anyone have experience loading for a .450 BPE Holland and Holland double?
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anyone have experience loading for a .450 BPE Holland and Holland double?
Not necessarily Hollands, but a bunch of 'em.
This is what works, or will be so close a minor bullet weight adjustment or powder weight variation will bring it together.
Standard rifle primer, 110 to 120 grains of Olde Eynsford 1 1/2F (compressed to correct depth to seat the wad column and bullet correctly), a beeswax foundation wax over powder wad, 3/16" thick grease cookie (SPG or similar), a thin hard card wad and a .450 diameter round nose boolit wrapped with two wraps of 11 to 16lb paper, alloy 1 in 12 to 1 in 20 lead/tin, 270 to 310 grains weight best start weight.
Don't bother to slug the barrels, you're just wasting time. What you are making here is a factory load, which is what the rifle was built for.
This load will regulate (barrels shoot together) 3/4 of the time if they're in good shape, and usually to the sights if they haven't been monkeyed with.
Make sure your rifle is on the face before you shoot it. If you can close it with a one thousandth inch strip of feeler gauge across the breech face, it is off the face and will need a new hinge pin at best. Do not shoot it like this, you will batter it to death quickly. This is a job for someone who knows double rifles well, and is not cheap. Your average "gunsmith" is not capable of doing this job.
What about grease groove bullets? What group size should I expect (3 shots each bbl.)? I am loading almost exactly as you described but with a .458 , 300 gr grease groove bullet, Most groups run 3 to 4" at 50 yds. and sometimes as small as 1 1/2". I am getting some leading and I clean after each shot. thanks for your input.
It looks like you're in the ball park for bullet weight - a good condition Holland should put 3 rights and 3 lefts into 3-4" at 100 yards. This is standard regulation for a 450. These are hunting rifles, not target rifles so this is plenty good. Bill Froome probably regulated that rifle, and he was as good as they came at the time.
I have gone off using grease groove bullets, too much work to get shooting. The leading is probably caused by boolit base erosion - wad/grease is inadequate.
Build your shells right, and cleaning between shots is not necessary. The barrels after 20 shots will look like they've fired one.
Look at original ammunition - the boolits are almost invariably paper wrapped.
I've been searching for paper suppliers (11-16lbs.) Any suggestions?
Old typewriter paper.
Holland’s specialty was their 500/450 bpe
A necked cartridge.
Regular 450 3-1/4” loads are a bit different.
Which one is yours?
.450 3 1/4 bpe
Good.Quote:
Originally Posted by Riverside
I don’t have an H&H double but do have a couple in your chambering.
Generally, all period loadings of the 450bpe used a charge of 120grs C&H #6 with boolits of 270, 310, 325, & 365grs. Kynoch also listed a 360gr load with 123rs powder.
It is believed that powder was a bit more powerful than modern offerings so a bit of an increase may be needed to regulate.
H&H, I believe, were perhaps the first British maker to adopt grease groove boolits as standard.
I’ve not had the opportunity to compare their throats to other makers so don’t know if their projectile is a different diameter (GG generally running larger than paper patched) so hopes are that a .458” boolit will be appropriate for your rifle.
I use Olde Eynsford in all of my larger bore rifles - 2F is a good choice for the 450 but I think Cal Pappas is using 3F in most, if not all, of his loads now.
I drop tube the powder charge and then tap the case a few times with a thin steel rod to settle the powder as much as possible. A lot of loaders vibrate the cases - there’s a number of methods to settle the powder.
Then I place a card wad over the powder and compress over that if needed.
Then a lube cookie about 1/8” thick and another card wad. My card wads I make out of .020 card stock but any stiff card such as cereal boxes works the same for me.
Ideally, my boolit will rest right on the top card.
Normally, I don’t crimp because I’m using single shots mostly but for the doubles I find that a little kiss on the mouth of the case with a 30’06 fls die can provide enough tension to hold your boolit in place.
From there on, it’s just trial and error to find what your rifle likes best.
I’m sure many here have a completely different method than I do!
Won’t be the last time either!
I do not agree that OE 3F is an appropriate powder for Express rifle loads. OE 1 1/2F appears to most closely duplicate 19th century service pressures with correctly constructed ammunition, in fact, I think it's as close as we'll ever get to C&H No.6.
The 3F loads I have personally had pressure tested yielded pressures 20% higher than service, and it doesn't take many of them to put a set of barrels down on to the flats. Don't ask me how I know this!
I’d think that would depend largely on where you start.Quote:
Originally Posted by curdog007
The pressure of the 365gr boolit is certainly 20% more than the loading for the 270gr
boolit with the same 120gr charge.
All I’m sayin is that Cal, who likely has more experience shooting BPE rifles than anyone you or I know, has settled on 3F for most of his loadings.
Of course the pressure will be higher for a heavier bullet with a given weight of powder.
The 3F pressure in my tests was 20% higher with the same weight bullet than the 1 1/2F (which duplicated service pressure).
The 3F loads did not show any normal signs of being over pressure, but were too hot to use on a sustained basis.
Just because someone has a lot of experience, does not necessarily mean they have it right. Does Cal's book supply any pressure data? If not, it is suspect. I had my loads tested in a pressure gun, that's where the number comes from.
I tried 3f and got the best groups but backed off because I was concerned about pressure.
My groups were just fine, too. But the load was too hot.
The 1 1/2F accuracy is just as good.
I used up an older can of swiss 1-1/2 and opened a new can, same company but a different design on the can. The old can, using a load of 120 grs, left far more space in a case than the powder from the new can.