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Grump

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Everything posted by Grump

  1. Apologies if my search skills puked on this one. I got a GREAT load using CFE-BLK in the .30 BR…and I’m almost out of W-W 296 for the .357. Since CFE- BLK is in that middle zone between standard pistol powders and fast-medium rifle powders, has anyone here used it in these two pistol cartridges? thanks!
  2. Been gone a while but I can recommend the known accuracy load of 6 grains of Power Pistol with the Hornady 115 XTP. OR adjust the charge for their 124s. HAP bullets IME are just as accurate but my best 9 does only 2- to 2-1/2 inch groups at 25. you might clang a few without tipping them over, but I am a BIG believer in knowing how far away you can hit 2 out of 3 on any particular target.
  3. Oh, and I thought that OpenOffice had pretty much died because no one wants to work on security issues any more. I'm using LibreOffice, even on my crappy work computer it seems as stable as Office 6 was. https://www.libreoffice.org/download/download/
  4. Huge thanks for sharing the data. It's quite refreshing to have actual experience and measured results. "Shoots fine" and "must be the same velocity as factory XYZ because the recoil feels the same" are disappointingly vague and the evil-opposite of this. Our world is a little bit better place because of you and I wish good Kharma your way and downstream to everyone who uses this.
  5. I have seen no correlation in accuracy from 1,000 fps up to 1270 with 115-gr bullets of various types. If the bullet is decent and the load is tuned to the gun, it seems that 2 inches at 25 yards is always attainable.
  6. Finally got some data after Hodgdon's site was on the fritz for a few weeks and returned ONLY some sub-1,000 fps cowboy style loads for 125-gr bullets. After being quite pleased with it in 9mm (see below), I just tried it in .357 Magnum in a 6-inch revolver and my speeds are on the order of 200 fps slower than "advertised". Anyone have any experiences to report??? I'm most interested in 125-gr JHPs, but anything is more real-world info than I have now. QuickLOAD still doesn't have AutoComp (nor CFE Pistol and a few other newer ones that seem popular around here), so I worked up some 9mm loads and had to exceed "book max" to come in about 75 fps or so slower than the max load is supposed to get from a shorter barrel than mine. So I ran a propellant table, found a powder that almost matched, and tweaked it just a little to track my 115-gr bullet speeds at 3 or more charge weights. So I run QuickLOAD (before I found the "official" load data, using the powder characteristics tweaked for 9mm. Wow, Way slower than QL predicted, like 244 fps, and the QL prediction was very, very close to what Hodgdon's 10-inch barrel load would get from my 7.6 inch (cylinder included). So with my own chrono data, I run a charge weight propellant table and find that some completely different powders most closely match what I got. One is Vihtavuori N105, Blue Dot takes more powder and AA #5 takes almost a full grain less. I am not surprised that a powder would behave differently in a much larger case...Now I have some data points.
  7. Go too long and the casemouth can't grip the bullet properly during feeding. Don't remember how long I went, but with Hornady XTPs I was still not touching the lands or the leade by the time the bullets were getting cocked on feeding and accuracy went to 4 inches or worse at 25 yards. That was a LONG time ago, and now that I think of it, a different gun (two actually, both no longer here). Short of that point of being overly long, I never detected an accuracy difference from loading longer or shorter, from 1.05" out to 1.19". That includes a lot of testing the past two years chasing "9mm Hardball" loads for EIC competitions that I did not wind up shooting in. Doing reality checks with JHPs showed that my results with FMJs (Hornady and Sierra) were just not panning out.
  8. Mind sharing your 147 load? Starline .38SC brass, 3.5gr of Bullseye, 147 XTP seated 1.21 with a medium taper crimp and a Federal SPP. Takes a light spring to run it in a comp'd gun. Feels like a paintball gun to shoot. Getting about 930 fps and a PF of 136 or so???
  9. Ummm, this is all fine and good so long as the resistance to rotation is caused purely by the bullet contacting the leade. It will never happen if the case is the source of the "sticktion". Then you run the risk of chasing ever-shorter bullet seating all the way into unsafe pressures. UNlikely to blow the gun or the case the first 5 or 50 or 5,000 times, but I wouldn't want to go down that rabbit-hole. I suggest your isolate one variable at a time. With some chamber/case/bullet combinations, going too short on seating will compromise feed reliability by letting the case tip up too sharply, the bullet nose doesn't hit the top of the chamber, and the case wall on the bottom jams on the feed ramp. YMMV, of course, as this is very dependent on the details of the chamber and ramp. But I *have* seen it happen more than once, and going back a bit longer is exactly what fixes that feed problem.
  10. Sarge: I want to supplement QuickLOAD. By itself, it's not the be-all, end-all of load *estimation*. Like many other things, like driving on snowpacked roads, adding your own informed observations and intelligence is essential. Among other things, I am aware of the safety margin element--which is why factory so-called +P .38 Special loads don't even reach velocities in real guns that should be quite safely attainable with regular-pressure loads using the correct powders. And that safety factor is why I won't be trying to make 9mm Major in a 4.4-inch barrel. I still want to find the true velocity limits for some of these non-1911 guns. But to explore my gun's theoretical limits before I try to work up TOP loads using AutoComp or CFE Pistol or BE-86, I'd really like to explore modifying powder profiles from other ones which appear to load about the same (by charge weight) with the same bullet weight. And THIS forum is one of the best, if not THE best, for getting first-hand reports from people who are smart enough to play by the Big Boy Rules. After all, it's been like 20+ years since I heard a contemporaneous-ish report of anyone getting "Stupid Face" from trying to make Major with a .355-.357 bore and a 5-inch barrel. Like everyone who has mentioned it here says, powder choice makes all the difference. Though I would rather add something like BE-86 to my expanding list of pistol powders (before the first shortage, I had standardized on two for almost everything, but both became Unobtanium for many months at a time), if it winds up being HS-6 then so be it. Especially if HS-6 is low(er) flash. Now I guess I'm off to dig up some reports on flashiness for BE-86, CFE Pistol, and HS-6...I'd just stick with Power Pistol if it wasn't a W-W 296 emulator as a handgun flashlight maker.
  11. Even though I've never laid eyes on BE-86, can someone tell me how "flashy" it is in 9mm and .357? That's part of my interest in AutoComp--less flash than Power Pistol.
  12. Except they sprinkle "copper eraser dust" into the CFE. Yeah, pretty sure that majick dust is some tin compound or elemental tin. IIRC, the US military played with that either before, during, or after WWI. Before my time, I just read too much. The latest QuickLOAD powder database has neither AutoComp nor CFE Pistol. Thus my question. Herco results match what I get from my pistol better than WAP or anything else available. I also understand that sometimes two powders might match very closely through one range of reloading (light, medium or full-power loads, for example) but won't match very well at all at another power level. Thus my inquiry being focused on top end 9mm loads rather than light "plinking" loads.
  13. Specific to the 9mm. More specifically to the 115-gr JHP family. I'm a QuickLOAD junkie. But even the September 2015 update doesn't have Win AutoComp in the database. Still has Winchester Action Pistol and Ramshot Silhouette though, with barely any differences in the various numerical values for each... Anyway, I have looked closely at my own load/chrono results in 9mm using WAC, including properly entering case capacity and barrel length data. Based on charge weights, WAC with burn rate adjustments matches okay in loads predicting 26,000 or more PSI, but drifts farther from reality in downloaded settings. Alliant HERCO seems to match my actual results much better, based on charge weights and velocities. So has anyone played around enough to know what powder most closely matches AutoComp in the 9mm??? Starting with my own speeds and charge data, and assuming similar throats, it appears that a LOT of WAC loads trying to reach Major are right at the bare ragged edge of safety, staying barely under max pressures mainly because of being loaded longer than 1.1 inch... So, can anyone can help with this???
  14. More often, the *case* cannelure is cosmetic, not deep enough to help resist bullet setback, and sometimes not even near the base of the seated bullet. Used to visually identify different types of loads by the manufacturers. Years ago, I think it was Remington put one of those marks about .20 inch from the case mouth on their .38 Special full wadcutters. Regardless of which load, there were others with the cannelure well back from where the bullet base lay. In college, I could pick out different types of .22 match ammo that was loose in the bottom of the can that way, but I don't remember any more which ones had the marks where. In both CF and RF rounds, I have seen TWO cannelures. Definitely for identification. In a factory-loaded, round, look how DEEP the cannelure is. Only the deep ones are used to resist bullet setback.
  15. Grump

    Accurizing SIGs?

    Thanks, all. Will look into the powder article. But here, V-V powders are more rare than powder itself. In fact, I don't believe I have EVER laid eyes on any of that particular one. I am actually interested in maybe using the SIG in Conventional Bullseye, where you really want to have a 2.5 inch group at 50 yards. That group in my Avatar is with a tuned .45 at 50 during some load development last year, iron sights, bullets I cast myself. So, I know that I can identify an accurate load off of the sandbags with irons. My reject bullets get shot at brown and at steel, usually 25 yards and closer. Do a few Bill Drills once in a while, need to do some reload drills, and of course my slow draw. But hey, I can get a D hit or better at 100 yards from the buzzer in like 3.5 seconds... No head shots that far away though with the handgun.
  16. Speak for yourself and your local area and what you can backorder because you have more time to sit on the internet using search 'bots to find and click on something before 25 other people behind you get shut out. There are enough of us who use *and "stockile"* a heck of a lot less than what you and RDA in Ohio report getting your diligent and fortunate mitts on, to be the large number of exceptions that doesn't "prove the rule" but demolishes it. I have bought TWO, count 'em, TWO pounds of pistol powder in the last six months solely on the very correct idea that it would probably be at least a month before ANYTHING showed up again on the LGS shelves. Not the powders I was looking for either time, but I am very, very glad I made those two very modest purchases when I did. Half the time, the powder(s, sometimes it literally is only one bottle or a few bottles of one type like BMG) on the LGS shelves are not suitable, or perhaps only barely suitable, for the caliber I intend to load. So for some areas, you got it completely wrong. The stuff is not even arriving to be hoarded up. And a carton of 8, 1-lb jugs of 700-X that showed up six weeks ago really did last five days before it was all gone. Being as how it was the ONLY CHOICE for pistol powders I had seen in five weeks, I bought one, for exactly the reason you try to discredit as the cause of the shortage. Or perhaps the continuation of the shortage. Locally, ammo is all calibers except all rimfires is plentiful and is NOT flying off the shelves. Some of us prefer to not buy online any more, either, taking more "pressure" off of the total powder market. Not everyone plays the backorder game.
  17. Update: 5.7 gr Auto-Comp goes about 1175 with Montana Gold 115-gr JHPs, with okay accuracy (3 inches at 25 yards). Primers and QuickLOAD using HERCO burn rate both say it's less than 26,000 PSI. That's loaded to eject from a Kel-Tec, at1.12 OAL.
  18. Grump

    Accurizing SIGs?

    Searched the Net with Google last week and found nothing describing any techniques or mods. Grew up around Bullseye so I'm familiar with the subject with 1911s, right down to how slide to frame fit is grossly over-rated. Not finding anything here in the SIG sub-forum on accurize, accurizing, or accurized, either. Other than fitting a replacement barrel, I have exactly two ideas on what can be done for SIGs, but I want to see what is out in our knowledge base before venturing off into what looks like largely uncharted territory. BTW, every gunsmith's site I looked at that mentioned SIGs listed *reliability* enhancements, nothing for accuracy other that selling and installing barrels. Looking to improve on 3-inch sandbagged groups at 25 yards. Would like to get 1.5 inches or smaller. 9mm, I understand the importance of quality bullets like the Hornady XTP. Nosler 115 JHPs have proven equally accurate in this two or three pistols. So what have you done, or seen done, or at least heard about, that makes a positive difference for improving SIG accuracy other than buying a P210? Even interested in things tried that did not make a difference.
  19. Lots of neat, plausible and in some parts definitely wrong analysis here. Dissolve some powder in acetone and form it into a kebab-skewer shape with a little L-hook at one end. Let it dry on wax paper or something else non-stick. Use a washer or two or something else heavy to anchor the end of the nitrocellulose stick at the bottom of a small cup of water, with about a half-inch or more of the other end above the water line. Light it up and watch it burn under water, where the dissolved oxygen just is NOT available to support combustion. Then talk to us about the contribution of atmospheric oxygen or any other gas to the burning of smokeless powder. THEN go into the SAAMI or any other testing protocols and learn the difference between "peak" pressure and "mean average" as those terms are used. What you say about Magnum primers is being applied to a measurement standard that does not exist. The piezoelectric devices used to measure pressure really do pick up that pressure "spike" you seem to believe can be masked in some "average" standard. Either type of pistol primer is definitely safe up to at least 43,500 PSI (.357 Magnum, Euro CIP standard, Magnum primers are specified only to facilitate ignition of SOME powders even with those large charges in a fairly spacious case). That's peak chamber pressure, something that happens within the first two inches of bullet travel and then rapidly drops off as the effective "burn" chamber expands behind the moving bullet's base. What happens in YOUR firearm is the best evidence though. When poorly-formed firing pin noses and other mechanical complications like loose fit between firing pin and firing pin channel are NOT making things worse, primer "flow" and pierced primers are often a sign of chamber pressures that are approaching the limits of the brass case itself. Although primer setback followed by the case moving back against the breechface can lead to "false positive" signs of overpressure well above 50,000 PSI, I generally like the primer radius as probably the only reliable "pressure sign" other than velocity itself for the barrel length.*** Primers that start getting squared off on the radius are generally bad news in pistol calibers. That is part of why I believe that my recent successful experiment with a .38 Special Major load in a 6-inch revolver really IS within SAAMI +P specs: primers have the same general radius profile as factory +P, AND QuickLOAD models it as within specs with that powder, case capacity, bullet and barrel length. If your 9mm Major loads go above 40,000 PSI peak chamber pressure, then I will concede a need for using small rifle primers. If not, then experimenting with them is most likely harmless and you should probably go with whichever primer gives you the best accuracy first, followed in importance by consistent velocity. ***Above rifle pressures of 55,000 PSI, tiny changes in casehead expansion can be used to detect overpressure loads, but in my opinion this remains an unreliable technique. Wolfe Publications has had some articles reporting well-designed experimentation along these lines.
  20. Wow, I feel like a wimpsissy for being concerned that 1200 fps from a 4.4 inch barrel might be a little too hot. But if it burns same as HERCO, I think QuickLOAD says it's barely into SAAMI +P. 122-gr cast lead, no GC. That was 5.7 gr, 1.12 OAL. I know, not a .38 SC but there's another data point.
  21. Wow, all this on a too-often asked question (Search IS your friend, and not just on this site!), and no one is bleating about the justified but fairly remote danger of SOMEONE ELSE getting your .38 Special cases and stuffing them into a 1905-vintage .38 Special revolver and blowing it up after a dozen shots. Or more. Or maybe never. Anyway, specs are specs and are there for a purpose and some of those purposes may never come into play for you. But being a guy who handles probates, I can promise you that the odds are that 1) you won't know WHEN you are going to die (not everyone is as lucky as my Dad who got diagnosed on a Tuesday night and passed Saturday shortly after sundown); AND 2) you are most likely going to leave behind some loaded ammo. The OP said he would load to .357 Mag OAL. Fine. Pressures should be the same or maybe less. .38 Spl. cases of modern manufacture are quite capable of handling the pressures. Easily. No problem. Heck, we have some people hot-rodding .38 Short Colt to Major PF with relative ease and careful powder selection, and like the Spl., that was orginally a BP round. But then again, WHY? With powders like Power Pistol at probably a half-dozen more, you can get Major PF with heavier bullets and a 6-inch barrel, sometimes without going into the not very much higher pressure +P zone. IIRC, you can even get there with 125-gr bullets. So, see what you can get from the lowly .38 Special, IN SPECS, with modern powders, before putting the neighbor's WWI-Vintage .38 at risk with Magnum pressure loads in cases that might get separated from your red-letter warning labels. It ain't your grandfather's .38, you know. BTW, the K-Frame .357 Mag was not possible until S&W started using much higher-strength steels in their cylinders and barrels (and maybe frames). My Dad wore one of the first ones out. And there's a famous/infamous guy posts under the name Clark, up in the Pacific NW IIRC, whose hobby is loading up rounds hotter and hotter until he finds the point where case or gun fail. He's found modern-steel .38 Specials are quite difficult to destroy, at least the S&Ws and Colts (? I don't remember him EVER testing an RG or other cheap "revolver", for example).
  22. All this talk and no mention that a small primer weights about 5 grains? Fired large ones weight about the same. Do the Archimedes thing for brass density and you'll have the approximate volume displaced. Since that's important on the gas phase, don't worry about the powder not getting under the anvil. Then do the math with your bullet diameter's area to see how much "deeper" the bullet would have to seat to equal the volume of that primer. My prediction is that it would be no more than a 4,000 PSI increase. Then add the effect of the live charge in the primer. Look up the Joules of energy contained in that little pellet and add it to the energy of the powder column. If it adds less than 10%, probably no problem. Since my 9mm is substantially overbuilt with quite a safety margin, I'd shoot it. You don't have to. How many rounds in that bucket of suspects?
  23. Think that's why the 147 FMJ factory rounds I've seen use a boat-tail bullet. They want to mid-case lumps to make us worry, regardless of the "ring" still being inside of max loaded round specs.
  24. Thanks! Ran QuickLOAD on what I got with some 123-ish grain lead bullets, and at my OAL there are a few powders which will go the speed I got with 5.7 of Auto-Comp at standard SAAMI pressure, and about twice as many more at SAAMI +P pressures. The powder that matched my charge was Alliant Herco. I almost switched to that for .357 Mag (was looking to get way from Magnum primers needed for the 296 loads I had used forever), but it was only so-so IIRC with 125s, Unique was maybe a bit better... Interestingly enough, QuickLOAD says that W-W 296, a classic way slow powder, would be unsafe and up near CF rifle pressures trying to get that same speed. One of the lowest pressures was, once again, Power Pistol. Not crazy about the flash in that one.
  25. What are the save velocities for a 4.4 inch barrel the online reloading data is sparse, and stops well below max pressures for regular 9mm, and there is no plus-P data anywhere I have looked. But I am thinking that 1200 fps from a 4-1/2 inch barrel should be quite feasible. What velocities are we safely getting with this powder in 9mm? I'm actually interested in all bullet weights, and whether there is more than a 30 fps difference between lead and jacketed. Thanks.
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