ETR7 Testing

[jonp]

I picked up some ETR7 a few weeks ago and had a chance to test some out today.

Weather: 51, sunny
Gun: SW 15-4 38sp
Boolit: Lee 140gr SWC
Alloy: 50:50
Lube: BLL
Powder: 3.2gr ETR7
Primers: Fiocchi SPP
Brass: Random
OAL: 1.425/in crimp groove with moderate crimp

First this is what ETR7 looks like compared to other powders of a similar type which is flake.

156098

As you can see ETR7 is the largest flake of the bunch with Universal the smallest, Unique and Promo tied and ETR7 the largest and a distinct greenish/gray color. The flakes are uniform with few bigger or smaller than average so they are pretty much uniform in size.

I started out with 3.0gr ETR7 with all the other factors the same as listed above. The powder was dirty with slight leading and so so accuracy. The recoil was non-existent. 3.2gr cleaned up and 3.4 was also clean with a nice kick.

I concentrated on 3.2gr as it was very clean and accurate enough for me. The Velocity readings Ranged from 620.9 - 778.5 with an avg of 709.47. Throwing out the highest and lowest the avg was 711.91 so not much change. There was slight leading at the beginning of the barrel which I think another coat of BLL will clean up. A couple of scrubs with copper choir boy took it right out. There was very little powder residue. Using a standard military M16A2/M16A4 25 Meter Zeroing Target (thanks daughter for getting me a milk crate of ones they were throwing out) at 10 paces I kept all in the black with no trouble.

In summary: this is one of the cleanest powders I've ever tried. I think that playing with the oal and a couple of other boolit types maybe a WC and Lee 125gr is worth a try and should give stellar accuracy. I have some Berry 158gr plated HP I'm also going to try.

[Artful]

Yep, burns clean - I've tried it in 45 acp - 45-70 and I'll get another 8 lbs when this gets close to gone if still available.

[jonp]

Artful, 357 and 45ACP are next up. I'm going to try some in the 45LC for kicks.

[bangerjim]

I use it in 9/38/357/40/44/45ACP/45LC with great success ( non-magnum loads). Also plinking in 223 and 30's.

Clean and very forgiving.

No matter what the powder, if you uber-lite load it, it will be dirty, but even then, this stuff is cleaner than any other powder I have lite-loaded! At normal loading, there is virtually NO gunk!

And with PC and correct-fit boolits, I never have any leading.

banger

[Artful]

If anyone in Phoenix AZ wants to get a group buy going again I'm in.

[Yodogsandman]

If anyone in Phoenix AZ wants to get a group buy going again I'm in.

There's four distributers listed that are located right in AZ.

http://expansion-industries.com/current-distributors

[Artful]

Well Hey, Thanks for pointing that out - I'll have to check pricing.

[jonp]

I'm pretty sure that even with the shipping it was still less than $20/lb. I'm going to try some jwords with it to compare with the data in the lymans 49 listed with titegroup as the company says its a little slower than titegroup but to use titegroup data. Raining today, again, so a good day to load some up then head to the garage for melting down some lead.

[jonp]

More Testing. To test if it is comparable to Titegroup I took a load directly from Lymans #49 which used a 125gr JHP and 4.0gr Titegroup. This produced a velocity of 816fps.

Replicating this load I used the following:
Hornady 125gr XTP JHP #35710
4.0gr ETR7
Fiocchi SPP
Random brass
OAL 1.47 (same as book)

I got the following readings: ERR/661.4/731.5/780.1/644.4/ERR/494.6/742.0/ERR/ERR
The load was squeaky clean.
I seemed to get a greater variation in velocity than I like. The sub-500fps was well under the others and I'm not sure what happened. I weighed all charges on an electronic scale by hand. The ERROR reading velocities were unknown but the recoil seemed to be similar to the 700fps ones.

I noticed something that will require further testing. When I tipped the handgun muzzle up prior to shooting the recoil went up and there was a sharper report. This may indicate the powder is position sensitive. I'll try this again keeping the muzzle up between shots to settle the powder against the primer and I will try different primers. I have Rem, WSP, Tula, Wolf and S&B on hand besides the Fiocchi.

[Yodogsandman]

jonp, Just how accurate is that digital scale? From what I understand, beam type scales are normally +/- .10 grains and most digitals will go +/- .20 grains. With the tight loading window, could this have caused the velocity variation?

While I haven't done any shooting, yet. I loaded some test rounds with ETR7 in 45ACP. It was tough to get the powder measure set just right using my scales. Very little movement of the metering screw would cause weights to be off by 1/2 grain either way. Those big flakes might be why. I normally have no problems setting it up for other powders like Bullseye or Unique. Because I'm more interested in a light target load right now, I used 200gr SWC and Tite Group load data which listed 1/2 grain under the ETR7 starting load data from Expansion Industries.

[jonp]

my scale is +/- .1gr. It reads pretty consistent and I calibrate before each loading session with a 50gr weight. I've tested it several times by weighing 5 charges, shutting off the scale and turning it back on and re-weighing and it weighs within the .1gr usually heavy. The pan I use weighs 66.7grains and is not off much. If I put it on empty and it says 66.8 or 66.9gr I'll take it off and put it back on until it says 66.7 again. I wonder, though. It's a Franklin and didn't cost much but I've never had a problem with it. Both of my beam scales are at my hunting camp. It might be time for an upgrade.

The 200gr SWC or RNFP is all I use in my 45ACP anymore and it's my most frequent plinking weight for my 45LC using the same boolit.

[jim8115]

I have been using CSB-1 , which I think is the same thing.It seems to be a bit slower that titegroup ( my batch anyway ) I found adding a bit more crimp dropped the spread way down

JIM

[jim8115]

4" Mod 10






158 ZERO LSWCHP
shot1
767
HI
790


4.0 Nr485
shot2
750
LOW
750



med crimp
shot3
790
AVERAGE
773.6



shot4
782





shot5
779
SPREAD
40



shot6






shot7

STD DEV
15.566

[Yodogsandman]

Got to shoot my first 45ACP rounds with the ETR7 and I like it. My skill level is just above beginner and my first careful shots were a nice cluster of overlapping holes of about an inch at 10 yards. After that, oh well, I'm sure it wasn't the ammo! The load used was a 200gr Lyman 452460 sized .452" with a coat of Bens Liquid Lube, 4.5 gr ETR7 and ignited by WLP primers. Note that this charge was using the Titegroup starting load which is 0.5 gr less than Expansion Industries starting ETR7 load. My RIA full size 1911 functioned perfectly with no failures to load or fire and the slide locked back after the last round. Fired cases were cleaner than I've seen using Bullseye and there was no leading. I noticed that I didn't have any burnt powder on my hands after shooting, too. For now, this is going to be my light target load. Loaded up another 60 rounds using the NOE 453-200 SWC (HG 68 clone) to try next since the powder measure was still set up for 4.5 gr ETR7.

[MT Gianni]

Is there any problem about hanging up with that large of grain size? I know Unique can do so.

[bangerjim]

Any large flake powder can hang up in various brands of powder measure devices. I have very little problem. Occasionally on my SAECO, the lever will show slight resistance but nothing bad. I have several other powders that do the same thing.

The only one I have that never does that is X-Termiator ball powder!

banger

[Yodogsandman]

It took a bit to get the powder measure set up right due to the large flake size, I think. After it was all set up, I didn't notice any problems. I use a RCBS Uniflow with a large drum and don't have any problems using Unique powder through it, either. My standard procedure with pistol powders is to drop ten charges in the scale pan and then measure the weight. In this case, ten charges dropped in the pan weighed 45 gr for a case charge of 4.5gr each. I also let the handle smack the stops uniformly on both the upstroke and downstroke. I drop all the charges into the cases placed in the loading block and then check for uniform height of the charge with a flashlight before setting boolits into the mouth of the cases and seating. Works for me, YMMV.