Everyone tell me it's gonna be ok

[paraord]

Edit/update-This was a newbie and a chrono placed too close. Thanks everyone for helping me figure out that was the issue, not some gross miscalculation of powder.

I have no idea how this happened. I load 17.9 grains of aa#9 and it's about 1400 fps from my superblackhawk 7.5. I was shooting and one felt different, went to the chrono........2058......I crapped myself and have been pulling every bullet on every 44 I have loaded.

What kind of damage points should I be looking at. The brass didn't show obvious signs of overpressure. I don't know if I had shot any other mistake rounds or not so where do I look and for what to make sure I didn't murder my SBH.


I'll be pulling bullets for a while.


Edit/update- it sounds like I was too close to the chrono (8 feet), inexperience and overreaction.

[44MAG#1]

Have you ever entertained the idea that was an erroneous reading?
At that increase in velocity you would have had to have used a hammer and brass rod to pound the case out if the cylinder was intact.
Common Sense prevails in loading and shooting and the results.

[victorfox]

Well i'm no expert in Rugers but seems you need a double charge a sledge blow and running over it with a tractor to destroy a SBH... :kidding:

I would suggest you pull the boolits and weigh all the charges to be sure. How do you measure your loads?

Because I'm chicken I use a scoop and load the brass over a digital scale so i reduce the risk of over or double charging it.

I wouldn't worry SBH have a ton of metal at cylinder walls and have the reputation of being fanks. Good luck

[2ndAmendmentNut]

My money is on a bad chronograph reading. Be sure you set it up correctly and stood the proper distance away. Did the loads feel obscenely hot? 2000fps from a handgun would have been a handful.

[paraord]

I may have gotten 3 readings over 2k, an error 1 and an error 2 on my chrony. I'll check those errors but I checked the powder charge and it was around 16 grains but I'm sure some went by the wayside in the bullet pulling.

[MostlyLeverGuns]

Weigh the loaded rounds, looking for something far off the average. Electronic scale helps for this. Unusual high or low can be pulled. most are probably good. Weigh some, then pull them just to set a baseline. Might not need to pull every one.

[M-Tecs]

The brass didn't show obvious signs of overpressure..

No overpressure on the brass no overpressure on the gun. I would not worry about it.

[paraord]

Alright I only pulled 20 rounds or so. I'll get out the digital scale and look for something way out of wack. Probably a false reading, maybe I was a bit too close? Anyways this was my knee jerk reaction. I normally set my uniflow to a hair under 17.9 then trickle the rest in a 5 0 5 scale.
Brass came out just fine so it makes more sense to be a false reading instead of a crazy hot load. I think max for aa9 is a compressed load anyways and a double charge would almost be 36 grains, non way thst could fit in there. Glad you guys are here to talk some sense into a newbie like me. I really do appreciate it.

[HeavyMetal]

Muzzle blast will trigger the front screen on my Crony, I glued some balsa wood to the steel up rights and used push pins to hold construction paper ( wedge shaped) to the front up right.

Triggering by muzzle blast went away instantly! I also started using the crony at 12 foot from the muzzle.

I always star the run with 6 rounds out of my 6 inch Diamondback 22, if they do not run 995 FPS like clock work I move the crony away from the muzzle end of the gun!

Again 12 foot seems to be best.

[DerekP Houston]

Did you leave your rounds in the car before hitting the range? Hot bullets make my 45 kick like a mule with the same charge as normal.

[paraord]

Wasn't too hot today, fortunate enought to have my range all of a few hundred feet fromy my back deck. But I'm thinking I've pin pointed it to muzzle blast and too close. A few (after measuring it out ) were as close as 8 feet instead of 10. I'll hold off on the pulling of more bullets and go 12 feet and see what happens tomorrow. Didn't see enough deviation in total round weight to raise an eyebrow. Maybe that first one to make me wonder was just a tad over my normal. Maybe it was going from the special load to the hot load that made me go back to the chrono. Too close and boom, inexperience lead to panic.

[DerekP Houston]

better safe than sorry, I've got no shame breaking down rounds after a foul up. Even if 99% came out fine....

[WFO2]

No over pressure signs probably ok however to be safe I would pull them .

[9.3X62AL]

An ounce of prevention beats a ton of cure. It sounds like a chronograph anomaly to me. Do what makes you feel comfortable in terms of safety checks and quality control on your loaded rounds. Satisfy yourself in this regard--weigh what gets posted here in context with your shooting experience specific to this lot of cartridges.

[Scharfschuetze]

Chronographs can be a bit finicky at times. Light and particularly distance can give faulty readings. If your screens were too close, they may have measured the high pressure gasses that pass the bullet up once it's out of the muzzle.

[44MAG#1]

As I said in post #2 if you had a load in a case in a 44 Mag that got that much velocity you would have had to beat the case out of the gun.
I believe in being cautious but tempered with COMMON SENSE.
Think about it for a few minutes and you will "get it".
If we didn't utilize being cautious with common sense we would never get out of the house would we?

[44man]

What does no. 9 do? How does it handle gun heat? I never used it but the 4227's would do that in the .44.
If a 240 gr with 17.5 gr, book shows 1257 fps from the SBH.
Could be gas or smoke over the screens.

[ole 5 hole group]

My money is on a bad chrono reading - if you ever get a reading from a chrono again displaying that velocity from a 44 Magnum, you will also feel the difference and everyone on the line will hear the difference in the report - then you know something out of the "normal" happened. In your case, you figured out the problem - my 1st skyscreen is 15 feet from the muzzle and on rare occasion, the sonic/blast wave will arrive a tad before the bullet and raise hell with my readings.

[Shuz]

FWIW--I've been shooting .44 mag loads over an Oehler 33 chronograph for about 30 years. Every once in a while I get a reading that is way high like you did. I just hit the "forget" button on the chrono and move on since everything else looked and felt right.

[FergusonTO35]

Every once in awhile my chrono starts consistently reading way low or way high. I just delete the string, turn off and turn on, and everything is back to normal.

[w5pv]

Better safe than sorry

[Blackwater]

I'm thinking the comments about the muzzle blast being what was recorded rather than the bullet is most likely. Still, it's scary. I happen to be one of the few who've managed to blow up a Super Blackhawk, and it ain't easy, believe me! What I did to do that was load up several hundred rounds with W-231 for practice before deer season, and when I shot them up, came back. What I didn't realize is that in a very late night loading session when I loaded the 231 rounds, I'd out of force of habit poured the 231 from my powder measure into my old near empty can of 2400, thus setting myself up for what happened. Then, when I came back to load my "deer loads," I took my can of what I THOUGHT was 2400, and loaded 22.3 gr. of the powder in that can (actually 231 now) behind a 240 gr. JHP. That's almost exactly a double charge, and it sounded quite different when I fired the first round. When I saw that the cylinder under the hammer had blown out, and the one on the left next to it, I squatted down "injun" style on the ground to avoid falling down due to my legs failing me! I instantly knew what I'd done, but it took some real research to find my error. After about a week of mulling it all over, I finally figured it out by pouring some of the powder out and comparing it to the 231, and it matched the appearance exactly. Powders DO look different, and often significantly, and once I knew what I'd done, it was easy then to look back and figure out how it had happened.

You can believe that I NOW check the appearance of whatever powder I'm using before corking the cases! Once burnt, a lesson learnt!!! But in your case, if there was no damage to the gun and the vel. reading was 2000+ fps., I'm thinking it was just a result of having the chrono too close to the muzzle, and you got a reading on the shock wave of the gasses in the muzzle blast instead of the actual bullet. Try placing the chrono further from the muzzle, and these anomaly readings should go away. I don't think you can get enough #9 in the case to blow up a Super Blackhawk, but you might get an overload. If you did that, there'd be pressure signs like flattened or cratered primers. I suspect it's just a lesson in how to set up and use a chrono, but it's still scary when you get a reading like that. Blow up one gun, and you really get kind'a sensitive to things like that!!!

[charlie b]

Better to be safe.....

But, you inititally said that one round 'felt' different in addition to the reading. So, could have been something that caused that.

I was firing some hot loads in my .45 Colt BH. Blue Dot powder. Third or fourth cylinder full and I get an awful kick, blast and the chronograph read 1700fps (the others were in the 1300fps range, 7 1/2" bbl). I learned that Blue Dot is one of those powders that does not like a low volume in a case. Turned out it was my shooting technique that made the difference. Most of the time I raise the muzzle, cock the hammer as it comes down to the target. Powder lays nicely against the primer. On that round for some reason I pointed the gun down and cocked it on the way up. Powder is up against the bullet and free space all around the primer. I fired others from that bunch in my normal manner and had no other problems. Stopped using Blue Dot in that load.

[44man]

I feel any ball powder must be treated the same as 296/H110. Reduce the airspace. No 9 shows light charges since it is faster, I would try a filler.
How about the primer? What about case tension? Did the boolit get forced out from the primer before the powder ignited? That increases airspace, plugs the bore and could cause an SEE event. Pressure sky rockets and only the gap of the revolver saves the gun.
Primers in revolvers are no indication of pressures, only sticky brass will tell. Revolvers can have flat primers with normal pressures, function of head space only.
Since 1980 I only use the fed 150 in my .44's and .45 Colt but a WW primer works in the .45 because the case is larger. Not a full mag.
I have never had the inclination to use no 9. Nothing better then 2400 or 296.
I have many accurate powders and never got any to work like I want.

[44MAG#1]

This thread goes on and on. The increase in velocity he said the chrono showed was 2058 fps. That would have been 47% increase in velocity with probably on the average anywhere from 1.5 time to 2 times that in pressure. Good grief that 2058 is more than a 7.5 inch 454 Casull would give with a wide flat open load.
In a 44 Mag with that type of increase in velocity he would have had close to the recoil of a 454 Casull. Remember you don't get something for nothing in ballistics ever.
It was an erroneous reading and he should have known that through COMMON SENSE.
Here we have everyone giving reasons why it could have happened and we know he did not get 2058 fps on that shot to begin with.
Proper instruction would be to show him how to come to a logical and reasonable decision as to why not to panic due to controlled dillegence in reasonable thinking.

[paraord]

Common sense, which is what I have since used since posting this with the guidance of you all. Coming to a logical conclusion. Yes I panicked as I said in my original thread, I am far less experienced in this (casting and reloading) than an overwhelming majority of you all, and that played a heavy hand in my panic and less than level headed thinking. I am also incredibly careful in reloading and my powder measures.

I updated the original thread but Im not sure everyone still posting read that update. I am now sure it was an issue of too close to the chrono as process of elimination would have dictated (and most of you suggested). A double charge of AA#9 would not have fit in that casing no matter what so it would not have been that. My scale might have been bumped so my zero could have been off a hair, give or take a quarter grain. Not nearly enough to do destructive damage on the low end of the published load data for that round.

It just makes sense that it was a chrono placement issue. I'm a newbie, I dont have any friends or family who do this so I come to the collective you for guidance. No amount of reading can replace good old experience. I can assure you this scenario will not happen again and if I do get an obviously outrageous reading with no signs of overpressure (the casings came out with barely a tap from the ejector) I will draw this conclusion again from my experience.

Again I really do appreciate you all and helping me figure out the true root cause, and I am glad it was something as easy as where the chronograph was placed. An error I am not likely to repeat, or at least increase my blood pressure about.

[44man]

Just an erroneous reading with gas or smoke over the chrono. If brass came out easy you are OK.
Now if you are shooting and get boolits hitting much lower then you have a real velocity increase.
Ever have a revolver register over 4000 fps?

[Blackwater]

Har! You think YOU panicked? Try actually blowing up a gun some time! Now THAT is PANIC! Good to see you got it all solved successfully and accurately. It's easy to get stymied sometimes in our loading. It can be a bit intimidating too, but you sought good advice - the same thing I did after blowing up my gun. I just KNEW I hadn't made a mistake. But I did. Very humbling! But it's probably kept me from making many more mistakes since then, though. As the old saying goes, "Once burnt, a lesson learnt." But when you get the kind of readings you did initially, that is REALLY cause to suspend shooting until you find out the reason. Ya' done good, sir. It's good it all worked out well in the end. One day, you may be able to use this to help someone else. It's just how us shooters have always done what we do - pass it among ourselves. There just really aren't any real "secrets" in shooting or reloading. It's all about what we do, and our judgment in doing it.

[jetinteriorguy]

I wouldn't call your reaction a panic. With more experience you will gain the common sense to understand what is happening. It's all about the learning curve and your just starting to get it. Being very cautious isn't a bad thing.