing this rifle was probably made in the 80's.

I did some searching and apparently the older Savage's in .223 were slow twist rates, typically either 1:12 or 1:14. I'm guessing thats what the issue is. I guess I'll just draw the conclusion that the 62gr bullets are too heavy and I'll stick with a lighter bullet.