Interesting result with graphite
I've been playing with extremely light loads of fast pistol powders in my H&R 223. I have some .225 Bator boolits that I've been messing with. I have a batch that was lightly coated with 20% mineral spirits and 80% Lar's Xlox. I put a coupla dozen in a coffee can, added a very small amount of 4X fine graphite powder and gently tumbled them to dust them with the graphite. I removed the boolits and tumbled them in a towel to remove the excess.
Next, I loaded test rounds with 3.0 down to 1.0 grains of Bullseye in half grain increments. Every one fired. I found this odd as the last time I did this with boolits coated with just the Xlox, the boolit over the 1.5 grain load stuck.
I got to wondering just how little powder I could use, so I loaded five more rounds, from .9 grains down to .5 grains in .1 grain increments. Every one fired!
I'm not a chemical engineer or a ballistician, so I don't know what to make of it. I do know, though, that it opens my window of test ranges much wider.
I went on to load five each of 1.0 grains to 2.4 in .2 grain increments. I had planned to shoot them today, but we got rain comin', so I'll have to wait.