Sooty cases...

[cherok9878]

I am working on a plinking load for my 6 in 29-2 - .44. I am up to 8.5 grain of unique with a 240 gr cast keith style SWC, and I am still getting sooty cases. I am getting decent accuracy for me, old eyes, 4 out of 6 shots on a 9" pie plate at 80 yds. Should I worry about the sooty cases? Will the blow by harm the cylinders of my revolver over a period of time?.............................larry

[omgb]

Larry, Unique is a pretty sooty powder even in heavy loads with mag primers. I doubt that it will do any damage to your gun. You'll just keep the boys at Hoppe's employed for the next century with all the solvent you will use. I switched over to Hodgdon's "Clays" powder and have eliminated the problem. It burns exceptionally clean and it's dense enough to require very little. It will not be usefull in full-house type loads and is best used for light target and plinking loads. It is very cast-bullet friendly though. In the 38SP a standard load is 3.5 grains with a 125 grain slug. That gives about 700 fps. I could drop back to 3 grains and go to a 158 grain slug with about the same velocity. You might want to look up suitable 44 loads and see if this might be the thing for what you need. i bought a 3LB jug of it for maybe $50 bucks. At 3.5 grains per load that's going to last a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOG time.

[StarMetal]

Don't now why your cases are blowing out tight against the chamber, you'd think 8.5 grs of Unique would be enough. My cast load for my 44 mag was 10.0 grs of Unique.

The new Unique is not that dirty. All you fellows that have and think it is please mail it to me. It is ONE of the best powders ever created. The trouble with Clays and Universal Clays is, at least in the various guns that I've shot it in (more then 10) that it didn't give me the accuracy as with Unique, although it did indeed burn cleaner.

Larry if you like Unique stick with it. Up your charge some see what happens. We're not talking about cleaning as much (noways near as much) as black powder. It's just a case of where someone likes a particular powder and is trying to get you to use it. Unique is good powder and yes I'vs shot Clays, International Clays, and Universal. Clays is way fast too for a plinking load for a 44mag. It's more of a substitute (not straight for grain for grain either) for Bullseyes, good powder for full wadcutters in 38 Special and good for semi-wadcutters in 45acp, etc...in other words the smaller cases. The closest Clays to Unique is Universal.

Joe

[Char-Gar]

Nothing bad is going to happen to your revolver with your load. I have shot many of the 8.5/Unique/240 SWC loads and I didn't have any soot. Like others I like 10 grains for an all purpose load. Mild enough to shoot and powerful enough for deer and such.

Like Joe said, up the charge to 9 grains or so and see what happenes. If you don't want to, then do worry...nothing bad comes from soot, but soot itself.

[Gussy]

I had that problem with my BPCR and low pressure loads. I annealed the cases and the problem "went away".
Gus

[AZ-Stew]

I've been shooting the Lyman 410459 Kieth-style bullet over 6.7 (six point seven) grains of Dupont (IMR, Hogdon, whatever it is now) 7625 (gray can) in my S&W model 57s for many years. I get 900 FPS from a 4" barrel and 950 FPS from a 6" barrel.

The cases literally fall out of the cylinder after firing without having to use the ejector. Between the powder and bullet lube there's a lot of soot on the cases. After thousands of rounds of this "abuse", the wost problems I've had are:

1. I have to clean the cases. :(

2. Dirty fingers. :-?

You don't have any problems beyond these. If anyone asks, just tell them how long your brass lasts using these low-pressure loads.

Regards,

Stew

[cherok9878]

Thanks everyone for your reply, and information. Shooting reduced loads, for me, is very enjoyable. I use them in 30.06, 308., 38/357, and 44.
Next project will be reduced for my 223.

[Bucks Owin]

Excellent advice here...

I've loaded as little as 6.5 grs of Unique in the .44 mag with good results (650-700 fps) and my wife and daughter like shooting them just fine...

FWIW,

Dennis

BTW....Soot? Yawn.....:coffee:

[Ricochet]

Since I've been shooting lots of corrosive primed milsurp ammo, I've learned that no cleaning solvent will get the sooty crud out of a gun like water with a bit of dishwashing detergent in it.

Why should that be surprising? Soapy water's worked great on black powder residue for centuries.