What is your take on powder?

[jonk]

There seems to be two schools of thought on the best powder for cast Pb bullets.

1. Use a powder that fills the case as much as possible to deliver a desired velocity. Ergo, the use of some powders normally for magnum rifle or even 50 BMG can, if packed in the case, yield nice velocity out of 30 cal rifles, freindly to cast bullets. In any case, certainly lighter loads using more conventional rifle powders (i.e. 4895) can work well too, but the point is, using a lot of a slow to medium burn rate powder. The theory is that the bullet gets a nice gentle start (relatively speaking) into the rifling.

2. Use a lighter load of a faster powder; hence using Red Dot, 2400, Unique, 4759, etc. etc. The theory here is that a load producing a fair amount of pressure will nonetheless produce a comfortable velocity; i.e. 11 gr of Red Dot for me gets a 200 grain bullet out of my Swiss 1911 at 1450 fps, mild even for a cast bullet. You use less powder, recoil is less, and you avoid problems resulting from squib loads with rifle powder- like failure of a case to obdurate, unburnt powder due to insufficient pressure, etc. The theoretical drawback is that the pistol powder blasts the bullet out of the case very fast and violently, sometimes stripping the bullet causing leading and less than optimal accuracy.

Personally speaking, I generally use pistol powders or faster rifle powders (4198, etc.) for cast bullets in rifles. My best luck thus far is with 2400 and 4759, but for cheap plinking, I can't argue with Red Dot either.

What say you?

[XBT]

Agreed. I shoot cast boolits mostly in handguns and do not have a lot of experience with rifles, but it seems to me that the faster powders work best for velocities up to 1800 FPS or so. I am currently using 2400 for nearly all the rifles.

The only drawback with the faster powders is they don’t fill the case well. You must be very careful about double charges.

[Larry Gibson]

Actually I'd break out the medium burning powders into a third school of thought. Any way thats the way I look at it for most rifle cartridges.

1. The fast burning powders for light to medium weight bullets for "squib" to medium velocities 750-1500 fps.

2. Medium burning powders (most often with dacron filler) for use with medium to heavy bullets for cartridge at 16-2200 fps.

3. The slower burning, case filling powders with medium to heavy bullets in the 2000+ fps range.

As always there are "specialty" loads tht do not fit the above. However, most all of my cast bullet loads for rifle cartridges fall into one of the above.

Larry Gibson

[Ricochet]

I think Larry's got it in a nutshell, generally.

[leftiye]

Perhaps this will maybe fit in here. The slowest powder that will get the velocity desired. The velocity that you desire if slow and for targets or plinking. Otherwise, the fastest velocity you can get desired accuracy with. The slowest powder that gets max velocity in a ctg. at full pressures doesn't often work well in a C.B. load. The reason being that slow powders and ball powders don't usually ignite well at the lower pressures necessary for relatively speaking soft lead alloys. Therefore, for higher velocities, medium burning rate powders are the slowest you can use if not running high pressures. Of course, this is also relative to the cartridge as to what pressures are low and high.

[August]

Black Powder !

[1Shirt]

Yep, Larry has got it right!
1Shirt!

[Last Spike]

Good information. I'm beginning to put together a little project which has me researching 100% or slightly compressed smokeless powder loads for the 38-55 - so far I've found 8 powders that allow me to do this. I expect to find more and then look at other powders not listed and develop loads for those.