I'm sort of laid up with a very sore back with not much to do. So I will bring this out for discussion to get your feelings on powder compression. Clean burn? more efficient burn? or what ever.
Back when I used a lot of Goex I always felt I needed more compression to keep the fouling down in the bore. I did not go after increasing the velocity but I wanted a clean burn and small groups on the paper. But what made the small groups as compression was increased????and why did the ES & SD's vary so much with the compression increases after a point.
Below are some pictures of what compression looks like in the case with different levels of compression starting with .050", .100", 200", 300", .400" and .500".
I also took fast frame photo's of the different levels of compression what the burn look like at the muzzle, but I lost a lot of those I did not get backed up when the computer took a dive.
Here is the burn with minimal compression using the .50-90,
And here it is with .500" compression. a lot more smoke and the second frame showed a long red line going through the smoke. That is one of the pictures I lost.
No compression .44-90 bn rifle
High compression. .44-90 bn
Is it the hard unburned powder of a heavily compressed powder load that pushes out the fouling that leaves a shinier bore or is it some other factor??
Kurt