A Blast from the Past (or a Ka-Boom???)

[BruceB]

In the course of designing some starting cast-boolit 'terra-incognita' loads in my M1A (7.62 NATO), I've been consulting a lot of sources. These include soothsayers, tea-leaf readers and gurus of bird intestines....but also a few more conventional sources

In reading through various manuals looking for SLOWER-burning powder applications which might be transposed into the 7.62 NATO, I ran across a fascinating puzzler in the 1958 Lyman CB handbook.

In the '58 handbook, Lyman fearlessly published a WILD assortment of loads directly from users of their tooling, and some of them really are "interesting".

Take this one for the .300 Savage, from an anonymous contributor. Bullet is our dear old 311291, 167 grains in "hard" alloy, IPCO lubricant, Ideal gascheck, Federal 210 primer, 2" group at 100 yards. The charge is, get this: "2.5 Bullseye/20.0 4759"!

Comments from the contributor: "Get my best accuracy with duplex loads. Regular loads such as 29 grains of 3031 with this bullet in the .30-30 are better deer loads than factory ammunition with hard-jacketed bullets and just as accurate."

Notice there is no mention of any sort of filler to immobilize those two powders, and the .300 Savage has plenty of room for 22.5 grains of powder to rattle around. I wonder just what this gent was doing? I also wonder what Lyman was thinking when they printed this stuff. Without a filler, naturally the charge would mix in a totally random fashion. 4759 is extremely easy to light up, so why would he need Bullseye??

Interesting, indeed. I found a couple similar reports, with two powders in a less-than-capacity total charge, and again no mention of fillers of any sort. I'd wager that quite a few filler-less loads were fired on the strength of these recommendations. Wonder what happened?

BTW, I did find the '58 manual useful in my quest. The later Lyman manuals concentrate to a high degree on VERY FAST powders for cast boolits in rifles, but the '58 edition contains lots of loads with slower powders....which should be taken cautiously! There's also an amusing amount of "swave-and-deboner" talk about how they run their CBs at 2700fps or more, and shoot dismayingly-small groups (viewed through my jaundiced ol' eyeballs, anyway). Naturally, this is mostly with iron sights, just to rub it in a little harder.

Seeing the results these fellers reported, it's plainly obvious that SOMETHING is missing from today's scene. When we sweat blood to get under an inch at 100 with today's barrels, scopes, tooling and components, and those ol' timers easily did it in the '50s.......mebbe it's them IPCO grease wads we're missing???

[bravokilo]

Hmmm....Sounds like MOAShooter in a previous life??

BK

[1Shirt]

I have the same manual, along with a batch of old Lyman, Speer, Hogden, Sierra, etc, and have noted with some sketpisism the same thing(s) that you note.

That said, have always been cognizant of the old guy with one gun, (that usually looks like hell-sometimes a 94 Win, or a 340 Sav.) has one load, and puts meat in the freezer every year. Have noticed over the years that the number of shots fired to measure groups have dropped from 10 to 5, and now the standard seems to be "3". Always get a kick out of going back and reading, Whelan, Page, Roberts, O'Conner, Pope,etc, and seeing copies of up to 50 shot groups at 100 yds that you could cover with less than the top of a mason jar lid, and sometimes with a silver dollar. Think some of it has to do with the cost of powder today. Still remember walking into Hogdens in Ka, back in the early 60's and buying 4831 in brown paper bags at 50 cents a pound. A 25 pounder went a long way with surplus 30 cal bullets at a penny or so each as well. As to the duplex loads, have been tempted to try them a time or two, but just seemed to lack the proper weight in kahonies to give it a try particularly with bullseye over the primer, filler or no filler. Did try a little bullseye (about 2 gr. if I remember right) under a full packed 45-70 case stuffed with FFG, that was supposed to make it burn cleaner. (It didn't, but it was a learning experiance).

Have also noted by comparison that the same powders by number have changed quite a bit over the years apparently in strength. That seems to be particularly true of 2400 in my experiance, as it appears to be more potent today than it was just a few years back.

Guess my bottom line is that I enjoy going back and looking for old reference materials, ideas, etc. New is not necessarily better, and old is not necessarily right either. It is however the quest for the holy grail of the magic MOA that must keep us going.

1Shirt :coffee:

[scrapcan]

BruceB,

I noticed the same thing in reading my newly aquired copy (rather roughly handled in the past) of the 58 manual.

It was interesting to see some of the old data with slower powders. Many of those loads are similar to what people here are finding to work. However, I did notice the odd ball loadslike those that you referenced. I would dearly love to have the shooting experiences that many of the people contributing to that edition had.

[XBT]

The old loadbooks make interesting reading. I have a copy of Speer Handloaders Manual number one, published in 1954 that has data that is downright scary.

Once while working up a load for a new 22-250, I enlarged a primer pocket to shotgun size in one shot using the suggested starting load.

I suppose there were fewer lawyers in those days…..

[9.3X62AL]

I have both volumes of Ackley's "Handbook for Shooters and Reloaders", and a few of the loads listed therein will curl yer hair, all right. Fewer lawyers, for damn sure--maybe a little more Darwinism, too.

[Jumptrap]

I think in those days.....people were just more adventureous, or maybe just plain stupid.

But, when one considers the fact that the brass case is what actually contains all that pressure and for it to do so, it must be well supported by the action....if the action supports the case, then there is little fear from a weakness in the gun itself.....but should the case leak, then all hell is unleashed. of course, this is like a dog chasing it's tail....if the action springs or gives, the case walls loose support....if the case fails and the action holds....gas leaks and wreaks havoc regardless. So, I think as long as their brass held back then...they escaped harm and went along as happy campers. Emperical evidence was all they required to dub a load 'safe'.

The destruction test of the Mosin action I did was a real education. It proved that the action itself is incredibly strong and it also supports the case very well. But by and by, the limit is reached and something lets go..in this instance the case failed withan onerous load of Bullseye.....as I recall 31.5 grains under a 149 gr. FMJ bullet. Anybody out there willing to use....say 25 grains of Bullseye in their model 700 308? I hope not, but...it would probably hold.

[felix]

Jump, Bullseye has about 40 percent nitroglycerin. I would say a full case of it would be safer than half a case of it. The SEE condition is quite unpredictable, and should it occur with a 40 percent dynamite equivalent, kiss the neighborhood goodby. ... felix

[BruceB]

There once came a day when the "stacking of my personal tolerances" resulted in a load which contained fifty-nine grains of #2400 under a 200-grain Partition in a .30-06 case.

Somehow, I don't believe my ol' M700 would have digested that one with much success.

It was extremely fortunate that the routine I used detected the error before I fired the beast, but it still scares me 15 years later. I was only about a half-hour from taking the ammo out to confirm the zero for a hunting trip sceheduled to begin the next day. The episode is never far from my mind when at the loading bench.