What appened?

[JJC]

I worked up a load of 46 gr of Varget in Remington cases, for a 500 gr boolit. Just went to load some up and it is compressed about a quarter inch. I remember slight compression, but not this much. I pulled a boolit and rechecked the charge and it's right on. Boolits are not jumping crimp so far. Case length is on, same cases I used to work up with. Any ideas what is going on?

[waksupi]

Check you brass lots. See if you are using the same. If not, check the case capacity. Drop the same charge in each brand, and see where the powder level is. One may have thicker brass, reducing powder capacity, and raising pressures.

[JJC]

These are the same cases I worked the load up in. Im puzzled? Just weighed all the loaded rounds and nothing is way out. Uncrimped the powder is pushing the boolit out a few thou.

[Cherokee]

I had that happen to me a few weeks ago. I measured each powder drop for consistency and found variances of half-grain or more. Opened up a new can of the same powdere and tried that, it measured within .01 every time. My conclusion: the other can got contaminated some way and is no longer reliable in the powder meaure - trash. Don't know what happened to the "bad" can of powder but I take no chances.

[hiram]

recheck the zero on the scale....

[buyobuyo]

recheck the zero on the scale....

This is exactly what I was thinking. Do you have check weights? I always use my check weights to set zero for the powder charge I'm going to be using.

[runfiverun]

humidity

[JJC]

Recheck zero I did not do, thanks.

[220swiftfn]

Also, did you use a drop tube??? (or tap the case, anything that would settle the charge??)


Dan

[JJC]

Also, did you use a drop tube??? (or tap the case, anything that would settle the charge??)


Dan

I usually pour slow, no drop tube. I thought about humidity also as mentioned. Temps have been swinging a bit latley. I will take some apart and double check the scale.

[762 shooter]

I recheck zero at the beginning of each session.

Why Not?

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

electronic scale? ...recheck Zero.
But more importantly, check against a trusty beam scale.
I only trust electronics so far.
Jon

[JJC]

I calibrate the scale before use each time. I pulled a boolit and did a recal on the scale. The powder weighed 46 gr as it should on every one I pulled. Don't know why it was taking up more space in the case. I pulled all the boolits, resized the cases without the decapper. Expanded and scooped powder out of the bottle and all was well. Don't know why?? I reloaded them all with the odd powder set aside (all from the same can). The base touched the powder like I remember. Guess the moral of the story is if something don't seem right figure out why right away. Thanks for the input, John

[MtGun44]

POwder drop distance. If you use a drop tube 12" long the powder will settle an
AMAZING amount.

Bill

[mpmarty]

I use .224 match bullets as check weights on all my scales.

[nicholst55]

humidity

^^This^^

[tmc-okc]

Have you used water to check the difference in the case capacity ? Fill each of the two different cases with water and weigh the water volume. That should tell us if the two cases are idential internally or not..

TMC
OKC