Help!!!! Identify Powder charge

[swampmaster]

I hope someone can help. I have a friend that wanted me to pull down a 44 mag cart. that had a 240 grain lead GC bullet and 10.6 grains of a all black flat round disk powder. He is wanting ot make up some of these but is not sure of the powder and is trying to duplicat the load any help on what powder this might be

[rugerman1]

I'd guess Unique

[bobthenailer]

my guess would also be unique.

[looseprojectile]

Pour a little from the pulled cartridge into your hand, pour some from a suspect can of powder alongside. Use a magnifying glass or jewelers loupe and it matches or it doesn't. Keep this up until it does match. Done it this way for a loooooong time. Works for me.

[kodiak1]

Pour it in the Garbage before you really screw up and injure yourself or wreck a firearm.
Maybe this is not going the way I see it but do know two people that did go that way one wrecked a 44 Mag Ruger Blackhawk and the other has a little bit of trouble with one eye.
Ken.

[The Double D]

Partially agree with Kodiak. Don't put in the garbage. spread on the garden or lawn. Will work good there and doesn't have the potential to hurt you like trying to do a visual comparison.

[454PB]

How about trying 10.6 gr. of Unique and see if it performs the same? Obviously he likes the performance of the round you broke down.

[AZ-Stew]

Rule #1: Never try to identify a powder by sight.

Rule #2: Always get your loading info from one (or a combination of several) trustworthy reloading manuals, and do your loading with components of known identity (i.e., factory labeled).

You can buy an awful lot of manuals, factory packaged powders and factory packaged primers for the cost of a good firearm or emergency room bill. To say nothing of the cost of a civil suit for injuring someone else.

Regards,

Stew

[9.3X62AL]

I'm right with ya, Stew. Way too much that could go wrong with the scenario presented, and way too little that could go right. If the loads are otherwise safe, run them over a chronograph to get performance info, then try Unique or similar powders at the weights given in loading manuals for the performance level sought. The 44 Magnum is a VERY accurate cartridge with a wide range of powders, there's really no need to try this course of conduct.

[Greg5278]

I don't know if it is Unique. I thought Unique had yellow tag flakes in it. I would also consult a load manual to see it that charge of Unique is safe.
Greg

[swampmaster]

Well it turns out that it does look just like Unique,I will and did consult several reloading manuals for load data and the 10.6 is in the lower to starting area depending on what manual you look at. I went ahead and loaded up about 20 of them and used a cast bullet PB as I have no GC bullets or moulds that throw a rebated base and loaded down ( as he was looking for alittle softer shooting) with a average charge weight of 10.1 and a 245 grain bullet. He can try these to see if any better or worse. The one I pulled down was some old ammo I had on hand from a few years ago and he lost my reload data card.He is using my loaned 44 mag for a deer load this year

[Willbird]

If this is commercial ammo they use NON CANNISTER grades of powder, it may well not have a commercial equivelant. That said, I would just pick a balanced load and go from there. handguns are not as picky with loads as some people insist they are. It is more about consistant velocity and good bullets.

Bill

[Leftoverdj]

Where's the supposed danger?

[Poygan]

My .44s are happy with ten (10) grains of Unique with the 429421, 429244 and the RCBS 240 GC boolits. That should be a good starting place.

[looseprojectile]

You guys surprise me.
The powder manufacturers put GREAT effort and time into making each different powder LOOK different. [ Product liability].
IMHO, If you can not TRUST that which you can SEE, you have no business handling propellants.
Certainly one should always exercise ENOUGH caution and diligence and always refer to appropriate loading manuals when reloading to insure safety.
Please give me an example of two different powders that look EXACTLY the same that have significantly different burning characteristics. Please don't reguard this as a flame, maybe I have been doing it wrong for fifty + years.
Happy shooting

[felix]

There are so many different lots out there that there is no telling what you have in your can! You can only hope for the proper packaging from the canister powders as a start. The packagers mix and match to gain something very close to spec. But, if it looks like a duck, smells like a duck, but does not waddle like a duck, it ain't no duck. Hopefully, a recall notice will come out of the woodwork before something really bad happens. In other words, test each can of powder with differing lot numbers most especially. If powders in every can were exactly the same and not the same lot, then we couldn't afford it. ... felix

[Pop Gun]

You guys surprise me.
The powder manufacturers put GREAT effort and time into making each different powder LOOK different. [ Product liability].

Please give me an example of two different powders that look EXACTLY the same that have significantly different burning characteristics.


LooseP,

I personally have trouble with any ball powder. Some look so close that unless you ARE working with them daily, that I sure can't tell the difference. H380 looks just like AA#5 to me. That's a big variance.

Then Hodgdon has "Extremed" it's entire line, and as stick powders, they are the same size, shape and color too.

Ain't like the old days with 3031 and 4831 or 4350.

[BD]

If anyone gets in trouble messing around with 10 1/2 grains of Unique under a 240 grainer in the .44 mag it won't be for reasons involving Unique's burn rate. That's a very mild load.

However, to answer Loose projectile, here's a few:

Varget and 7828
WC 680 and WC 860
231, titegroup and HPC-18
Hogdon 4831, H-1000 and retumbo
All of the older Alcan flakes and surplus shotgun powders
All of the faster chinese surplus flakes and US surplus shotgun powders
WC 852 (the slowest lot) and WC 852 (the fastest lot)
WC 820(the slowest lot) and WC 820 (the fastest lot)
Many of the RL series of rifle powders.

IMHO thats plenty of opportunity for trouble. I'm not saying that you'd get in trouble trying to replicate something you'd loaded yourself, alzheimers aside. But taking a WAG at unmarked powder by looking at it closely could get you in some real trouble.
BD

[Leftoverdj]

There's no danger at all in what Swamp did. He pulled down a known good load and compared it to a known canister powder. Even had he misidentified the powder, the load would have been safe with the canister Unique. Had the originial load been non canister powder, he might have gotten slightly difference results, but it still would have been safe.

I've done the same thing, and intend to keep right on doing it. Buddy had a very good shooting batch of commercial .41 Mag reloads. Powder looked like AA-9, charge was just a little heavy for AA-9, I had WC 820 on hand, so we worked up to a grain or so under AA 9 book max, and got results close to the mystery load. He later tracked down the commercial reloader and found out that he had used an earlier batch of WC 820 that was enough slower to account for the difference.

Might not always work that well, but it's safe as long as you are working within the limits of the powder you have on hand.

[Larry Gibson]

Agree with Leftoverdj, Swamp did it the right way and it was a safe way. I to have used the same method with good and safe results. Only thing I did different was used a chronograph to compare velocities. As long as the substituted powder is within the safe range of use then it's no different than pulling loads out of manuals.

Larry Gibson

[swampmaster]

Thank you all for the replys.I am a very careful reloader,and these were my reloads to start with but without my card that I keep with all my loads I was not sure of the powder and didnt want to go through and check all of them,I knew it was not any of my AA powders,Winchester,or Hodgen powders was thinking it was unique but wanted input from others and I got that and am thankful. I did ask him not to throw away my load data cards as that can help me in the future