Would Ramshot Enforcer Cause a SEE Event in 9mm?

[Recycled bullet]

Okay I will send you an email address

[uscra112]

Yeah that's a good point, what type of gunpowders do shutzen breech seaters use

Generally slow pistol powders. I used 2400, AA#9 & Enforcer (4100) in my .25-21. 4227 seems to be popular for .32-40 rifles. Schuetzen velocities are always low, though. Even subsonic. The big risk with those is a double charge, because many loads are less than 50% of case capacity. I did it once, in a .25-20 Stevens 44. Nothing exciting happened, but I wouldn't recommend it. Had I done it with a .32-40 things would have not turned out so well.

Hang around the ASSRA forum for a while. https://forum.assra.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl

[TurnipEaterDown]

If you are shooting a cast bullet, it can't happen. Cast bullets don't exhibit the static friction of jacketed. As I posted earlier, Schuetzen competitors have been forcing their cast bullets deep into the throat with a special tool before inserting a charged case since the 1880s, and doing it with light charges of smokeless since about 1910. The only notable result is greater accuracy.

Search "breech seating" on the Innertubes.

Hmmm...
The 500 Linebaugh Long with a cast 436 gr WFN, 38 gr WC680, (Partially) lit with a F155, is exactly what stuck a bullet (BHN ~ 20-25 -- if I recall correctly - it's what I used to cast then) in the forcing cone and had an amalgomated mass of powder come out of the case after I pounded the bullet back in to get the cylinder to rotate. Picture attached of the recovered contents on this one. The lump of powder was fused together. Don't seem to have the bullet picture handy -- engraved down to first driving band if I remember right.
The picture of another bullet recovered from this gun ~ 20 yrs ago is just so a reader can get an idea of how much would be engraved to get to the first band. It was stuck in there pretty good.

[uscra112]

The powder didn't burn at all, of course it was stuck!

[TurnipEaterDown]

The powder didn't burn at all, of course it was stuck!

Well, so, yes the powder in the picture was not burned, because, well, perhaps it's hard to capture and measure gases from a burned fraction... That lump in the pictured was fused into a hard mass as I stated. Probably took pressure & heat to do that, my speculation.

In any event, I don't any longer have a measurement of how much powder I recovered. If I did measure it at all, and it may have been useless anyway as some may have been lost in the process of firing or getting the gun freed up.

Maybe nothing did burn there. Maybe the lump was formed by pure compression resulting from the primer ignition. Who knows? I suppose all anyone can do is "speculate" or hypothesize based on partial knowledge.

I will tell you that when I had this same sort of thing happen in my 6mm-280 improved during fireforming 30 years ago (80 gr Rem psp, 51.5 gr H4831 - 78.5% of case fill), after pulling the bullet on a press (it did not exit the case), I had to use a small screw driver blade to pick the fused mass out of the case neck & shoulder, and then much of the loose powder dumped from the case was tan colored rather than grey which suggested a removal of the graphite coating - I suspected from partial combustion.

I will note that there is in my memory a general guideline of using > 80% fill w/ powders like 4831.
If that is a good memory on that ratio, even that seems a little suspect to me. I like the fill 90% or greater w/ the slow rifle powders now.
Probably someone has some load on here where less fill has always worked fine w/ H4831 -- I was reading only a couple weeks ago a resurrected thread where a low charge of 4831 was used w/ a (200 gr?) cast in 30-06 Garand.

Photo on what I saved from that 6-280 is attached. The tan colored powder granules are mixed in. How many, don't know. Do know H4831 doesn't normally look like that. The primer was very obviously fired.

[Larry Gibson]

If you are shooting a cast bullet, it can't happen. Cast bullets don't exhibit the static friction of jacketed. As I posted earlier, Schuetzen competitors have been forcing their cast bullets deep into the throat with a special tool before inserting a charged case since the 1880s, and doing it with light charges of smokeless since about 1910. The only notable result is greater accuracy.

Search "breech seating" on the Innertubes.

They are not using the kind of smokeless powders of the slower burning rate that are susceptible to S.E.E. nor do not use an amount that can give catastrophic pressures.

[Larry Gibson]

The powder didn't burn at all, of course it was stuck!

The initial ignition and pressure was vented at the barrel cylinder gap allowing the "fire" to go out. In a closed breach system, if the "fire" continued to smolder and then to burn there may very well have been an S.E.E. I know of two S.E.E.s that occurred with 45/70 Contenders using light weight for caliber bullets [ a 350 jacketed bullet and a GC'd RCBS cast bullet] and low charges of 2400 and 296. Appeared the powder was toward the front of the case from the method of presentation to target. Both S.E.E.s occurred after several other shots had been fired. Both shooters reported a "click....bang" with a previous shot and then a click....boom when the S.E.E. occurred. The primer burn appeared to have driven the bullet into the fouled throat where it stuck before the powder could continue to raise the pressure sufficiently to keep it moving. That was the "click" part. Momentarily the powder began burning and pressures rose faster than the bullet could get moving again. In both instances the pressure was great enough to open the action ruining it.

[justindad]

The old Ramshot manual with load data for Enforcer in the .40S&W calls for a starting charge of 14.9 grains under a 155 grain XTP and an OACL of 1.130”. This charge does not fit in my Starline brass without visibly deforming the bullet to the point that expansion is likely affected.
*
I loaded between 11.9 (1.130” OACL) and 14.7 grains (1.150 OACL) in a small number of rounds and everything went fine. The 14.7 grain charge gave me 1,200 fps from a 4.7” barrel.
*
When I load max charges of True Blue under a 200 grain RCBS boolit (Lyman book data), the brass takes a lot of force going through the Redding bulge buster. The brass with Enforcer slid through that die like nothing, so I expect the pressures were low. All brass was very clean. I used CCI 550 (magnum) primers.

[magnumuser]

The initial ignition and pressure was vented at the barrel cylinder gap allowing the "fire" to go out. In a closed breach system, if the "fire" continued to smolder and then to burn there may very well have been an S.E.E. I know of two S.E.E.s that occurred with 45/70 Contenders using light weight for caliber bullets [ a 350 jacketed bullet and a GC'd RCBS cast bullet] and low charges of 2400 and 296. Appeared the powder was toward the front of the case from the method of presentation to target. Both S.E.E.s occurred after several other shots had been fired. Both shooters reported a "click....bang" with a previous shot and then a click....boom when the S.E.E. occurred. The primer burn appeared to have driven the bullet into the fouled throat where it stuck before the powder could continue to raise the pressure sufficiently to keep it moving. That was the "click" part. Momentarily the powder began burning and pressures rose faster than the bullet could get moving again. In both instances the pressure was great enough to open the action ruining it.

If this persons stuck bullet, the bullet was sent into the forcing cone and rifling with enough force to engrave nearly the entire bearing surface of the bullet into the rifling. That requires more then a mere primer ignition.

That requires a small burning of smokeless powder to help. The fact that the BULK of the persons powder charge turned into a big hunk of crust attached to the base of the bullet would say "powder was compromised".


But seriously, with a revolver using jacketed bullets the theory of a SEE happening due to a suddenly stuck bullet cant happen. Jacketed is undersized to throats... so a .3575 slug stuck in a .358 diameter hole is not nice, but will allow a safe venting.

but if you stick a .35 ball bearing in your 357 magnums cylinder throat, and load in a full powdered 158 grain JHP load... you will have a boom boom event.

[Larry Gibson]

magnumuser

Note I said "if the fire continued to smolder"........

It obviously did with enough pressure to drive the bullet completely into the barrel. When the bullet base cleared the barrel/cylinder gap the pressure vented and the "fire", fortunately, went out. I have personally experienced this twice. Once with a 44 Magnum where the 429421 didn't fully enter the barrel and the cylinder wouldn't rotate. The second with a 357 Magnum where the 358429 did clear the cylinder and a second round could have been fired with the bullet stuck in the bore. The powder was H110 in both instances with standard primers with temps in the low '40s.

I also have removed 110 and 125 gr jacketed bullets from the forcing cone/barrels of several 357 Magnum revolvers that suffered the same phenomenon. The powders were 2400, 296 and H110. Those bullets were short enough the base cleared the barrel/cylinder gap and the "fire" went out. But if the fire didn't go out? To say "can't happen" may be incorrect.

[clearwater]

So the bottom line. The basic "Avoid lighter than book charges of slow powder in large capacity cases with jacketed bullets"?

Anything else?

[Larry Gibson]

Regardless of the load or bullet, at the first "click.....bang" or indication thereof, don't shoot anymore of that load.

[justindad]

7.0 grains of Enforcer under the 140 grain Saeco 9mm boolit gave me 785 fps. Very mild. No delayed ignition.

[Sandspider500]

They call that a no seeum

[gc45]

Bought enforcer powder once, still have too, just no use for it but at the time someone had said it's great in smaller varmint cases. likley I'll be burning it up in gravel before ever using it..

[dverna]

Regardless of the load or bullet, at the first "click.....bang" or indication thereof, don't shoot anymore of that load.

It is really that simple if you like to experiment.

I am not aware of SEE's with published loads. And I am not aware of SEE's with factory ammunition. Some folks like to "play around". Use the correct powder, behind the correct bullet using the correct charge and you will likely never get an SEE. Powder is cheap compared to a gun or injury.

I can see an SEE might be possible where the lube has affected the powder. I had some failures to fire with an old batch (30+ years) of .38 Spl 148 gr target loads lubed with 50/50 IIRC and loaded with 2.7 gr of BE. Rounds were stored bullet down and the powder laid on the base for a long time. It is one, of many reasons, I will never use cast bullets for serious work.

[gunther]

To add to the confusion; An apparently factory range pickup dud revealed the problem to be a house fly rather than a powder charge. Nope; the bullet didn't move. However, based on the experience of a couple of friends who said they should have known better, trying to shoot a dud out of a 45 colt barrel will get you a bulged barrel. But it didn't cause any other damage.
Didn't schutzen shooters use a case with a dowel in it to seat bullets into the throat? Thus there was no air space between the bullet and case full of black powder. Air space between bullet and black powder is a very bad thing from all I've ever heard.

[Sandspider500]

Thats a myth.