Blue Dot; Hercules vs Alliant test

[Shuz]

Very impressive work, Larry! Thanks for sharing!

[leadman]

Thanks for doing the testing Larry. When I spoke with the ballastic lab manager at Alliant he indicated there was no issue with cast bullets in the 357, only the 125grain jacketed. Although the warning included all 41 magnum loads he was more concerned with jacketed bullet loads. He warned against the use of a magnum primer.
I'm using BD with 220gr cast in my SBH Hunter with WLP, which he said are actually magnums. I'm going to try different primers in an effort to clean up the load as it is very dirty. I already apply a heavy crimp so will probably leave that alone.

Did you notice any difference in how much residue was left between the Alliant and Hercules?

Do you have a T/C barrel in 357?

[leadeye]

Great test and results Larry, and thanks! I have two questions, the first is did you ever get any of the old Herculese 2400? The second is about primers. Has anybody ever checked how hard a primer pushes a bullet by itself, maybe by filling a case with inert material instead of powder and firing?

[leftiye]

Excellent workup Larry. Very timely, and useful.

[theperfessor]

Larry -

Your usual well-thought-out work illuminates this site once again! Thanks for sharing.

[fecmech]

The second is about primers. Has anybody ever checked how hard a primer pushes a bullet by itself, maybe by filling a case with inert material instead of powder and firing?

Over the years I have had at least 1 each no powder screw up ( that I'll admit to) on progressive reloaders in both the .45 and .38 special. In the .45 the slug was into the rifling far enough to chamber another round and the .38 the base of the bullet was just past the forcing cone and into the rifling.
When I read of reloaders saying that increasing the crimp cleans up a dirty load or helps the powder burn I shake my head. The primer blows the bullet out of the case by itself, the crimps only purpose I believe is to hold bullets from walking out of the case on a revolver or into the case on an auto.

[Willbird]

Over the years I have had at least 1 each no powder screw up ( that I'll admit to) on progressive reloaders in both the .45 and .38 special. In the .45 the slug was into the rifling far enough to chamber another round and the .38 the base of the bullet was just past the forcing cone and into the rifling.
When I read of reloaders saying that increasing the crimp cleans up a dirty load or helps the powder burn I shake my head. The primer blows the bullet out of the case by itself, the crimps only purpose I believe is to hold bullets from walking out of the case on a revolver or into the case on an auto.

Well just because the primer has enough energy to do that, does not mean that the bullet ends up there before the powder lights off. IE the chamber pressure when there IS powder could be quite high before the bullet even moves at all.

Bill

[Larry Gibson]

leadman

Did you notice any difference in how much residue was left between the Alliant and Hercules?

I could not see any discernable difference in residue between the two. I visually inspected each case after firing as that's one "benifit" of a single shot...getting to pluck the cases out one at a time.

Do you have a T/C barrel in 357?

I used to have one but traded it off some time back. I have been looking for another one reasonably priced.

Thanks for the comments.

Larry Gibson

[Larry Gibson]

leadeye

Great test and results Larry, and thanks! I have two questions, the first is did you ever get any of the old Herculese 2400?

I'm working a deal with Shuz hopefully. I paln on a similar test with Hercules 2400 vs Alliant 2400 if the deal goes through.

The second is about primers. Has anybody ever checked how hard a primer pushes a bullet by itself, maybe by filling a case with inert material instead of powder and firing?

I'll assume someone has made that kind of a test but I've no reference to one. Perhaps someone else does?

Larry Gibson

[madsenshooter]

Very interesting indeed, when I first started loading, I found the max of Blue Dot with a Lee 325gr boolit in a Ruger Bisley 45 Colt, I started around 16gr and kept going up 1/2gr at a time. Used to rifles, I was watching for similiar signs of excess pressure, primer condition, hard extraction, etc. After firing a few loads at 19gr, I noticed that the bluing of the barrel ahead of the frame had a slightly frosted appearance. I'd swelled the barrel. The cylinder and the frame could handle the pressure, but the barrel in 45 caliber was too thin to do magnum pressures.

[dougader]

Very interesting indeed, when I first started loading, I found the max of Blue Dot with a Lee 325gr boolit in a Ruger Bisley 45 Colt, I started around 16gr and kept going up 1/2gr at a time. Used to rifles, I was watching for similiar signs of excess pressure, primer condition, hard extraction, etc. After firing a few loads at 19gr, I noticed that the bluing of the barrel ahead of the frame had a slightly frosted appearance. I'd swelled the barrel. The cylinder and the frame could handle the pressure, but the barrel in 45 caliber was too thin to do magnum pressures.

Great work, Larry. I admit I was expecting more of a difference between the Hercules and Alliant Blue Dot powders.

Wow madsenshooter. You're braver(?) than I am. You started at 16 grains BD under a Lee 325 grain bullet??? Any data I've seen with ~300 grain slugs has been MAX at around 14.0 grains Blue Dot. I'm guessing you were well past magnum pressures with your 19 grain load.

[454PB]

For what it's worth, I had a squib load in my Ruger SRH .454. The powder failed to ignite, but the primer alone pushed the 250 gr. boolit halfway through the 7 1/2" barrel.

[Bret4207]

Bravo Larry!!! Very well done! Very interesting results also.

[Bret4207]

When I read of reloaders saying that increasing the crimp cleans up a dirty load or helps the powder burn I shake my head. The primer blows the bullet out of the case by itself, the crimps only purpose I believe is to hold bullets from walking out of the case on a revolver or into the case on an auto.

Depends on a lot of things. I don't think it works that way in all guns.

[felix]

Bret, what Fecmech said is basically correct for ALL guns. It just so happens that crimping effects will become evident with marginal loads. If any slippage for a specific gun/ammo combo is noticed, it is best to compensate with a heavier or lighter boolit via the bearing surface alone. We want the crimp to work just to hold the boolit (either way) during recoil and external handling, such as dropping a box of ammo while getting it from the top shelf in the closet. That only takes a very small crimp groove, or none at all when the neck friction is right on. Unfortunately, the Keith design requires a deeper groove for flight parameters. I treat that big groove as a lube groove primarily. ... felix

[hiwall]

any more update ? I use BD in 22 hornet for hunter pistol . found the groups where big as a house after using the last of my old lot. So now not sure what to do.
maybe add 10% to the charge?

[OuchHot!]

Thank you very much for the thorough work! I was an avid coyote hunter in the 70's using a .41mag. I guess I did everything wrong. I had poor ignition in 20F temps with BD and went to magnum primers. Everything went fine for me; then all the warnings came out. I never quite understood how or why. I was young(er) and dumb(er) and just got lucky I guess. The two powders look to be as close as any formulator could hope for. I do recall some formidable muzzle and chamber gap flashes!

[Harter66]

I shot a couple of cans in shotguns ,I can say that I did see some depreciation in the extreme cold . The patterning didn't seem to be damaged but the 50yd geese of 50/30 degree late October became 45yd ducks and 30yd geese in the 25/0 days of January w/more cripples than DOIs . The dawn muzzle flash is/was pretty impressive also at 32-34 gr pushing 550g of shot.

thank you Larry for your time and data.

[Larry Gibson]

I still use Blue Dot in the 357, with 125 gr JHPs, the 41 with 170 JHPs and the 44 with the Keith cast bullets. Just have toned the loads down to non compressed at 100% load density. My old load (was in Lyman's manual) in the 357 ran 1690 fps out of my 6" Ruger and 1940 out of my 7.94" Contender (2000+ fps in 10" Contender) with excellent accuracy and no pressure signs. Went along fat, dumb and happy with that load until I pressure tested it. Keep in mind SAAMI MAP is 35,000 psi for the .357 Magnum. The "hottest" factory magnum cartridges I've tested run 28 to just over 30,000 psi. That Blue Dot load was 42,200 psi(M43)! That's why I toned it down a tudge..........

Larry Gibson

[charlie b]

So, am a little late here as I just heard about the warning on Blue Dot in the .357. I don't load max and have been using 11.8gn with 125 gn JHP's with no signs of excess pressure (cases slip out of my Python and primers are still rounded). I was about to load up some reduced loads (8 or 9gn) with the same bullet when I saw the warning message. In the past I have used a lot of Blue Dot in .45Colt ammo. The only issue I ran into was loads where there was less than half a case of powder. Ignition got spotty and had some pretty wild velocity variations (very hot to very slow).

What piques my interest is Alliant still lists a load for 110gn bullet and the heavier ones. What makes 125gn so different? If they said nothing 125gn or lighter I could understand, but, this is weird.

And then the comment above about it only applying to jacketed 125gn and not cast.

Don't understand.