so do you long rangers use LONG drop tubes AND compress? or rely more on compression to set your depth?
so do you long rangers use LONG drop tubes AND compress? or rely more on compression to set your depth?
My DT is 30"; probably work just as well at 10-15" however! Shooting PP most times with Swiss I don't compress AT ALL!!
"The South died with Stonewall Jackson!"
Depends on the powder charge and bullet.
Drop tubing for my paper patch loads is sufficient.
Need to compress with several of the heavier greasegroove bullets, so I just skip the droptube as you're going to have to compress the powder anyway.
Long range rules, the rest drool.
Don...you say you skip the droptube when pp,ing as your gonna compress anyway. my question is this...do you not compress when you droptube the powder? and if so...why?
not being a smarty ... im just learning all the fine points i can as good weather is coming and i will get to try some accuracy tests of my own past the 50yd line. im really looking forward to doing this and also look forward to testing many diff loads and recipes to find the accuracy im looking for with this magical blackpowder.
thanks Don...apreciate all the encouragment you and the others have givin me here.
Ted
Ted if droptubing gets the top of the powder column far enough into the case to seat the bullet to the proper depth then no I don't compress.
If drop tubing won't get the top of the powder column to the proper height to seat the bullet then I do compress, and skip the drop tubing because when you need to compress the powder anyway it's just an added step that doesn't do much except take up time and eat motion..
Long range rules, the rest drool.
my droptube experience has been mixed. i built a d/t out of an old arrow and cut it 24 inchs long. i found an old brass funnel that is around 2 inches in diameter at the top and dropped down to the proper dia with a bit of wittlin on the arrow that i friction fit the funnel to the arrow with a small dalope of superglue. then i built a wood stand that i can adjust the height of the tube to acomadate different length cart.
problem i have is that the powder "splashs" if you will out of the case as it is dropped in the tube. makes a mess and i dont get the whole charge in the case. so my thought is that i compress every charge anyway so i have settled on gently trickling the powder in the case thru my powder funnel into the case and compress it to the depth that i need so as to seat my gg boolits.
i have not had the chance to accuratly test my shells yet tho any place past the 50yd line so i will test the drop tube against the short funnel for accuracy at 1..2..and 3 hundred yards when i dont have nard deep snow to wade thru...just no fun.
now the pistol experiments im doing have the advantage of being at my front yard range of 25 yds so im letting them buck so to speak. im almost ready for a 44mag test with the bp in a 4" s&w 629. so many fun things to do and so many honeydues i constantly have a decission to make...shoot n load...or....make life fun on the homefront......hmmm should be a ballance here someplace....ill keep looking for the ballance but till then as long as i keep from getting black-n-blue...ill keep shooting. she knew this about me 35 years ago and still signed up for the ride......what a great woman! thanks lord for this woman
Ted the arrow shaft is alright if you're droppin into a 22 or some such.
Get a short piece of copper tube flare the end so it'll fit over the case mouth and then pour slowly you'll get more compression and with a properly done drop tube the powder won't "splash" out.
You can also get a very good droptube set up here http://www.sageoutfitters.com/reloading_suupplies.html
Long range rules, the rest drool.
thanks don for the link...ill try to modify my d/t and see what will turn out...if nuttin else the d/t on this sageoutfitters will be ordered to replace my handcrafted [...lol read ***...] d/t.
Keep up the steady pressure Ted.. you're doin fine.
Long range rules, the rest drool.
Ted, if you already have a funnel to use with a drop tube, you can find 3/8" brass tubing at a hobby shop for way less than 45 dollars. Put an o-ring, piece of leather, or anything that's tight around the tube so it rests on the case mouth and allows the tube to enter about 1/8 inch...and no 'splash'.
CM
Retired...TWICE. Now just raisin' cows and livin' on borrowed time.
You guys are awesome. Really are. At this very moment I had the same thoughts as I'm loading 70gr olde eynsford black powder in my 45-70 with a 500gr spitzer. Lee 459-500-3r thing looks more like a missile.
I just use the RCBS internal size die as it is from the factory and set it to match the depth of my seated boolits. The amount of powder compression depends upon the amount of dropped loose powder above the eventual location of the base of the boolit. If the internal size die is of appropriate length for the boolit, then this method works with utter simplicity and efficiency. If the die is too short, all the other steps for accuracy are lost to frustration; unless the case is formed to already be of appropriate internal diameter for the boolit choice. Then again, I am a rank beginner.
prs
I guess I don't understand why 70 grs. of 2f are needed. Is the goal to load the original .45-70 load of 70 grs. with a 500 gr. bullet? If it is you must remember that that load was done with the original balloon head case that has more space than today's modern solid head case.
Ken
Some folks load more than 70 grs with a 500 gr bullet, and yes compressing the powder is how you get enough powder into the case to get to working velocity with most any grease groove bullet. Paper patch bullets that a person might be only seating .1 into the case you might get by with just drop tubing,, but that's going to depend on whether the powder you're using works better with or without compression, and will that droptubed only charge get you the velocity you need.
Long range rules, the rest drool.
Quite often, the higher the load, the better the accuracy - no magical number required, but heavier loads tend to shoot better than the light stuff.
I agree with that last ... I have loaded in two stages of 27.5 grains and compressing the 2F GOEX at each stage to attain the original 55 grains in WW cases [and still seat my boolits in the case] and they seem to be some of the best accuracy ive gotten with any BP in my heavy barreled 38-55. its a chore and I don't do it very often [should I know] but when I do shoot em they really crack and spin up the 330 grain boolit [greaser] in fine shape. it really likes the "accurate molds" 275 grain FP doing this as well.
I make my drop tubes out of 3/8 od copper tubing and solder 5/8x3/8 sweat reducer on the pipe and a funnel on the other end. The sweat reducer will fit over a .40 to .50 cal case with out spilling powder.
I have to use a funnel anyway so I might just as well use a tube. When I just use the powder drop mounted high on the shelf I use a 32" tube and the loading block is on the floor and the tube is long enough so it fits under the powder drop and I just dump the powder. move the tube to the next case and dump it again.
If I weigh my powder I use the shorter tube that is 18" long and the loading block is off the floor high enough so the top of the tube rests on the bench top and I do the same thing as above.
When I load those deep seating bullets in the pan I need to get all of the powder in a .45-70 case so it gets drop tubed so the wad will seat in the case enough so I can compress the geeeewizzzz out of the powder to seat that greaser where it needs to be. Compressing powder will make a clean burn also gets the accuracy I need by regulating the amount of compression. You can tell I use the tube quite a bit by the powder layered on them
I have little experience in the virtues of compressing powder. I guess I need to learn. Or not but I think I will be shooting more compressed loads this summer.
About the year 2000 I got my hands on the Swiss made powder for the first time. Much of the BP I have burned in the years since has been Swiss. I did not take long to see the value of it. With Swiss powder I always work my load up to where I do not compress at all, ...zero. Even less in some cases. Before I get hate mail, by less than a full case I mean 98-100%. Then too, some loads might have as much as .010-.020" compression. Stack height will sometimes vary by that much. With any of the above I call this zero compression. By use of wad thickness and seating depth I find a charge weight that shoots very well with zero compression. If I ever think I need more velocity, I choose a longer case (different rifle). That does not come up much! I shoot a 90 much of the time.
I want to shoot my way through this new case of Olde Eynsford ffg I just got and I have found the stuff to be fluffy. In other words, if my known accurate, zero compression load of Swiss is, say, 70 grs, the zero compression load of Olde E is much less and the resulting velocity is much less too.
However, in testing I found something interesting. The Olde E loads with no compression, or a grain or two one way or the other (up or down) has shown accuracy, just not as much velocity as I would like. So, ...then to get the velocity up to that of Swiss, I need to jack up the charge weight to around that of Swiss and compress to make it fit. So then again, using Olde E, increasing to somewhere around the accuracy charge weight of Swiss (up or down a grain or so)the Olde E produces accuracy and velocity, just like Swiss. Well, maybe just like Swiss - I have not shot anywhere enough to know yet. But it looks to be promising.
It seems like with most any powder, accuracy comes every 4-5 grains as the charge weight goes up or down. I've seen this for all the years I have been shooting BP in cartridge target rifles. I am not sure how much compression has to do with it. I am sure the old wives tails about a particular powder brand needing a stated amount of compression is much less important than adjusting the load to time the bullet to exit the barrel on one end of the barrels vibration cycle or the other end of the cycle. Good chronograph numbers and poor accuracy from a known accurate rifle show this as a prime example.
I'm not a big fan of needing to compress!
To date, the most I have compressed the Olde E is about 0.200" or maybe a very slight bit more. But the better loads happen to be anywhere from .075 - .200". And, I am just getting started. Much to learn with this new powder from GOEX.
The price is good -And!, American made!
Michael Rix
Last edited by Chill Wills; 04-14-2015 at 04:20 PM. Reason: fix a tyop ;-))
Chill Wills
I like to use a compression die even on "zero compression" loads. Even if it's just to compress 0.030" or so. I do that to ensure that the powder column and wads are at the same height. I think it's important because most of my loads have zero neck tension and the bullet is seated into the rifling. I don't know how important it actually is, but I sleep better that way
You are the second person I've heard of that uses wads to tune your loads in this way. Assuming I understand what you are doing.
The OE is definitely pretty fluffy stuff. I was going to shoot my first shots with it yesterday but the weather looked too poor to make the four hour drive worth it. I'll shoot them at 200 or 300 this week.
The one thing I am going to start taking more seriously is measuring case capacity. I generally just discard cases that have a different powder stacking height. If the height seems different than the other cases I dump the charge and redo it. If it stacks wrong again then the case is removed from the batch.
When loading single case with my schuetzen rifle I discovered something that surprised the heck out of me. I have some cases that have had the flash holes deburred, and some that did not. I was shooting a single case that hadn't been deburred, as a result I couldn't scrape all of the fouling out between shots. There was some residue in the bottom of the case that the scraper didn't reach. Once that builds up to a constant height the rifle would hold vertical very well. I later switched to a new, deburred, case for the next few targets. That case had more effective volume, and the shots grouped well, but they were all about 2 minutes lower at 200m!! Now this was with a Little .32-40 so the percentage of volume variance was pretty big. It makes me think that case volume might be more important than I figured, at least as the range gets longer.
Chris.
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |