Is H110 a Viable Propellant in Small Cartridges?

[Chev. William]

As I understand your discussion, this 8-shot replacement cylinder of 1144 Alloy steel seems reasonably safe at 25,000psi MAP and possibly as high as 29,290psi MAP negating any 'improvement' due to the Brass cartridge case dimensions.

Is my understanding correct?

Best Regards,
Chev. William

[P Flados]

I would call it "Ruger tough" for ammo you think is at 25,000 psi, and pushing to 30,000 would be OK for occasional use.

The problem is you have limited info on what your ammo actually runs and I would not want to treat it like a gun that is strong enough to use flattened primers as sign of excess pressure.

Your BE-86 is real close to the old standby, Unique. It is typically loaded with very slightly heavier charge and has a pretty close to optimum burn rate. Unique was listed in a 1996 manual as giving 14800 psi in a 25ACP with 1.7 gr under a 50 gr bullet. Your previously discussed load of 3.0 gr of BE-86 under a 63 gr boolit could very well be just over 30000 psi (the heavier boolit pushes pressure up, but the bigger case pushes pressure down - hard to tell if these balance), but has been proven to be OK. I would probably not go any further.

If you want a little more velocity, something like HS6 should give you an extra 50 fps safely. If you want something slow enough to be safe without load data, you could probably go to 100% load density with 4227. With your cylinder limitations I would not mess with anyting ever reported to be "touchy" like H110 or Blue Dot.

[Chev. William]

That is Reasonable and I agree with your thinking. My Ruger Single Eight is and was the Most Gun I could afford to use in my "Mildcat" experiments to date.

Sadly, this year my Budget is under strain from Lack of "Work Calls" coming from my Union dispatcher plus the Annual California Property Tax 2% increase that the Legislators are Really Upset is the Limit they can impose so far. Of course, "Cost of Living" used by the Federal Government has not been that high for Several years and my Social Security Retirement has not gone up even that much.

Perhaps some other experimenter will undertake the building of a STRONG Rifle Action to develop higher pressure range loadings in these small capacity cartridges.

Best Regards,
Chev. William

[P Flados]

I am hoping to get a mini lathe for Christmas. It is not certain as my wife responded in a very negative fashion when she heard me & my son (a recent college grad with an engineering degree) talking about it. I need to catch her in a good mood and convince her that I need to get it before I retire.

I have a dead 10" octagon 22 hornet barrel (messed up chamber) for my TC. If I get the lathe, I am thinking about trying to work up "stub tube" system intended for easy swapping of the actual barrel.

I also have a Stevens 12 gauge single shot gun that I considered making inserts for. Actually, just about any 12 or 20 gauge break open shotgun made from a decent grade of steel would be a great minimum cost super safe test platform with an insert for anything with a chamber diameter less than 0.4" or so.

I have been keeping my eye out for very low cost used/surplus barrels that could be used just for experimenting. Numrich has a bundle of 5 misc rifle barrels that is tempting at $26.95.

A 25 cal sounds fun, but more cost/work as I have no dies, molds, shell holders, etc.

A 30 Badger or similar for the TC sounds more likely. Other than the barrel, I have or could probably make everything else I really need. A 6" to 8" 32 special or 32 H&R is probably more practical for actual loading and shooting, but the 30 badger has an advantage when it comes to brass. I could track my inventory of 38 special brass in gallons. With a reasonable twist, I could probably make any barrel from 0.308 to 8 mm work for a Badger type project.

[Chev. William]

When you say "mini Lathe" it would help if you better defined your hopes.
My brother has several EMCO Unimat 3" "Mini Lathes" with Accessories he is using to develop a book on them. They are 'Table Top' portable size. complete with the carrying cases.

I hope you Do Get your Desires this Christmas.

As to the .25ACP: Consider that a Set of Lee Dies, including a Carbide ring sizing die, is still inexpensive tooling if you already have a reloading press and accessories. The Three Die 'Carbide' set for .25ACP is listed at MSRP $42.98 on the Lee Precision web site.
I have been using Lee dies in my Experiments due to the Relative Low cost and for their willingness to 'Modify" them for my better use Reasonably.

Best Regards,
Chev. William

[P Flados]

A 7" x 12" seems to be big enough with price point and weight being in reason. A 7" x 14" is also a possibility.

I took metal shop in high school and then I got a part time machinist job for a small company while I was in college. Most of my time was spent running a 13" lathe.

[Chev. William]

Ahhh, that is a good explanation. Sounds like a typical 'English Hobbyist' Size that the English Model makers used To build their 5" gauge Live steam locomotives with. Some really Wonderful Precision Work And Operating Models have been made on that size Lathe, along with some truly impressive custom tooling for use with/on them.

Best Regards,
Chev. William

PS: I remembered the most prevalent Name of the English Model Engineering lathes I read About in published articles: "Myford".
Chev. William

[Chev. William]

As an Exercise, and to verify My memory, I ran a QuickLOAD calculation for a .25ACP with H110 and a .553" long 67 grain lead WC-HP reversible bullet loaded in HP out to a Overall cartridge length of .905".

A propellant charge of 1.64Gr fills to 100.4% and yields Estimated 6145psi Pmax from a Starting Pressure of 2176psi and burned 19.23% to get 433fps.

This Definitely is NOT a Viable Recipe in this (.25ACP) cartridge.

Best Regards,
Chev. William

PS: Another Exercise With comparison Theory; H110 16 grains in a .410 Shot shell behind 1/2 oz shot load.
1lb = 7000 grains, 7000/32 = 218.75 grains for projectile.
218.75/16 = 13.67+ grains of projectile per grain of H110 propellant.
50/13.67+ = about 3.66 grains of H110 for a 50 grain projectile to get the same Ratio of propellant to Projectile. Since 3.66 is MUCH greater than 1.64 Grains of the above QL result, this is further Indication that H110 is NOT VIABLE in the .25ACP size Case (.612" Case Length).
Chev. William

[Chev. William]

For Consideration: The same .25ALS mild cat with 60 Grain Hornady #2510 bullet sized .250" at 1.395 Cartridge Over All Length but using 2400 propellant.
QuickLOAD Charge table (from a PDF file Print).
Diff.(%) Charge Weight (Gramm-Grain) Muzzle Vel. (m/s-fps) Muzzle Energy (Joule-ft.lbs) Max. Pressure (bar-psi) Muzzle Pressure (bar-psi) Prop.Burnt (%) B_Time (ms) L.R./Filling (%)
-10.0 0.39-5.9 461-1512 413-304 1317-19106 193-2797 76.2 1.027 78
-8.0 0.39 6.1 471 1544 431 318 1390 20160 199 2887 77.3 1.004 80
-6.0 0.40 6.2 481 1577 449 331 1466 21269 205 2977 78.5 0.981 82
-4.0 0.41 6.3 491 1610 468 345 1547 22435 211 3067 79.6 0.959 84
-2.0 0.42 6.5 501 1643 488 360 1631 23662 218 3156 80.7 0.935 85
Nominal 0.43-6.6 511-1676 507-374 1720-24953 224-3245 81.7 0.913 87
+2.0 0.44 6.7 521 1709 527 389 1814 26310 230 3332 82.7 0.891 89
+4.0 0.45 6.9 531 1742 548 404 1912 27738 236 3419 83.8 0.870 91
+6.0 0.45 7.0 541 1775 569 420 2016 29241 242 3504 84.7 0.850 92
+8.0 0.46 7.1 551 1808 590 435 2125 30822 247 3588 85.7 0.830 94
+10.0 0.47 7.3 561 1841 612 451 2240 32485 253 3671 86.6 0.812 96
in the body of the set up for the run, charge weight was 6.61 Grains; the .pdf file truncates the grains numbers to two digits.

Again the Same parameters and data layout but for 4227 propellant:
-10.0 0.43 6.7 400 1312 311 229 1053 15270 144 2083 54.6 1.135 91
-8.0 0.44 6.8 409 1341 325 240 1114 16152 149 2166 55.7 1.109 93
-6.0 0.45 7.0 418 1371 339 250 1178 17085 155 2249 56.9 1.084 95
-4.0 0.46 7.1 427 1401 355 262 1247 18082 161 2334 58.0 1.059 97
-2.0 0.47 7.3 436 1432 370 273 1320 19140 167 2419 59.1 1.034 99
Nominal 0.48-7.4 446-1463 387-285 1397-20264 173-2505 60.2 1.010 101
+2.0 0.49 7.5 455 1494 403 297 1480 21458 179 2592 61.4 0.987 103
+4.0 0.50 7.7 465 1526 421 310 1568 22739 185 2680 62.5 0.964 105
+6.0 0.51 7.8 475 1559 439 324 1662 24102 191 2767 63.6 0.940 107
+8.0 0.52 8.0 485 1591 457 337 1762 25556 197 2856 64.8 0.916 109
+10.0 0.53 8.1 495 1625 477 352 1869 27113 203 2944 65.9 0.893 111

Note that 4227 would need between 107% and 109% fill to yield about 25,000psi Pmax MAP by these Calculations.

For Comparison convenience the Same table info for H110 is below:
-10.0 0.50 7.7 461 1512 413 305 1235 17917 206 2983 67.6 1.042 90
-8.0 0.51 7.8 473 1551 434 320 1319 19125 213 3095 69.0 1.013 92
-6.0 0.52 8.0 485 1590 457 337 1408 20427 221 3207 70.4 0.984 94
-4.0 0.53 8.2 497 1629 480 354 1505 21830 229 3319 71.8 0.956 95
-2.0 0.54 8.4 509 1669 503 371 1610 23344 237 3431 73.2 0.928 97
Nominal 0.55-8.5 521-1710 528-389 1722-24981 244-3542 74.6 0.900 99
+2.0 0.56 8.7 533 1750 553 408 1845 26754 252 3652 75.9 0.874 101
+4.0 0.57 8.9 546 1791 580 428 1977 28676 259 3761 77.3 0.848 103
+6.0 0.59 9.0 559 1833 607 448 2121 30763 267 3868 78.6 0.823 105
+8.0 0.60 9.2 571 1875 635 468 2278 33033 274 3974 79.9 0.798 107
+10.0 0.61 9.4 584 1917 664 490 2448 35508 281 4078 81.1 0.775 109

Best Regards,
Chev. William

[P Flados]

Lots of book loads have 4227 with max loads as compressed loads. However, I just never like compressing powders.

I tried a bunch of 4227 loads a while back bit found it to shoot great when things were optimum, but it had a down side. I found it to be temperature sensitive (Ok loads when cool would show pressures sign on a hot day).

I also prefer smooth metering powders. I have been thinking about getting a ball powder somewhere between HS6 and H110. I have my eye on Longshot. It is just a tad faster than 2400 and 2400 is just a tad faster than H110. It also gets near H110 velocities with 50% less powder than either H110 or 2400.

[Chev. William]

Tuesday after thanksgiving weekend and I am frustrated by Circumstances.

1. I do not have enough never fired .612" long .25ACP cases to run valid tests to compare to previous testing; which was done with never fired factory .25ACP cases of .612" length.

2. Currently available factory New .25ACP empty cases seem to be .603"-604" typical length.
(USA Manufacture, the .612" ones were European manufacture).

3. Night before Thanksgiving I was bitten by some Insect, and the bite has both swollen and become infected, so I am on Antibiotic med and have a large dressing on my hand, so NO playing in the reloading area for the moment.

4. My Newer truck went in for Covered (insured) accident repairs Monday.

5. My Older (work) truck developed a problem (Check EGR Warning light) and is now in for diagnosis and "lube and oil/filter change" periodic maintenance.

6. This leaves me with no personal vehicle available so am currently 'House Bound'. So I am 'stuck with Cable television and computer' to keep me busy until one of my trucks is returned ready for use.

As I opened, it is a Frustrating Time for me.

Sadly,
Chev. William

[Handloader109]

While not a straight wall cartridge, my 22tcm uses a 37 to 45 gr bullet, and a load of 10 to 11gr of H110 and I've used small rifle and pistol primers with zero difference. About 1800 to 1900fps out of my full size 1911

[EDG]

The typical steel used for centerfire rifle actions and barrels is 4140. It is used in the heat treated to about 42 Rockwell for receivers. It is a common steel and is much stronger than 1144. I would not use 1144 or the smith that recommended it.

[Chev. William]

I would call it "Ruger tough" for ammo you think is at 25,000 psi, and pushing to 30,000 would be OK for occasional use.

The problem is you have limited info on what your ammo actually runs and I would not want to treat it like a gun that is strong enough to use flattened primers as sign of excess pressure.

Your BE-86 is real close to the old standby, Unique. It is typically loaded with very slightly heavier charge and has a pretty close to optimum burn rate. Unique was listed in a 1996 manual as giving 14800 psi in a 25ACP with 1.7 gr under a 50 gr bullet. Your previously discussed load of 3.0 gr of BE-86 under a 63 gr boolit could very well be just over 30000 psi (the heavier boolit pushes pressure up, but the bigger case pushes pressure down - hard to tell if these balance), but has been proven to be OK. I would probably not go any further.

If you want a little more velocity, something like HS6 should give you an extra 50 fps safely. If you want something slow enough to be safe without load data, you could probably go to 100% load density with 4227. With your cylinder limitations I would not mess with anyt(h)ing ever reported to be "touchy" like H110 or Blue Dot.

P Flados,
Rereading your post again and I caught a possible misconception in your discussion (I highlighted it in The quote above). The 3.0 grains of BE-86 behind a 63 grain Lead bullet was loaded in a G.F.L. made .25ACP case of .612" length and loaded to an Overall length of .905"; not the longer cases I started this thread with. This, and another load consisting of 3.1 grains of BE-86 behind a 50 grain FMJ also loaded into G.F.L. Case have been fired out of my Customized Ruger Single Eight revolver using the 1144 alloy Story aftermarket Cylinder reamed to .25ACP chamber and throat dimensions using a typical Tapered Chamber shape (SAAMI recommended dimensions)of a semi-Auto pistol barrel.

This results in All my fired .25ACP cases exhibiting a measurable circumferential bulge just ahead of the Web. I hope to solve this bulge with a new Story aftermarket cylinder reamed with a new JGS Precision Custom .25ACP reamer that has a cylinder, parallel wall, chamber design of .2795" diameter Mouth to Base (NO Taper). I believe this will also slightly increase both the chamber to chamber web thickness and the chamber to outside wall thickness.

Does this change your thoughts on my revolver cylinder strengths?

Best Regards,
Chev. William

[Chev. William]

The typical steel used for centerfire rifle actions and barrels is 4140. It is used in the heat treated to about 42 Rockwell for receivers. It is a common steel and is much stronger than 1144. I would not use 1144 or the smith that recommended it.

EDG,
These Aftermarket 8-Shot .22 Magnum Cylinders are sold for the Ruger Convertible Single Six and as such do work. My Experiments with reaming them to .25ACP and longer Mildcat Cartridges of similar diameters are done for economic reasons as I cannot presently afford the charges for custom machined from Scratch Cylinders in heat treated 4140 or even heat treated 41V50 which would be the "preferred Alloys" for the maximum Durability, Toughness, and Strength in this application.

The Last quote I received was $65 an Hour for MACHINE time on NC automated equipment AFTER a Hefty Programming/Engineering/Set up charge.

The 1144 aftermarket cylinders have cost me between $100 and $160 each to purchase, depending upon when and where Purchased.

Best Regards,
Chev. William

[Chev. William]

A little Update on the discussions herein:

H110/W296/WC296 Propellant 'Problem characteristics' seem to be Related to its being deliberately Slowed down with various inhibiting chemicals so it will give good performance in its designed environment (supposedly the .30 Carbine cartridge).
This means The propellant is difficult to both Ignite and To Keep Burning if pressures are not maintained due to cartridge characteristics.

It seems that cartridges which ar enot suitable by design quickly allow pressure of combustion to be reduced by expansion and this 'cools' the Remaining propellant below the point where it can sustain combustion, resulting in, typically, a Bullet stuck in the bore and a mass of melted but unburned Propellant left in the case or Bore.
If the shooter does NOT notice this, and fires another cartridge in such a blocked bore, disaster May result.
This Seems to be a problem with Revolvers due to their 'venting' at the cylinder to forcing cone gap. other types of action seem to be less prone to the Problem but are still cartridge design sensitive.

The above is what I 'took away' from a much longer and more detailed explanation/discussion on another forum.

Also, it seems the problem is possibly present with any Slow Burning Propellant if Conditions are just "Wrong". Initial Ignition but incomplete combustion, ending with a mass of unburned propellant fused Together and stuck in the Bore can result in a "Blocked Bore" Mishap with possible dire results. Slow propellants employed in 'lite' recoil loads with lite bullets for youth training perhaps?

At least I can use my H110 and W296 Propellant stock in .30 carbine cartridge reloading.

I am Still awaiting mu gunsmith getting my .25 Cal Single Eight aftermarket cylinders reamed with the new .2795" diameter Parallel wall Reamers.
He has bee out of the Shop lately working on a Location Movie Production.

Another firearm acquisition occurred in July August 2018, a Ruger Standard Auto MKII pistol, which I an contemplating converting to Center Fire if i can find 'reasonable ' process costs for the work involved.

This one has a short tapered Barrel and Volquartsen target grip molding installed.

Best Regards,
Chev. William

[psweigle]

All i can say is wow! You are into the .251 bullet. Im really pulling for this to work. I love my little 25 auto and am totally into what you are doing with it and why. Thanks for all your hard work. I will continue to follow this .

[Jedman]

I don't believe it has to be loaded to a " higher pressure " to burn efficient as I used it for 410 skeet loads for many years. The load was 14.0 grs of H 110 in a Win. AA case with a WAA410 wad and 1/2 oz of no. 9 shot for approx. 1200 fps @ approx 11000 psi.
It was clean burning and always went bang with no bloopers or weak sounding reports, I shot at least 10 pounds of it over the years.

Jedman

[Texas by God]

I've used it in .30 carbine, .300 Blackout, .357and .41 magnums and it's twin W296 and haven't used a magnum primer yet. I love it.

[Chev. William]

I don't believe it has to be loaded to a " higher pressure " to burn efficient as I used it for 410 skeet loads for many years. The load was 14.0 grs of H 110 in a Win. AA case with a WAA410 wad and 1/2 oz of no. 9 shot for approx. 1200 fps @ approx 11000 psi.
It was clean burning and always went bang with no bloopers or weak sounding reports, I shot at least 10 pounds of it over the years.

Jedman

1/2 oz Shot equals 200 grain Projectile.
14.0 Grains of H110 is ablut in the middle of Charge recommendations for .30 Carbine with a 110 grain Projectile.
The .30 Carbine has a MAP Pmax of 40,000psi according to SAAMI recommendations.
And Yes, I know H110 is recommended for use in 410 shot shells, just a Quirk of the Propellant it seems.

Chev. William