Hotter Unique Loads for CB?

[rsrocket1]

This is more of a powder question than a boolit question, but this might be the right place to ask since I haven't found an answer in several days of searching.

I bought a box of Hornady #3005 100gr .308 short jacket bullets (http://www.hornady.com/store/30-Cal-.308-100-gr-Short-Jacket/) which pretty much look like cast bullets with a loooong gas check on it. It looks like they may be intended for .30 carbine shooting.

I loaded 10 each with 10 and 12 grains of Unique, seated to the top of the jacket (0.25") and shot them out of my 20" 1:10 Remington 788 .308 Win rifle. I got about 1750 and 1950 fps out of them with 1" groups at 50 yards. Not great, but I was mostly concerned about not blowing up the gun.

All went bang and went down range just fine. The spent cases showed a little under-compression with a little soot around the neck and a slight bulge in the primer. The bulge went away with the 12gr load.

My question is: Is it safe to work up loads going up to 18 grains of Unique? QL data shows that I would only be about 2/3 up the pressure ladder compared to the max and I should get about 2400 fps out of that.

I find a lot of info for light loads (10g Unique), but not many folks pushing the powder much harder in rifle rounds.

Unique seems to be a fairly safe powder to run in lots of bullet weights and speeds with no sudden pressure jumps. I found it very forgiving in 45ACP, 38 and 357 and now in light rifle loads.

I would also like to see if I can run this up to 3000fps with a big load of H335, but that's material for another thread.

Thanks to all for making this a great site.

[stubshaft]

It can be run up to over 3000 with H322. Can't tell you if it is safe to work up the Unique loads. You'll have to work them out for yourself by loading test cartridges in 1/2 gr - or 1 gr increments. It is not a cast boolit so leading will not be a concern.

[Char-Gar]

Bad idea..very bad idea! Go stand in the corner until you come to your senses! There are so many bad notions in that thread, I would not know where to start.

[btroj]

If you want more velocity the go to a different powder. Unique has a place in loading for rifles, but it is not the powder for barn burner velocities.
Chargar is right, stop and think about what you are asking. Look in your load manuals. If unique is not shown at charges that high there just might be a reason.

[Char-Gar]

rocket.. Few folks stop to think that hand loading in an inheritable dangerous activity. It is much like sky diving in that respect.

A fellow is touching off many thousand pounds of pressure, in a little brass jug, just inches from his face and eyes. Like sky diving errors errors can result in blindness, bad injury and even death. What would you think of the fellow that decided he had come up with a new way to pack his chute which was against all written instructions and protocols?

Neither hand loading nor skydiving is a place to indulge your creativity and go against what is proven safe and sane. There is a reason loading books don't use uber charges of Unique to power full snort loads. It is because, there is a real risk of doing serious damage to yourself and others.

I am not trying to be hard on you. But, if you continue to hand load, I would strongly suggest you do some real thinking about your approaches and attitudes to the craft. I know it was just a question, but in all truth, it makes me queasy that a fellow would even ask the question.

You may think I am just some hard nose, callous old AH that is being unkind to you. But, in all truth I am the best friend you have today, because I don't want to see you do something really really wrong. I am willing to tell you what you don't want to hear, for your own good.

[excess650]

Lyman 46th shows 17gr Unique under a 113GC for 2272fps and 40,700 cup.

The same manual shows 39gr Reloader 7 under a 150gr jacketed at 2739fps and 48,800 cup and 39.5gr Reloader 7 under a 151gr GC for 2748fps and 47,100 cup.

The answer to your question is that it may be possible, but start lower and proceed upward with caution. Reloader 7 will act more linear than Unique, pressure wise in that case, so simply interpolating(with regard to Reloader 7, which was the fastest burning powder listed with the 150gr jacketed) doesn't necessarily mean its a good idea.

[missionary5155]

Greetings
The problem with Unique at the upper pressures is that when you cross the safty line pressure spikes suddenly. It does not take alot either. You can add half a grain and suddenly the bolt is locked. So consult a loading manual. I personally do not load the max load with Unique. I switch to another powder like 2400. Max Charges of Unique are not on my list of good ideas.

[NickSS]

I have used unique for many years in a 30-06 with cast lead bullets. Typically I loaded a 165 gr GC bullet with 14 gr of Unique or 13 gr of Red Dot and never saw any pressure signs. I must point out that both these loads were not max per an old lyman cast lead bullet reloading manual that I have. Both loads were also quite accurate giving groups in the 1 to 1.5 MOA in my Sako rifle I shot most of them in. As the same rifle shot about the same groups with the best of my Jacketed bullet hand loads I considered this really good.

[JIMinPHX]

I tried going up to the maximum book loads with Unique in a .44 mag. Above mid range loads, the Unique performed poorly because its sudden pressure slumped the boolit before it left the barrel & that gave me poor accuracy. I know that the Unique slumped the boolit before it left the barrel because all of my Unique loads yielded recovered boolits that were much more deformed than the same boolits that were pushed to higher muzzle velocities by H-110. You have already been given safety reasons why you would not want to push Unique too hard, now I'm adding a performance reason on top of that.

I've used that same little Hornady .30 cal plinker before in a .30-30. I got good results from RE-7. I also tried loading the Speer plinker. The Speer plinker looked like a much better bullet. It had a better finish. The lead was a harder alloy. It looked more precise. The ugly little Hornady shot much better. I also had good results from the Hornady 90-grain XTP .30-cal pistol bullet in the .30-30, after I consulted with Hornady to determine what velocities it could be safely pushed to in a rifle with my particular twist.

If you want to do something off the books with a Hornady bullet, then call up Hornady & ask them what is possible. They often have very good information available.

[rsrocket1]

These are exactly the kinds of experienced responses I was looking for.

I wanted to either hear "that is no problem", or "don't even go there".

I would much rather walk away from a doubtful situation rather than risk being "carried" away from it through a bad experience.

What I was intending to do is to get a practice load using light bullets instead of "full house" loads with full weight bullets and keep the same bullet drop at 100 yards.

I had a whole "work up" batch made from 12-18g in 1g increments. I had read loads of 17g Unique with even heavier bullets, but they may be on the hairy edge and I never want to be that close to a pressure spike and a busted gun (or worse).

Time for the bullet puller. Oh well, better safe than sorry.

Maybe the best thing to do is to sight-in with the "real bullets" and "real loads", then find the best groupings in the neighborhood of 10g of Unique with the light bullets and compensate with an offset to the target.

Thanks for your experience and insight guys!

P.S. I did email Hornady about pushing the #3005 to 3000fps to ask if the bullet could withstand that velocity, but that would be with a more conventional rifle powder.

Yes Jim, the #3005's do look a little rough and ugly, but as long as they do their job, I really don't mind.

[NHlever]

QuickLoad says that your proposed load of 18.0 / Unique behind the Hornady 3005 bullet (100 gr SJ) will produce 42,000 PSI which is safe in a .308 in good shape. Trouble is, as others have mentioned, it probably isn't too consistant at that pressure level. I've had very good luck with accuracy, etc. using Rx7 in both the .308, and 30-06 when working with bullets up to 110 grains at the velocities you seek.

[rsrocket1]

Thanks for the tip NHLever,
Reloader 7 looks like a good powder for light bullets at high speeds.

It looks like there is a published load for the Speer 100g RNSP from the Alliant website:

308 Winchester
Speer 100 gr RNSP
2.36"OAL 22"bbl CCI 200 Reloder 7 41gr 3,003 fps

Looks like about 37g would be a good starting point. (10% below max)

I'm not trying to set any speed records or do anything crazy, just wanting to see if the 308 is usable as a varmint gun with fast light bullets.

[JIMinPHX]

I had contacted Hornady to ask about the max speed of the XTP HP because that was a pistol bullet & therefore designed to perform at pistol speeds. The plinker that you are using is a rifle bullet that was designed to be used at rifle speeds.

There have been documented cases where bullets with thin jackets, that were designed for varmint use have vaporized at the muzzle when being fired at high speeds in rifles with fast twists. The Hornady SPSX is a good example of that. I think that the Speer TNT falls into that category too. That is why I had the velocity concern with a pistol bullet in a rifle cartridge.

The only reason that I was loading the 90-grain XTP in a 30-30 was so that I could get around the caliber restrictions for hunting groundhogs for a hunt in NJ many years ago. It was a specialty application for a specific hunt in a state with silly rules.

There should be plenty of book data available for that plinker. Anything published for that specific bullet in a reliable reference should be safe when used in conjunction with good reloading practices. You really should not need to go off the books to do what you want to do. That Hornady plinker is a pretty accurate little bullet. It is also soft enough to expand pretty well.

If you are looking for a varmint boolit in a .308, you might also want to look into the sabots that E.A.Brown sells. They let you load a .223 boolit in a .30 cal round. They are the handloader version of the Remington "accelerator" ammo. The big down side is that there is limited loading data available for them. A data sheet does come with them, but I seem to recall it mostly listing powders that I don't normally have on hand.

It's been a while since I looked, but I think that Speer makes a low weight .308 TNT HP that would be a good varmint boolit in a .308 too. That's another one that would have plenty of good data available.

You could also try casting some boolits for that thing. The majority of people on this board would be better equipped to help you with questions about that.

[adrians]

max loads with any boolit weight or powder scare the heck outta me so i don't even go there evan if the firearm is capable of handling the pressures involved, my face is not at all pretty but i sure don't need it to look any worse than it already is,.
have a safe weekend ,adrians:evil::coffee::evil:.
it might be warm enough this weekend to hit the range[smilie=w:

[NHlever]

Some 50 years ago I worked for a man that quickly became my mentor for all things gun related, and I soaked it up like a sponge. He had a 22-243 wildcat in a Model 70 Winchester that he let me use on chucks one summer. Some bullets from that rifle would vaporize at the speeds we were driving them at, especially if they even touched a blade of damp grass. You would see a puff of gray vapor in the scope, and that would be that. Lots of fun for a young teen. Hornady lists the usable velocities for that bullet att 1800-3100 FPS in their new #8 loading manual, and Lyman has always had good Rx7 loads for 100-110 grain bullets out of both the .308, and 30-06.

[leadman]

The Sierra 30 cal 110gr HP is an excellent bullet for high velocities with the proper powder. Very accurate also. I managed 1" groups with this bullet in an M1 carbine at 100 yards!

[unclebill]

Some 50 years ago I worked for a man that quickly became my mentor for all things gun related, and I soaked it up like a sponge. He had a 22-243 wildcat in a Model 70 Winchester that he let me use on chucks one summer. Some bullets from that rifle would vaporize at the speeds we were driving them at, especially if they even touched a blade of damp grass. You would see a puff of gray vapor in the scope, and that would be that. Lots of fun for a young teen. Hornady lists the usable velocities for that bullet att 1800-3100 FPS in their new #8 loading manual, and Lyman has always had good Rx7 loads for 100-110 grain bullets out of both the .308, and 30-06.

so a projectile hits a blade of grass
and turns into lead/copper fog?
are you sure?

i am NOT calling b.s.
but it sounds unlikely.

[357maximum]

so a projectile hits a blade of grass
and turns into lead/copper fog?
are you sure?

i am NOT calling b.s.
but it sounds unlikely.

If you had of ever played with any severely overbore small calibers you would not doubt it one bit. I have both done it and seen it with my own trigger finger and eyes. It is truly possible.

22/06, 220Swift, .20X57, .17X22/250 and other such calibers can do the "dissapeared bullet" on demand with bullet choice......even without the blade of grass.

I have even seen the blade of grass thing happen in a standard 22/250. Leaves a really wild vapor trail that while very neat does not do much damage to anything. When you start pushing 4grand all types of weird things can happen to varmint bullets that are not up to the task of severe RPM.

[unclebill]

hmm
learning again at this site.
no wonder i hang out here!

[NHlever]

so a projectile hits a blade of grass
and turns into lead/copper fog?
are you sure?

i am NOT calling b.s.
but it sounds unlikely.

Remember too that this is in 1963, and most .22 bullets were designed for .22 Hornet, or .222 Remington velocities. If you read the new Hornady loading manual there are a few cases where they have limited the velocity on the .22 loads with some bullets since they say the bullets can blow up in flight at higher velocities. Yes, it is very true, and can be duplicated today. I don't know how fast those bullets were going out of the 22-243, but the case has more capacity than the 22-250. You have every right to be sceptical though since it does sound a bit far fetched.

[unclebill]

Remember too that this is in 1963, and most .22 bullets were designed for .22 Hornet, or .222 Remington velocities. If you read the new Hornady loading manual there are a few cases where they have limited the velocity on the .22 loads with some bullets since they say the bullets can blow up in flight at higher velocities. Yes, it is very true, and can be duplicated today. I don't know how fast those bullets were going out of the 22-243, but the case has more capacity than the 22-250. You have every right to be sceptical though since it does sound a bit far fetched.

that is truly amazing.
i wonder when one of those guys with the super hi-speed camera will get around to filming that phenomenon?

[Jack Stanley]

Do you think the twelve grain load would have any use ? I mean if it's safe , you have a hundred grain bullet just under two thousand feet per second and your rifle you might normally be hunting something bigger . It sounds like a good practice round and might be good for shortrange woodchuck , remember one inch at fifty yards will head shoot a chuck or tree rat for that matter . A faster load ? I don't know how much higher I'd go when there were other options for speed . But the smaller charges you list sound to me as though they would have a purpose all their own .

Jack

[1Shirt]

Think you make a mistake pushing load levels with Unique for either rifle or handgun. I agree with Charger.
1Shirt!:coffeecom

[rsrocket1]

Well, I found the best load for my 788 with the #3005's and Unique. It is 11 grains. A 15 shot average came out to 1757 with an SD of 53fps. Three five shot groups of 1.5" @ 100 yards.

I tried batches from 10-12 grains in 0.5g increments and one shot each in 0.5 grain increments up to 16 grains carefully looking for a plateau or drop in velocity or signs of overpressure and saw none. I then shot off 5 @ 15 grains and 5 @ 16 grains and got average mv's of 2156 and 2238 fps with SD's of 9fps and 31fps respectively so it appears that Unique can be reliably shot at that load. Will I use that load? No, it grouped like a shotgun with a 6" pattern @ 100 yds.

I then tried 37.5g Reloader 7 and got averages of 2925fps, but poor groups.

For kicks, I tried a hefty load of 47g H335 and averaged 3030 fps but again, poor groups and a recoil approaching a full size 150g load. The primers showed a hint of flattening, but still had plenty of gap around the pocket. While the groups were nothing to brag about, I've never seen rifle bullet holes punch so cleanly through the target! The holes look like a paper punch made them.

So the bottom line is I'll keep the 11g Unique load for low recoil practice and small game hunting and leave the high speed stuff to my 20" AR.

[Mavrick]

A pressure of 40k CUP is plenty safe in a gun that regularly shoots at 52-55k CUP and is proofed at 85K, meaning a modern, commercial bolt-action.
I'd keep Unique down to about 30-35k CUP, simply because we'd be getting into erratic variations....but they'd be safe!
A little below 30k would be the place we'd be starting to use 2400...there'd be some overlap. I'm talking about cast use with a .308 or '06.
A Speer "Plinker" or Hornady "S-J" would be fine in this area. The main problem, as stated, would be the accuracy would probably 'out the back door.'
The light, j-word pills would work just fine at the higher velocities. The only problem there is the faster-twist rifles, many times, over spin the smaller bullets at max velocities, and the accuracy goes away, too. YMMV, of course. I've shot LOTS of .75-1.2" 3-shot groups from .30 hunting rifles with 90-110gr j-words. I have used Rx#7, 3031, 4064 and 4895.
Since we're on a cast forum, tho', I'd look into a 100-125gr mold, and send it to Buckshot, or one of the others, to HP one of the holes, and try for 2000-2400fps.
Could be fun,
Gene

[Mossy Nugget]

Too hard to believe without so many witnesses! I read about disintegration in flight in the Lee modern reloading second addition. That manual is what brought me to consider casting for HP rifles in the first place.

[Jack Stanley]

Sounds like a plan Rocket , you may find you like that load more than you can imagine :D

Jack

[JIMinPHX]

so a projectile hits a blade of grass
and turns into lead/copper fog?
are you sure?

i am NOT calling b.s.
but it sounds unlikely.

Before I started casting, the Hornady SPSX was my go-to bullet for varmints with a .223. Ammo that shot perfectly well out of my 1:12 twist gun would exit the muzzle of a 1:9 as a cloud of gray dust. The increase in RPM generated by the faster twist was enough to tear them apart before they got down range.

The theory behind a bullet like the SPSX is that the extra thin jacket allows you to tune the speed of the bullet so that you are very near the breaking threshold of the jacket when the bullet leaves the muzzle. Upon hitting a small target like a prairie dog, the jacket is then over stressed & the bullet fragments wildly. The results on a p-dog are rather impressive. Bits of sticky fur are all that is often found. When properly used, these bullets are devastating on small game.

I've never tuned the speed of those things to the level of sensitivity where they would explode after touching a blade of grass, but if somebody wanted to bet me that I could not do it, I think that they would be putting their money at risk. Strange as it sounds, I believe that it is possible.

[NHlever]

I shot a crow once at about 120 yards with the 22-243. He was walking away from me up the side of a slope. At the shot, his wings went straight out, but he didn't move. When I examined him, his skin was split from beak to anus, and just was wet on the inside......... pretty much ready for mounting. The man that loanded me the rifle for the summer said "your friends will be impressed", and he was sure right about that. I never shot anything larger than a woodchuck with that combo, but you could sure see them come apart in the little 4X Alaskan scope that was mounted on it. Young eyes made hits out to just under 400 yards (as large as any field I had to hunt here in NH) possible.