Almost KABOOM with AA-5 in 41magnum load...??

[41mag]

Just got off the phone a while ago with my good friend and hunting bud. He is up at their country place and was hoping to do some load work with his 41mag. He got in one the Mihec GB molds for 41 Mag. #258 (Keith), and has poured up several dozen boolits using different alloy to decipher which might be best for his gun and hunting.

Several weeks back he had been shooting some of these same boolits using a 10.7gr charge of AA-5. He has been using the CCI-300 if I am not mistaken. Cases are trimmed to length. He has been shooting this same load with several of these boolits already, but with a tad different alloy. We are in the process of trying to soften it up a bit to keep the HP on them while at the same time, keep the loads accurate. His revolver is a S&W 657 with the solid cylinder and a 7.5" barrel. It was cleaned prior to this weekend and a patch with a bit of LLA smeared on it, was run through the barrel. Again nothing he hasn't done in the weeks prior to this.

He loaded up 6 rounds, walked out to the end of his barn and shot the first one. He said the noise and recoil was worse than when he shot my 454. He initially thought he had set the scale up wrong so he walked back inside to check it. Right where it was supposed to be. Then he considered the possibility of using the wrong powder, but there was only the one can of AA-5 sitting there. Again running down the list he checked the primers and there were only the six missing from the box he said he had just opened.

So he unloaded the rest of the rounds, and put in some from two weeks ago. He walked outside and proceeded to shoot all 5 of them into the target with a nice mild recoil and hitting the area around the bull very easily. Thinking WTH to himself, he walked back in and loaded up the other 5 rounds he had just loaded, and went back out. Again the revolver recoiled like something four times heavier, he said he simply couldn't believe it, but the recoil had pulled the other bullets out and locked up his action.

So after finally getting the powder and bullets somewhat back into place, he managed to get the action open, and remove all but the one he fired. He said he had to use a dowel and small hammer to remove the now ruined case from his cylinder. He said the primers on both of the cases were ironed so flat, that the dimple from the firing pin wasn't even visible in them.

Ok, so I immediately went through the list of things I thought it MIGHT be,
Wrong powder, primers, bullets, cases, fouled bore, fouled cylinders, OAL too long, cases too short, wrong charge weight. I'm stumped...Heck I even considered that he might have a boolit that is wedging up in the cone inside the cylinders chamber. Thinking that possibly the shoulder on the front driving band might have been jammed in just a bit causing the pressure to spike, but he shot the same exact loads that he loaded two weeks ago and nothing, nada, zilch, of an issue.

The powder was purchased new about a month to two months ago. Primers at the same time. The boolits are sized to .411 which fit his cylinder chambers perfectly, and the bore was checked at .410. The alloy has been Isotope ingots he purchased from Muddy Creek here on the board, followed up with some Core ingots he smelted down and poured up week before last.

We're looking for something to grasp onto here and determine what the issue is. I told him to bring home the remainder of the loads he had left that he has been shooting and that shot well, and also the can of AA-5 it came out of. To contact Accurate tomorrow ASAP and find out what their take on it is.

Granted the powder hasn't been stored in a total climate controlled area, but it hasn't been exposed to much over 80-85 degrees nor any type of humidity. It's been kept inside an insulated room which is built inside their barn, and has kept plenty of powder good for years and years. Now if it were some of my old 97 era stuff that had sat out on the back porch shelf in heat and cold for years on end I would know right off the bat, especially since I had to pour out several jugs of it that went south on me. Another thought was that the powder was simply warm from sitting in the room, but he said this was first thing in the morning so it hadn't gotten warm yet. Since he keeps it in a plastic box sitting on the concrete floor it is usually cooler in there anyway.

Being brand new and only being a couple of weeks since he shot some of the same powder, from the same jug, has us both a bit twisted up. Everything else being the same as well. He left everything set up and ready to go the last time he was there, so nothing has changed, at least that is obvious anyway. The measure he used was checked, the scale was re-zeroed and checked with the standard, and like I mentioned above everything else was gone over as well.

Anyway possibly someone here has an answer or question that I might not have thought of. If so please feel free to post it up, cause this has us both baffled.

[Rockchucker]

Have you pulled any of the boolits yet and checked the powder weight?

[geargnasher]

If that's the same can of AA#5 he used two weeks ago, perhaps he accidentally returned some much faster powder to the can from a different reloading session? Ask him to pull the boolits (again, since the gun did it once!) and have a gander at the powder. It's either too much or wrong kind/mixed.

Gear

[Dennis Eugene]

My first thought excatly. pull one of the bullets and weigh the charge. Dennis

[41mag]

Yep both idea were suggested to him by me.

He doesn't have anything faster to have sitting around, other than Unique, and he hasn't even opened it up yet. Even so that would pretty easily seen in the hopper of his powder measure, especially when he dumped a charge to check it's setting.

My first thought was too much, but he said he rechecked the weight, and zeroed the scale and checked it again to be sure.

He said he didn't have the puller up there with him, so I told him to load it all up and haul it on home. I personally would like to be there when he pops the top on them.

I have known this fellow for going on the better part of 25 years, and he is a very attentive handloader. If something distracts him he simply stops what he is doing and starts over. For him to call me and tell me what happened, it must have shook him pretty hard.

Like I said, this one has us both two blocked.

[william iorg]

If he changed his alloy to a softer alloy that could be the problem. If you have a hardness tester test the previous batch with the current bullet.

[308w]

My vote is for a double charge, could be something hinky with that can of powder but I'm thinking too much powder.

[Ben]

I don't think that a " child mild " load vs. cylinder locking up load could be explained by hardness of alloy alone. Just my opinion.

The kind of propellant, or the specific charge weight of propellant is most likely at the base of all this.

Ben

[LUBEDUDE]

The kind of propellant, or the specific charge weight of propellant is most likely at the base of all this.

Ben

Most logical

[725]

Any chance his powder measure had some other powder bridged across from another loading session. Not likely but possible a mixed powder in the measure, now gone.

Curious

[41mag]

The alloy was changed, but not by much. He purchased some alloy from Rotometals, some 20-1 and some Lyman #2. He also had poured up around 50ea or so using Iso core and Iso ingot alloy and from it all had equal numbers which were AC, and WQ. He for the most part was simply looking to see what the differences were in how they shot. I was told the ones used on these rounds were the straight AC core alloy. We're both looking at expansion with the different alloy we have to work with, and the Core has shown to be about as good as we need for hog hunting. The core alloy works the best in my Rugers, but I am pushing them a bit faster. The ingot alloy hsa worked better for him. But like I said he is still working with them and trying to see what is the most accurate.

He has been shooting both the Iso core and ingot, in the previous trip up, and before that had been using some commercial cast he purchase from Montana Bullet Works in the 15 BHN. Nothing he has shot so far has exceeded 1200fps loads, well till this happened.

He will be bringing me the loaded rounds both from the previous loads and this weekend. He said he didn't want to mess with it and would rather I did it.

As for the different powders, he has only worked with the AA-5 for the past month or more with this revolver, and when he was done the last trip up, he dumped the remainder of the hopper back into the original container. He left everything set. This weekend he filled the hopper once more and then verified the setting before loading the initial 6 rounds.

If I see him at work today I will get the rounds and have them pulled down sometime this evening. I will do a close examination of each one, as well as checking the weights of both powder and boolit. I will also remove the primers and compare best as I can to factory fresh ones, just to see if possibly that might be it. I highly doubt it would be, as he just purchased a brick of them on the same ticket as the powder. THey are all he is working with at all so chances of getting them mixed up with something else would be highly unlikely, but I'll look anyway.

[garandsrus]

Its not the alloy.....

[rockrat]

Concur on checking powder weight. I believe there was another on this board that loaded ammo and had something akin to what happened to your friend. Turned out that the scale, that he checked again, had been incorrectly set and he was throwing a charge with 5 more grains of powder, than what he wanted.

[w30wcf]

It certainly appears that the powder in those cartridges is likely not AA-5.....unless like others have suggested....an increased powder charge.

Is there a possibility that even though the can says AA-5, the powder contained therein is not AA-5(?).

Is there a possibility that another faster burning powder in the measure was not emptied before the AA-5 was dumped in(?). I know of one instance where that happened. Thankfully the gun survived but the back of the case melted a bit (rifle).

w30wcf

[odfairfaxsub]

alloy will not cause your shells primer to flaten in this situation.

[geargnasher]

Concur on checking powder weight. I believe there was another on this board that loaded ammo and had something akin to what happened to your friend. Turned out that the scale, that he checked again, had been incorrectly set and he was throwing a charge with 5 more grains of powder, than what he wanted.

That would just about have to be the issue, that or powder bridging. I keep an electronic scale handy to double check my beam scale, not for accuracy but to give me digital numbers to verify my beam settings. Once I undercharged a light pistol charge and stuck a boolit because I used the tenths instead of the ones weight. I still don't know how I did it, even checked the weights several times, but my brain was in the wrong gear that day.

Gear

[gray wolf]

Wrong powder--- or to much of the correct powder.
Ain't the metal, not a blocked bore if it happened more than once.
The cases were over charged in some way.
Bullets should have been pulled after round one.
lucky guy, I am glad he is OK and hope he finds out what happened.

[rexherring]

Has to be either wrong powder or overcharging. I've been shooting AA#5 at 11 grs in my .45 BH a lot and never had an issue no matter how hard or soft the boolit. It is very easy to overcharge the load as it doesn't fill much case in fact I could probably get a triple charge to fit. That;s why I use a Mag light to inspect every case before seating the boolit and weigh every 10th round.

[ColColt]

Not that it would cause an even close to kaboom issue but AA#5 definitely doesn't need a magnum primer. I learned long ago not to have two different powders on the bench at the same time. I had a can of Universal and a can ofHS-6 not far apart but had been using Universal. After emptying the powder measure with had about half a cup of powder left and put it in my little cup for dumping back in the canister, I realized I had just dumped all that Universal somehow into the can of HS-6.

That's what happens when you have more than one powder close by and are distracted. Would it have caused a kaboom? Don't know but I had to thrown the entire can of HS-6 away.

[paul h]

I've never used that paticular powder, but have used enough different handgun powders in various cartridges to know that occasionally there are combinations that just behave strangely. I've had powders I've used for years that have been consistant in one chambering that in a different cartridge behaved strangley with wildly varying velocities and even velocities that go down as powder charges increase. The only real way to possibly know what's going on is to chronograph loads, but with two instances of that in his gun I'd advise him to immediately discontinue using that powder.

The only time I've had a mild load give one wild overpowered load is in a friends 475 linebaugh. He had some medium loads with I believe blue dot and he let me fire a cylinder full. I think it was the 3rd shot that had hellacious recoil and muzzleblast and he had to pound the case out of the cylinder. I would be highly suprised if it was a double charge.

I think there are some chambering/powder/bullet weight combinations where occasionaly instead of the powder burning normally it essentially detonates causing a high pressure spike.

That's one reason I tend to stick with the most common and popular powders for a given chambering, enough people have shot those combos to be able to provide somebody having found out if there is a tendancy for erratic behaviour.

[william iorg]

I dontsee how this could be a double charge. Lets say the bullet was seated .360" deep. This would give you room for 21.4 grains of AA No 5. If his charge was 8.0 grains or more (his charge was 10.7 grains) he would see a double charge which would fill the case nearly to the mouth.

Believe me, relatively fast powders and soft alloys will raise presure, quickly.

[GLynn41]

it sounds like powder-- -- air gap --with powder bridged up front -- I am grasping here--
some way position in relation to primer it detnates? -- temperaure -- does it get too warm this time of year- I have some loads that can only be fired in 50 or below -- 60-70 + temps will stick the hull 100% of the time
alloy can be apart if you are over size- very over size-- a barrel contstriction at the threads area and it is size sensitive--
chambers are they smooth-- no tool marks etc- I had a Redhawk in . 41/44 and the max loads went down the more i shot it -- so on my other Rehawk some 0000 steel wool made a great difference-
seating depth?
let us know when you know

[odfairfaxsub]

that would be bullet size not alloy necessarly.

[felix]

Again, the obvious is being overlooked because it does not happen enough? ... felix

[bearcove]

Pull them and measure each. All you need is pliers. Run case up without die grab bullet with pliers pull. Measure each charge. If it doesn't vary, must be a double. He said only one powder and nothing fast but unique that wasn 't opened.

[41mag]

Well here is the deal on the powder charge.

I got the three remaining loads from my bud, and brought them home. I zeroed my scale to be sure it was on, then checked it with my standard just to be certain. It was right on the money.

I set it to 10.7grs, and pulled the first boolit and carefully scraped the powder off the bottom, then poured the remainder into the pan. When it settled it was right on the line. So I went ahead and pulled the other two, and other than the second one being maybe a tenth lighter, they were all right on the line.

So at least these three were all set and dumped to 10.7grs. As for as the type, well it sure isn't Unique for sure. I am going to get out my "Big Eye" and see if it compares to my can of #5 or #7. He did say he had shot some #7 the prior trip up but had emptied out the hopper when done. He said he only ran about 10 rounds of it so there wasn't much to be emptied. Even if it WAS #7 with this load it would have been exactly the opposite I would think. With the powder coming up to right at the half mark on the case I doubt it would have boosted the pressure.

For now I am lost on this one. I am going to punch the primers to compare to some 300's I have, just to see if they appear to be the same critter. Even if they were 350's I still doubt they would have had the type reaction he got with this particular load.

My other thought was position, but I have shot so many pounds of this, and other AA powders, in all sorts of loads, and NEVER had this type issue that it seems a bit stretching. Plus with the density there is in the case, I just can't see that happening.

Next step is to contact Accurate I guess, everything I have seen before me is just like I would think it should be, and how I expected it to be. Like I said this fellow is pretty particular about things, but we all mess up once in a while. I simply cannot put my finger on where he might have.

[41mag]

Again, the obvious is being overlooked because it does not happen enough? ... felix

I'm all ears if you have a handle on something I am overlooking.

Please share, we would like to make sure this doesn't happen again.

[william iorg]

With the confirmation of the powder weight on the remaining three loads you can be reasonably certain it was not a double charge. A double charge would have filled the case to the point of 100% load density or more probably, light compression. The double charge would have been obvious to even a causal glance at the charged cases. There would have been a difference in feel when seating the bullet on a lightly compressed powder charge.
With a 50% or better case full of powder and the bullet seated a good .300” deep in the case you know powder position was not an issue.
This leaves very little to cause a problem. It is unlikely there is a problem with the can of powder due to the other loads shooting as expected. No secondary indication such as strange smell or color of powder.
What did your friend do to soften his alloy?
If you do not have a lead hardness tester, scratch the base of the bullet with your finger nail and put your “big eyes” on the scratch.
Take a look at the forcing cone of your friends revolver and look for leading, cracks etc.

[geargnasher]

41Mag, I believe Felix is referring to secondary explosion effect.

Gear

[41mag]

This leaves very little to cause a problem. It is unlikely there is a problem with the can of powder due to the other loads shooting as expected. No secondary indication such as strange smell or color of powder.
What did your friend do to soften his alloy?
If you do not have a lead hardness tester, scratch the base of the bullet with your finger nail and put your “big eyes” on the scratch.
Take a look at the forcing cone of your friends revolver and look for leading, cracks etc.

I checked the hardness on two of them using my Cabine Tree and got an 80 on one and 82 on the other. They were both tested on the side since they were HP's and it's recommended not to check them on the bottoms. This would put them both right in the ball park of aged WW on the chart or a 14bhn.

As for hardening or softening of his ally, he is pouring with 4 different alloys. One is Isotope Ingot alloy, one is Iso Core alloy, one is 1-20, and the other is Lyman #2 both from Rotometals. He is air cooling and water quenching about 25 boolits each, from each alloy, simply to see if one excels over another in accuracy from his revolver. He also has a Cabine Tree Tester, and said that around 22bhn has been the hardest he has shot so far.

He had cleaned his revolver really well prior to heading up for the weekend. When done he swabbed the bore with a patch smeared with Alox simply to precondition it prior to shooting.


41Mag, I believe Felix is referring to secondary explosion effect.

Gear

I have had that in the back of my mind, and in fact mentioned it to my friend when he called the first time. My thought was that possibly the primer punched the boolit hard enough to start it into the funnel of the cylinders chamber, where it stopped, before the powder completely lit off causing just that. This said I personally would think this would at least cause somewhat of a weird report or somewhat of a hang fire.

The only time I have experienced anything close was using a compressed charge of 296 and a magnum primer. Not even sure that's what happened then but I DO know that it popped, then went BOOM with plenty more authority than some others I had previously shot. There was a millisecond in between the time I heard and felt the primer pop and the main charge go off. Totally different type of situation I realize but the only other situation I can compare to.

Back to the pulled cartridge, I measured down from the mouth of the case to the top of the powder using my calipers, where I got right at .5". Then I dumped the powder out and measured from the case mouth to the bottom where I got 1.085". Then I measured from the bottom of the boolit to the crimp groove and I got .335", which when subtracted from one another would leave a .250" area between the powder and boolit base. Personally I would think this would need to be considerably more to cause the SEE, especially in a straight walled case. Of course I might be way off base as well.

One other thought was that possibly the powder charge had been positioned so that the primer flame went across the majority of it while it was laying flat in the case, which caused more of it to light off at once thereby causing a more rapid build up of pressure. But after seeing how much of the case was actually filed by the powder when I pulled the boolit, I simply cannot bring myself to this conclusion.

[btroj]

SEE can easily be caused by a lack of bullet pull with some powders. A crimp alone doesn't work, you need a snug fit between bullet and case wall.

I would not expect any difference in the sound of a round with or without SEE, except the ones with would be far more noticeable in muzzle blast. I wouldn't expect any hang fire or delay. It doesn't take that long for the bullet to move, stop, and get going again.

[bearcove]

With the confirmation of the powder weight on the remaining three loads you can be reasonably certain it was not a double charge. A double charge would have filled the case to the point of 100% load density or more probably, light compression. The double charge would have been obvious to even a causal glance at the charged cases. There would have been a difference in feel when seating the bullet on a lightly compressed powder charge.
With a 50% or better case full of powder and the bullet seated a good .300” deep in the case you know powder position was not an issue.
This leaves very little to cause a problem. It is unlikely there is a problem with the can of powder due to the other loads shooting as expected. No secondary indication such as strange smell or color of powder.
What did your friend do to soften his alloy?
If you do not have a lead hardness tester, scratch the base of the bullet with your finger nail and put your “big eyes” on the scratch.
Take a look at the forcing cone of your friends revolver and look for leading, cracks etc.

The idea that you did not find a double charged case, eliminates the possibility of that being the cause is absurd! The assumtion that casual QC would prevent is the same. It didn't feel different is very casual.

The concept of a double charge is that it happens ocasionally! NOT EVERY TIME!

Very ocasionally! I've been reloading for 35 years and have not done it yet. Much less twice in 6 rounds!

SEE is not likely with these powders.

[mstarling]

Oh my!

I have an original H&G 256 6 gang mold and have shot a **** load of bullets cast with it. Have used a bunch of #5 and assorted other powders. But never #5 with the 256. Almost always Unique, #9, 2400 or H110.

You won't get consistent double charges. Powder bridging won't be consistent. Something systematically wrong here. Weigh the charges and then check the balance ... did you really weigh 10.7 grains?

[william iorg]

Bearcove, I bow to you expertise.
I was not speaking (writing) in absolutes - the individual we are discussing appears to be a reasonably well experienced reloader, even a moderately experienced reloader will look at his cases after charging them and before seating a bullet. It is reasonable too assume - yes an assumption - that he would see a 21.4 grain charge in a 41 Magnum case and recognize the powder charge in this case does not look like the others.
The odds of his having the two double charge loads next to each other in the cylinder are not astronomical -but they are high. If his powder measure was bridging there would be a low charge in one of the cases and this does not apper to have happened. It does seem logical that a double charge can be taken out of or at least, relegated to the bottom of the list of possibilities.
His alloy is hard enough that he is not sluging the throat so that possibility may also be eliminated.
Low bullet pull and rough throats have caused pressure spikes in rifles. Low bullet pull could cause a bullet to move forward and cause slow ignition and it is worth invstigation. The question could be asked, were the bullets difficult to pull?

[Dark Helmet]

Is it possible that the ammo was allowed to get hot before loading and firing?

[bearcove]

I also think that powder bridging is a myth. I use powder measures from various companies and then trickle my powder in the pan on the scale to finish the charge. For all my reloads. I do everything in a single stage press. Everything from flake to stick powder is fairly consistant. Granted some meter better than others I have never encountered a bridging in a powder measure. Maybe only 4 or 500,000 reloads but a short charge followed by a heavy charge would have been noticable.

Operator error is much more likely.

[Hoghound]

First of all I would like to thank everyone for their responses and putting heads together to try and figure this out. I was told that AA#5 was not temp sensitive from single digits to triple digits. Down here in east Texas the weather can change up and down rapidly certain times of the year not to mention the elevations, humidity, and baro pressures associated with that's what turned me on to this powder.

Its just like Mikie told it...I was trying to develope a consistent (sd) load from 1150 to 1200 fps. Im not into wrist twisters and fire belching big boomers anymore. I was shooting a conservitive 10.7 grs. of AA#5, cci-300's, Iso ingots air cooled 216gr. hollow points lubed with 45,45,10 lube. Starline cases trimmed to 1.280 and very little crimp loaded off my Dillon 550 press. Velocities were 1160,1160,1162,1162,1165,1167. I put 4 through the same hole and the other 2 were cutting the edge of the other group at 50 yards off a rest a month ago. Last weekend loading the same load but different alloy a/c Iso core things went south.

Im thinking this powder is temp sensitive. A month ago we were getting temps at night in the mid 60s and during the day in the high 70's. This past weekend the temps at night were in the mid to high 70's and during the day high 90's. I had the powder in my machine shop inside the barn. It's a metal barn with no shade, so it would be safe to say temps inside the shop exceeded 100*f.

A few years ago Mike and I were into long range shooting. I loaded my 300 rum with 185 vld bullets at 3400fps with RL-25 temps in the low 60's. During the middle of the day (high 80's) he spotted some hogs and took the rifle to pick one off. After he squeezed off the round he came back and said what did you load in that thing. I told him this is what I did with it this morning and showed him a 1 hole group fired at 300 yards with logged chronoed velocities 3400 and no pressure signs what so ever. So I sat down behind it and squeezed a round off. She was running 3700 and could not get the bolt open till the case cooled off. Changed powders and never had another issue. Bottom line RL-25 is temp sensitive in that 300 rum in my location. This AA#5 Is like dayjavoo again. I understand the week link is human error, but in this case I assure you that it was not. One thing I ain't gonna do is squeeze off another round of that lot to proove a point. Thanks again for any responses or imput. I'm going to contact AA tomorrow.

[geargnasher]

I have had that in the back of my mind, and in fact mentioned it to my friend when he called the first time. My thought was that possibly the primer punched the boolit hard enough to start it into the funnel of the cylinders chamber, where it stopped, before the powder completely lit off causing just that. This said I personally would think this would at least cause somewhat of a weird report or somewhat of a hang fire. I've never experienced the SEE, but I would expect the same thing, some stutter or delay. A person can detect a surpisingly small gap in time between events such as lock time or hangfire.

The only time I have experienced anything close was using a compressed charge of 296 and a magnum primer. Not even sure that's what happened then but I DO know that it popped, then went BOOM with plenty more authority than some others I had previously shot. There was a millisecond in between the time I heard and felt the primer pop and the main charge go off. Totally different type of situation I realize but the only other situation I can compare to.

Back to the pulled cartridge, I measured down from the mouth of the case to the top of the powder using my calipers, where I got right at .5". Then I dumped the powder out and measured from the case mouth to the bottom where I got 1.085". Then I measured from the bottom of the boolit to the crimp groove and I got .335", which when subtracted from one another would leave a .250" area between the powder and boolit base. Personally I would think this would need to be considerably more to cause the SEE, especially in a straight walled case. Of course I might be way off base as well. I don't know for sure. I was only trying to clarify what I thought Felix meant, and I could be wrong about that, too. I don't really think it would be SEE with the components used.

One other thought was that possibly the powder charge had been positioned so that the primer flame went across the majority of it while it was laying flat in the case, which caused more of it to light off at once thereby causing a more rapid build up of pressure. But after seeing how much of the case was actually filed by the powder when I pulled the boolit, I simply cannot bring myself to this conclusion.

A case more than half full of that kind of powder ought to light off just fine. This is still a mystery to me, but the only explanation I can offer is bad powder at this point.

As far as powder bridging goes, I've never had it happen either, but I take special precautions against it at all times.

Gear

[runfiverun]

heat and a magnum primer will jack up pressures with some of accurates powders.
[double based ball powders]
why do you think winchester dropped 680?
i had the same thing happen with aa-2230 in my 30-30.
i got a bunch of win mag primers for 10 bucks a k and was shooting them up in my savage 340a
the weather warmed up and i thought i was shooting a 30-06.
not only did i drop the mag primers i also lowered the load 2 grains permanently.

[william iorg]

“I do everything in a single stage press.”

We are of like minds on presses. I too use a single stage press or a hand press for all of my loading. I seat bullets as I charge cases.
I shoot quite a bit of low velocity ammunition – often loaded with fast powders in large cases – a double charge would spell disaster. I have never had a problem but I take a cautious approach with reduced loads,

[rhbrink]

“I do everything in a single stage press.”

We are of like minds on presses. I too use a single stage press or a hand press for all of my loading. I seat bullets as I charge cases.
I shoot quite a bit of low velocity ammunition – often loaded with fast powders in large cases – a double charge would spell disaster. I have never had a problem but I take a cautious approach with reduced loads,

Me too!

[Hoghound]

OK got off the phone with the Accurate Tech. I gave him the powder lot# and he checked it against their standard. He said it came out to be -.3% on pressure and -.1% on velocity. We went down the list of possibilities that maybe I done wrong he could come up with and his take on it was that since I had a minimum crimp that there must have been a pre mature shot start. It's hard to believe that this powder could have went bad or that temp sensitive.

Being this is a bottom end load I do not see a problem of loading one more round with a tighter crimp and give it one more try. If it was a middle or top end range load I would not even think about it and move on. I really hate unsolved issues and would like to solve this. What do y'all think.

[paul h]

Sometimes bottom end loads are more dangerous than top end loads.

If I had a two instances of unexplained high pressure loads with a given powder in a given gun, I would discontinue using that powder for that gun.

Depending on the gun, sticky extraction loads are in the 60,000 psi range. How many times do you want those fire cracker loads going off in your gun, in your hands? I wouldn't chance it two out of three.

$20 worth of powder, a $700 handgun, and a priceless pair of hands even with medical insurance you'll be out $1000's for any sort of surgery, if it can repair the damage from a gun coming apart from an over pressure load.

[41mag]

In talking with my bud, (Hoghound), the both of us DO appreciate and want to thank you all, for the comments and advice given in this thread.

Neither of us are of the mindset to intentionally set out to hurt ourselves or our equipment in any way, form, or fashion, quite the opposite. This was why I was asked to post about the issue with this powder form the get go.

This said, and as has been mentioned, there have been many pounds of this particular powder, and other AA powders through several calibers of handguns between the two of us over the past 25yrs with nary an issue. When there WAS an issue we could easily put a finger on it as to the reason. We don't walk the wicked line of top end charges, nor do we slink along shooting mouse fart loads, we try to stick to the middle ground powder weights for caliber, and derive the most accurate loads we can for hunting.

As a result, the previous issue had us both two blocked as to a reason. We're both new to the cast boolit world so to speak, and as such we simply want to be safe. When a manufacturer listed and tested charge weight of a certain powder goes astray for no apparent reason, it caused quite a bit of concern, and we needed to get to the bottom of the root cause. Had this been a new to us powder or a charge weight off the listed data, then yes we would have considered it as bad juju, and moved on to another powder or charge weight. This simply wasn't the case. Also, had I personally been there, and seen the loads in question, before they were shot, I doubt seriously that we would have needed this post to begin with. As I mentioned we are BOTH fairly new to cast boolits, but having started off with them a year ago with my 454, I learned quite quickly, that they DO require a bit more attention to detail than the J-word cousins in regard to crimp.

In taking in the full content of this post, multiple conversations with me, and also the information given from an hours worth of conversation with the Tech Dept from Accurate Arms, Hoghound re-evaluated every step of the process yesterday evening. He dismantled and cleaned his Dillon press including the powder measure. He reset the zero on his scale and checked it with the standard. Set the powder measure to throw 10.7grs of the questioned AA-5 and verified this several times. Chose 2 cases from the batch he WAS going to load last weekend, and primed, charged, and seated the same boolits as before. At this point he changed his crimp to deliver a much more significant roll into the groove than was used on the previous questionable loads.

After a bit of comparrison to what had worked the other time with no issues, and where the crimp was on the new loads before readjusting the die, he was then confident that this was the issue. He went outside and as cautiously as he could, fired one round, then the other. He reported that the crimp was or has to be the issue, as both rounds fired as they were supposed to have. He does now fully admit that the crimp he installed on the previous couple of rounds was noticeably lacking. This would, and does make since to me at this point. I had tried to get this from him in the beginning, but he was, at that time, confident that this wasn't the issue. Of course he was also pretty shook up as well, and it took a couple of days to rewind the actual possibilities and exactly what, and how, things transpired.

Again I would like to thank everyone who presented information in this post. We're not perfect, we try hard to be, but we don't claim to be. But we also realize that when something happens, which in our minds eye shouldn't have, it's time to stop forward progress and ask someone with possibly a bit more experience, or from outside the box looking in.

One thing I have learned in the some 40yrs of handloading I have done, is that you cannot get complacent. When yo do, you get bit. When my bud and I work together on things, we check and recheck each other, on the subtle, and minor things. Each of us brings something to the table, and we have both gained from this. I can't say for sure that I have loaded handgun rounds for as long as him, but I can pretty much say with a good bit of certainty, I have developed and loaded quite a bit more in various types, weights and calibers. While this doesn't make me an expert by any means, I have learned most of what is necessary to start from scratch and build safe and accurate load. With the cast boolits, I have personally been working hard to do catch up on what I now know I should have been doing since I started shooting handguns. I still have tons to learn, but I fel that if there is one place to do it this is it. My post count isn't very big for the time I have been a member here, and there is a reason for that. I come here to read and learn, I contribute when I feel I can, and I ask questions when I don't know the answers. I'm on here every day, both before work and after for at least some time period, and while I might not have been casting for long, I think for a rookie, I'm gaining ground fast.

Thanks again, hopefully this information will help out someone else, on down the road.

[Lloyd Smale]

dont have a clue about the cause but if it were me id be looking real closely at that gun and especialy the cylinder. Good chance its bulged or weakened.

[runfiverun]

SEE can easily be caused by a lack of bullet pull with some powders. A crimp alone doesn't work, you need a snug fit between bullet and case wall.

I would not expect any difference in the sound of a round with or without SEE, except the ones with would be far more noticeable in muzzle blast. I wouldn't expect any hang fire or delay. It doesn't take that long for the bullet to move, stop, and get going again.

the neck tension is far more important than the crimp.
you might be able to reconcile the difference with boolit diameter another .001 in diameter would be that much more neck tension.
size isn't always just for fit.

[nanuk]

The concept of a double charge is that it happens ocasionally! NOT EVERY TIME!


can you Double charge more often than every second one??? and then the even's would have ZERO powder...



41Mag, I believe Felix is referring to secondary explosion effect.

Gear


But SEE, if seen only very infrequently, how does that explain the 6 in a row?

Recoil should eliminate SEE from the second shot, as the powder would be thrown back and the muzzle elevated up to seat powder on to the primer. Unless the shooters technique is to drop the muzzle each time before bringing it back up into sighting view...