Free Practice Ammo

[Carlos]

Friends and family all know I reload so over the years they have given me spare,leftover, unused or otherwise orphaned components. I decided to turn some of these into 9mm practice ammo! A buddy needed an STI slide stop and I gave him my spare w/o expecting anything in exchange - but I got about 500 of the124 grn RN hardcast D&J bullets for my part. Some time before that, another friend showed up with a trunk full of old powder (many jokes about a "rolling bomb" were made that day). He handed it out to us depending on who would use what - and I ended up w/ 2 partial cans of 2400 and a 1/2 can of old Unique. I have always hated this nasty, dirty, smelly stuff - there are so many newer powders that do a better job for the same price - but free is free so I determined I would use the Unique. The can is the old coated cardboard canister style w/ the red plastic stopper! I checked and the powder passed the "smell test"; it also passed visual inspection for deterioration (no apparent oxidation or breakdown) so in it went into the 650. FOr primers, I used a partial box of 1000 WSP primers that was given to my brother at the bar by one of his drinking buddys. Origin and age? WHo knows? They are the old plated style and the trays had a suspicious light gray powder on them, but a test showed they were still viable. Cases were range pick-up brass - some of it from commercial relaoders Atlanta Arms so its impossible to tell how many times these cases had been reloaded. A 2 hour trip through the walnut followed by a dusting of OneShot and they went into the hopper. I followed an upper mid-range load from the Speer manual (4.3 to 4.4 grains) but increased the OAL from 1.130 to 1.140 just to be on the safe side pressure wise. I also brought a squib-load rod to the range just in case.

Results: Accurate? Yes! Cheap? Yes! Filthy? YES! I could not believe how much more smoke these things made indoors! (did not do my health any favors last night!). Since these were bare lead, I chose to shoot them out of a Steyr M series 9mm I have. After 100 rounds, the cleanest part of the gun was the interior of the barrel - the hardcast left no noticeable leading. However, there was black crud caked everywhere else - especially the frame around the top of the magazine well and locking block area. The cleaning is not fun but I enjoyed shooting up the free components that I would never have used in competition. Once the lead bullets are gone, I will go through the "free samples and recovered components" box.

[EricW]

"...I would use the Unique. The can is the old coated cardboard canister style w/ the red plastic stopper!"

Sorry, but that's the new can. The old can was a squat, square can with a metal top that one pushed down in the center and it would "oilcan" and release the lip of the container. It was pretty neat. That Unique you've got is no more than a decade or two old.

[Carlos]

HAHAHA - now that you mention it, I have see the really, really old square Unique cans in some of the more seasoned gun store - thank God it was just for display! Any wonder that "Unique" rimes w/ "antique"??!? I've used blackpowder that left less residue! (well almost).

What confounds me about this stuff is how popular it still is! I ask guys who use it, why? I usually get a response akin to "Its all they sells at the gunstore" or "it don't costs as much as them fancy, new-fangled powders!" or "Grandpa used it and ifin it was good enuf' fer him, well then..." In my case, nothing beats FREE, but I will not miss Unique once this supply is finished (nearly there).

[EricW]

They probably still use Unique for the same reason I used Red Dot for so many years: the gunstore would buy a big keg of it, then measure it out and sell it in paper lunch sacks - a pound or two at a time. Ahh, I remember being thirteen and riding my bike home with my precious sack full of gunpowder. Thems was the days...

[Steve Anderson]

We got us some local good ol boys who use unique and lead.

I think they do it just so people will ask.

SA

[Carlos]

Steve - I can just picture Hank Hill himself uttering those very words - nice one.

Eric - I am guessing you have a year or two on me (35) & I can't come close to your Red Dot story but I do recall a little hole in the wall bar in Carlisle PA where way back in the late 80s, you could get beer "to go" after hours; only problem was all they had was beer on tap (and mostly sold out besides Miller) so you left w/ a plastic gallon milk jug of rapidly warming Miller lite! American enterprise spirit at its best!