Alliant Steel

[brotherdarrell]

I had an interesting experience with loading Steel in a 30-30 today. Everything I have read and compared loads with showing using at or below 2400 start data and working up, so I loaded some NOE 165 gr. RF (RD) on top of 14 gr. of Steel and the results were not what I expected.

First of all I have to confess to not paying real good attention. This is a new to me rifle, Sav. 219, and I am having sight issues. I was just trying to get on paper @ 50 yds. I noticed the problem when a fired case did not go flying over my shoulder when opening the action, it stayed in the chamber and would not come out. The second thing I noticed were the flattest primers I have ever seen. This was shot #11. I checked the other cases and they were the same. They did'nt seem particularly hot loads, and since I was just trying to get on paper they were not going over the chronograph so I have no idea what the velocity was.

I pulled the remainder when I got home and all were 14.1 - 14.3 gr. Since all previous shots were the same I can only assume they were the same. The boolits were not seated as far as the crimp groove and oal was set to just touch the lands.

The only thing I can come up with is that the loaded cases were in a ammo box boolit down, removed by the base and dropped into the chamber which was pointing down at approx. 45 degree angle, leveled and then placed on the rest/rear bag. I cannot think of anything else that would cause a problem, but I am open to ideas.



brotherdarrell

[Greg]

BrotherDarrel


The first thing that comes to my mind is case length

I have a Handy Rifle in .357 magnum, they are notorious for having long chambers and throats. I got to shooting 360 Dan Wesson cases in it and the group was really shooting nice then I had a blown primer ?? I had shot the exact same load in magnum cases at the same OAL ?? after considerable investigation I found that the length of the 360 DW cases varied about .005" which didn’t seem much BUT, it was just enough in as much that MY chamber wasn’t as long as many reported.

What was the OAL ? was it longer that before or set back shorter ? how much shorter ? enough to start out at a less amount of powder ?

Or it could be the Steel Powder should be held back by the primer by a ¼ sheet square of new toilet paper / Dacron.

[Bullshop]

That is strange!
I did some shooting yesterday with a 308Win loaded with Alliant Steel powder. I was shooting three different 30 cal Lyman boolits that are all pointed. Trying to destroy another myth. These boolits weigh 120, 175, and about 185gn and are all gas check type.
With the 120gn boolit loaded over 22gn Steel a ten shot 100 yard group was about 2.5" guessing without measuring. There were no signs of abnormaly high pressure just the oposite.
With the two heavier boolits I dropped the charge to 21gn. The only one I chronographed yesterday was the 185gn boolit. A 15 shot string went 2015 fps average with a 21 fps extreem spread. Best 5 shot 100 yard group going by eye is going to be very close to 1" ctc.
I have a steel RR tie plate hanging at 300 yards and with a 100 yard zero for my cross hairs putting the third mil dot on the plate misses are not the fault of the gun/load.
This seems to be a very good powder for the 308. The loftyness of this powder has the case about 75% filled so there are no powder position issues. The same weight in 2400 (rough guess) is below 50%.
I dont understand what happened in your 30/30 but I have now tried Steel powder in 22/250, 30/40, 308, and 30/06 and have gotten very consistent predictable results. It is equal to anything I have tried in my 308 for accuracy with boolits. This is not a high doller rifle either. It is a Stevens Model 200 with an A&B barrel from Midway when they ran a sale at $80.00
None the less reguardless of my results there is something seriously wrong with yours. One thing I have noticed with this powder is that when dropping charges from a powder measurer with the small diameter incert for 22 cal it is very susseptable to bridging so caution must be taken to insure no issues there.
In that reguard it is vastly inferior to 2400 which drops very consistantly without bridging issues.

[Treetop]

Brotherdarrell,

I would suggest checking the head space on your "new to you" Savage. have you examined the brass thoroughly, since you fired them? Was there a bright shiny ring around the brass about 3/8"-1/2" inch up from the rim? Check both inside and outside of the cases for this sign. Did you happen to check the brass length before and after firing? These are just some of the things that I would check... Good luck!

Please let us know how you resolve this issue. Tt.

[tomme boy]

I know from reloading STEEL in shotshells, the lot to lot difference is huge. You have to re test with every lot change. It is enough to make it very dangerous.

[brotherdarrell]

Well, I have shot a fair amount of this powder in a 7x57 and a 30-06 and it has shown no problems such as this. Checking the headspace is definitely in order.

14 gr. Steel on the left and 10 gr. Unique on the right:


The light reflection on the photo on the right makes it appear as if the Unique load shows some cratering but it does'nt. I will have the gunsmith check the rifle out and see if he sees anything suspicious.

If everything checks out I will try other powders before going back to this one.

Thanks for all ideas

brotherdarrell

[Bullshop]

Going by primer apearance alone I see nothing conclusive. I see no real flattening of the primer as the outer edges are still rounded and still a good gap between outer flat surface of the primer and the edge of the primer pocket.
All I see is a wee bit of cratering around the fireing pin strike. That slight cratering is not conclusive evidence of excessive pressure. It could be nothing more than a weak fireing pin strike. The weak strike is not conclusive of a weak spring either but can be as simple as a primer not fully seated or seated in a dirty pocket. Not saying thats the problem just saying that having only one sign of what could be excessive pressure is not conclusive of such. If excessive pressure is the problem there will be more than one of the normaly accepted signs.
Did you happen to chronograph the load? Abnormally high velocity would certanly me another sign. Excessive case streach could be another but again not in and of itself because other things can cause each individual sign but only high pressure will cause them all together.

[tomme boy]

The left shell is higher pressure than the right one. The cratering you talk of is actually a over size firing pin hole. Remington guns are famous for this. The fix is to have a bushing fitted and honed to the right size so this does not happen. Savages in the past few years are doing this as well. The Savage is from they tumble the bolt heads in media to clean them after heat treat and it rounds off the hole.

[brotherdarrell]

Well, the mystery seems to be solved for now. Excess headspace apparently due to the action not locking up solidly.

I went to the gunsmith at lunch today. The only headspace gauge that could be located was a field gauge. Slipped it in the chamber and watch it close. While it closed you could see a space open up between the breech and the face of the barrel. Gunsmith freely admits that he does not know much about this action and did'nt have but a few minutes today to check it out much. I may take a few pics and post it in the gunsmith section so as not to take up anymore space here.

For now I am confident that 14 gr. of Steel was not the issue here.

Thanks for all suggestions

Darrell

[Me not you]

I tried a few rounds of 44 Mag STEEL loads in a Ruger Super Blackhawk. I loaded 14gr under a 240gr KeithType. They were pretty potent and decent accuracy, but had sticky extraction with a couple.
I'll try again with closer to 9 or 10 gr and see how they work.

[Treetop]

I tried a few rounds of 44 Mag STEEL loads in a Ruger Super Blackhawk. I loaded 14gr under a 240gr KeithType. They were pretty potent and decent accuracy, but had sticky extraction with a couple.
I'll try again with closer to 9 or 10 gr and see how they work.

Me not you, I will be interested in your results with the smaller charges of STEEL in your SBH. This powder shows lots of promise in several of my favorite cast boolit loads and, the best part is... it's still widely available! Tt.

[kaytod]

From what little I have used of this powder in handgun cartridges, the lot I have, is about the same burn rate as HS-6 but the volume is 33% greater, giving a much fuller case.
It was initially shot in a 475 Linebaugh with a LEE 400 gn RF bullet.

I initially used 2400 data but it was quite grumpy and finally concluded the charge weights that worked, matched the HS-6 data. I'll dig out the data at a later time

[akraven]

Great info from everyone. I have been passing this by even though it was one of the only ones regularly available.

[akraven]

Great info from everyone. I have been passing this by even though it was one of the only ones regularly available. Thank you,

[357maximum]

This past fall I used up 3/4 pound of "GIFTED" STEEL in the 4inch barrel on my 357MAG DanWesson Model 15 just to make it GONE for the most part, and for some badly need offhand revolver practice . I was using the 180Grain Larsen boolit and 11.5 grains of STEEL. Very accurate and pleasant to shoot although it was still a MAG load. Spot checks from my Dillon 550 was swinging from 11.3 to 11.6 grains but I could not pick up the variance on 25 and 50 yard swingers...they hit the 4X4 inch plate when I did my part. The weight of the various headstamp "mixed" nickel "practice" brass was more than the powder variance, ...this shooter was not good enough to notice anything "innacurate" about the load.....now that it is gone I would not buy more, but it got gone and I got some practice in.

[Marlin Junky]

I don't know about using 2400 data to load Steel... the latter seems to be somewhat faster.

I shot 10 rounds of .358W over the chronograph this morning loaded with 18 grains of Steel behind 194 grain (ready to fly-weight) RCBS 35-180-SIL boolits and got an average velocity of 1909 fps from the 22" barrel of my Ruger M77. On the plus side, the standard deviation was only 6.6 fps but the accuracy was garbage because I loaded these rounds assuming a couple hundred fps less velocity.

Assuming the published burn rate, I don't know whether the large dose of nitroglycerin Steel posses is responsible for all this speed, or perhaps the combination of my components created elevated pressure levels. I do know that 18 grains of Blue Dot in said rifle produces about 200 fps less with the RCBS 35-200-FN weighing a mere 9% more. Perhaps it's the fact that the 35-180-SIL seats deeper into the stubby lil' cartridge case than the 200-FN. My 180's were seating pretty hard into the rifling too... perhaps that has something to do with it. I think I'm going to repeat this test with 18 grains of Blue Dot and if I get significantly less than 1900 fps I'm going to treat my Steel as Herco when starting from stratch... granted, it may behave totally different in an '06.

MJ

[Marlin Junky]

I'm ready to test my Blue Dot substitution for Steel tomorrow... I'll post the results of a 15 round string over the chronograph. Everything except the powder will be the same as in post #56. If there is any interest, I'll also post the lot number on my 2, 4# jugs of Steel.

MJ

P.S. IIRC, this stuff (the Steel) looks just like Unique.

P.P.S. BTW, while charging my cases with Blue Dot using the RCBS Uni-Flow (which BTW, works pretty darn well w/ Steel) at the 18.0 grain setting for Steel, I threw 23+ grains of BD; therefore, Steel will occupy quite a bit more volume than Blue Dot... perhaps the reduction of air space in the .358 case is the reason for all that extra velocity yesterday.

[Bullshop]

I think you will find Blue Dot to be on the faster side on Steel. In my experience Steel is much closer to 2400 than is Blue Dot. At least this has been true with the lots of Steel and Blue Dot I have used.

[brotherdarrell]

While loading yesterday I ended up with seven 222 rem cases that needed something in them. So, I decided to put an NOE 70 grainer on top of 8 grs. of Steel. The group on the left is 4 shots @ 50 yds. The group on the right is the same load under the mx3, which didn't do so well.



I then shot the remaining three @ 100 yds.



The holes show a little wobble due to the 1:14" twist.

The more I use this powder the more I like it.

Darrell

[9w1911]

well done Darrell I am loving the info, can you make any field adjustments or comparisons with say 2400?