Learned something new yesterday

[Lloyd Smale]

an old dog was taught a new trick! I was allways one that preached that wc820 ran fine with std primers. Id allways got good accuracy but tened to use pretty much full density loads. My buddy and i have about identical 4 5/8s super blackhawks and have both been playing with 250s and wc820 in them. When i got to his house yesterday he had his ohler set up. (i hate setting up chronograghs) We first shot 18 grains using a 250 kieth and ww primers and were getting velocitys as low as 850. I knew something was wrong and told him he needed to check his chrono as one screen wasnt working. He told me that he had just tested a bunch of loads and they were right in line with what he had gotten before. we decided to try cci 350s and low and behold velocity jumped over 300 fps and deiveation was down to 30 fps instead of 200! I allways though ww were a farely stout primer and i even used fed std primers with it. Live and learn!! it was 65 degrees out and id about bet it would have even got worse if it were colder. I guess ill pull my foot out of my mouth and start using ccis with 820 exclusively now.

[Bullshop]

Lloyd
I cant disagre with you as I know full well sometimes the mag primer is the best way to go. With that said I would about bet that had you stayed with the standard primer and worked the load to a higher pressure you would have gotten the same type of results. Maybe not exactly the same or even as good but the same type of results. Any and all of the slowerish mag pistal rate ball powders seem to require fairly high pressure for good burn. For me these powders have a very limited window of application which is at the high end (magnum) of loads with any boolit weight and work best with heavier weights. Once you drop under that narrow pressure window you get the poor results you were seeing. Going to the mag primer and seeing better results is an indicater that the pressure was too low with the standerd primer. Many many times in a case of this nature when I rework the load with the standerd primer it turns out to be the most accurate load.
Give each primer equal billing and work the load to the top end using your chronograph and you may be surprised again. Or maybe not, the fun is in the trying.
BIC/BS

[TCLouis]

I have an older Lot of 820 and I get box stock velocities with full loads of 820 and 429421 with WLPs.

18.5 and the Lee C429-310 is the MOST accurate load I have ever shot out of my SRH and NO FUN at all out of the SBH.

[ace1001]

I use 19gr as a .45 magnum load and 18.2 is the min. load for it to burn completely with 250 g slug. Maybe it wasn't burning completely. I think 19 is a great load to shoot in a Vaquero. What was no fun? I shoot one handed, little finger under the butt. Now 25g in the old Vaquero wanted to twist out of my hand and I shoot it only in Rossi 92s now. Ace

[Lloyd Smale]

no doubt you have a good point. As I increase powder charge extream spreads shrank substantialy. Problem is that recoil increases too. I usually load for loads in my handguns for hunting that push cast bullets at about 11-1200 fps. I probably could have kicked them in the but a little and got away with std primers. I guess i dont see why people insist on using std primers in loads anyway. For the most part mag primers are no more expensive and lately with the primer shortage are probably easier to find the std primers. When i work up a load for a gun. I pick a bullet weight, style and velocity i want to use and usually try a few old reliable combinations to get there. I just have to many handguns and loads to work up to waste much more time then that on it. So many things that can effect accuracy i dont have time for. Like doing alot of switching alloys, lubes crimp stenghts ect. Usually its 3 or 4 powders 3 or 4 bullets and maybe 3 different primers and if i cant get a 6 gun to shoot doing that its usually not going to shoot anyway and down the road it goes. To me a guy can get to anal about working up loads. Its fine if you have one or two handguns and have years to fool with it. I used to spend almost the whole summer loading and benching trying to get that extra 1/4 inch off the group size but realized in the field it means nothing and other then learning good trigger control its a waste of time as to gaining skills with a handgun. To me if a 6 gun will do an honest 12 shots into 1.5 inch at 25 yards im tickled pink. With my old eyes i have problems holding even that well anymore. Ive spent enough time with handguns on the bench in about any caliber that i know theres a few loads and bullets that just seem to work better then others and usually out of that experience i can find something that will shoot in about any gun.
Lloyd
I cant disagre with you as I know full well sometimes the mag primer is the best way to go. With that said I would about bet that had you stayed with the standard primer and worked the load to a higher pressure you would have gotten the same type of results. Maybe not exactly the same or even as good but the same type of results. Any and all of the slowerish mag pistal rate ball powders seem to require fairly high pressure for good burn. For me these powders have a very limited window of application which is at the high end (magnum) of loads with any boolit weight and work best with heavier weights. Once you drop under that narrow pressure window you get the poor results you were seeing. Going to the mag primer and seeing better results is an indicater that the pressure was too low with the standerd primer. Many many times in a case of this nature when I rework the load with the standerd primer it turns out to be the most accurate load.
Give each primer equal billing and work the load to the top end using your chronograph and you may be surprised again. Or maybe not, the fun is in the trying.
BIC/BS

[Bass Ackward]

We first shot 18 grains using a 250 kieth and ww primers and were getting velocitys as low as 850. I knew something was wrong.

we decided to try cci 350s and low and behold velocity jumped over 300 fps and deiveation was down to 30 fps instead of 200! I allways though ww were a farely stout primer and i even used fed std primers with it. Live and learn!! it was 65 degrees out and id about bet it would have even got worse if it were colder.

To me a guy can get to anal about working up loads. Its fine if you have one or two handguns and have years to fool with it.


Lloyd,

I find that there are no magical powders. It's all about crossing that line and the line is sometimes hard to define.

What Quickload has taught me when I program my results is that I want to select a powder or a bullet diameter so that I end up with a 80% or higher burn rate percentage in the barrel length I am shooting for PB bullets. Less .... and I need a magnum primer. That may be counter productive to what I was trying to do with my slower powder choice. Faster than 90% and I risk other issues unless bullet fit is damn good. (A GC you can do anything you want)

When I make that selection, I am good with standard primers down to about an 80% burn rate with THAT POWDER. At 80% I might expect anything to be temperature sensitive in colder weather and I need to cook it a little longer. Assuming that you were using the AA#9 slow stuff, 18 grains is right at 80% in a 4 5/8" barrel assuming "perfect" conditions. (perfect conditions are never attainable, just serve to let you know how much pressure you are losing before case / bullet sealed.)

The WC820 (fast stuff) that burns like AA#7 would be better overall in the 44 for 1200 fps or less stuff and the AA#9 (slower stuff) for the high end stuff in short barrels. Now a 7 1/2"er doesn't matter as 18 grains is 88% burn rate at 18 grains. Even a 6" is 85%. Just so you know how fast you can cross that line.

Have I ever told you how I like this program? :grin:

And Lloyd, you change guns more frequently than I change underware, so you better have a system. :grin:

[Lloyd Smale]

Bass what i have is about 8 kegs of the slow stuff and bought one of the fast kegs a while back and have yet to see it really work in anything. Ive tried it in all the mag pistol cases using hs7 data and never saw anyting that was exceptional. Ive tried heavy and light bullets and mag and standard primers but just cant seem to get the crap to work well. Granted i probably gave up early and should play more to find a load to burn the rest of it up with. Just got two new guns. A marlin 475 linebaugh 94 custom and a ruger montado so maybe ill play with it in them for something differnt. If you get a chance give me an ideal combo with it in a 18 inch 475 and a 3 3/4 45 using 400 grain 475s and 250 grain 45s. Id like to run the 45 at about 900 fps and the 475 at about 1300.

[Bass Ackward]

1. Ive tried it in all the mag pistol cases using hs7 data and never saw anyting that was exceptional. Ive tried heavy and light bullets and mag and standard primers but just cant seem to get the crap to work well. Granted i probably gave up early and should play more to find a load to burn the rest of it up with.

2. Just got two new guns. A marlin 475 linebaugh 94 custom and a ruger montado so maybe ill play with it in them for something differnt. If you get a chance give me an ideal combo with it in a 18 inch 475 and a 3 3/4 45 using 400 grain 475s and 250 grain 45s. Id like to run the 45 at about 900 fps and the 475 at about 1300.


Lloyd,

1. Oh there were no guarantees that it would shoot well at all, only that it would burn in the percentage range high enough that you wouldn't get the erratic ignition or the cold weather effects requiring a magnum primer. At least in the few cartridges I reload.

The point here was that good loads generally fell in the 80 - 90 % burn rate area with PB and I was showing you how one guy could be shooting it all day and saying what is Lloyd talking about?

2. The rifle would benefit from the slower in this case. The barrel length gives it a 97% burn rate with 19 grains. Velocity should be just at 1300 and 25,000 psi. This combo looks good on the computer. So the faster 820 would not probably be the best use here. Think shorter barrels.

Quickload doesn't list HS-7 for some reason. Strange, cause HS-6 is there. My guess on the Colt would be 13.5 grains, but only in a strong revolver.

But to get at least an 80% burn rate at the velocity you want to go in a short, 3.5" Colt, 12.5 grains of HS-6 is the slowest powder you can use and get 80% burn rate. That's 18,000 psi by the way.

[felix]

John, assume BlueDot for HS7 using the program in 38 special. What would the load be using 150s, 180's, typical crimp distance, at Plus P pressure? For 357 at 35K cup - 40K psi? Maybe we can change Lloyd's mind a little about the usefulness of that powder. ... felix

[BD]

I burned a good bit of WC 820 in full house .44 mag loads when I was in Maine. In very cold weather I had much better luck with WLPs than with CCI 350s. The 350's would occasionally give me a slight hangfire when the temps fell down around 0 deg. F.
BD

[Bass Ackward]

John, assume BlueDot for HS7 using the program in 38 special. What would the load be using 150s, 180's, typical crimp distance, at Plus P pressure? For 357 at 35K cup - 40K psi? Maybe we can change Lloyd's mind a little about the usefulness of that powder. ... felix


Felix,

Assuming BD.

38Spec+P @ 18,000
150s = 8.7 gr
180s = 7 gr

357 @ 40,000
150s = 12 gr
180s = 9.7 gr

[felix]

Try those for s..ts and grins, Lloyd! Swap primers back and forth giving the best ignitions with the low pressure loads. Keep in mind that 40K is quite warm for anything but Rugers or equivalent, so use your mildest primers for this kind of load. Use newer cases as well, unless proven otherwise in your gun(s). ... felix