New Rifle, What can be causing this at 20 yards?

[T. O'Heir]

Please reduce the size of your pictures.
Key holing is caused by undersized bullets, oversized barrel or sometimes too low velocity. A lack of lube on cast bullets will do it too. It has nothing whatever to do with the rifling twist. Especially at excessively short range. A bad crown won't either. That'd just have really bad accuracy.
You can't disguise a .444 barrel by stamping it wrong. A .444 barrel is way bigger than a .358 barrel. You'd notice a .30 cal vs .35 too.

 

[bamaranger]

1st thought

Immediately thought that some '06 ammo got in the Whelen box.

 

[taylorce1]

OP said the bullets fit the bore, so bore/bullet mismatch wasn't the problem. OP never did run a tight patch down the bore to measure twist, which could have also told us if there was other problems. I guess it's like a Tootsie Pop "The world may never know!"

 

[Brian Pfleuger]

OP got the rifle replaced, nothing more to see here.