kstone803
Official Meat Getter
I loaded about 398 50 grain frangible .223 for close up steel work on the range. Love those things
What did you do at your reloading bench today?
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Cranked out the rest of my 7.62x39 SSTs, finished up a few more 147gr 9mm coated projos, and then configured my Dillon 650 for 124gr 9mm FMJ over 4gr Titegroup. Bullet feeder took some tweaking, but seems solid now. I love that Dillon powder measure, it works like a charm. Will run the 124gr cartridges on Wednesday or Thursday to assess function, but hard to believe that they wouldn't cycle pretty much anything I've got.
PowPow
Where's the beef?
Me too. It's extremely reliable and has pretty darned good consistency with the powders I run through it.
The funny thing is, most all modern powder measures do a fairly good job with ball and flake powders. People just don't really run the numbers and realize that on a 30gr charge, +/- 0.3gr is a 1% variance, which is not terrible at all on a purely mechanical measure (and, TBH, should not have a dramatic effect on velocity SD). Where people get in trouble is when they expect those results with stick powders, which, well, is never going to happen with anything but the very shortest of them maybe.
That's pretty much my feeling on it. Though my feelings may not matter much as my reloading history is all of about a year of reloading :-)
But a 1% variance doesn't seem like much. My Lee autodrum seems to be able to keep it to still within about .1gr even on 30gr drops for 6.5 grendel. I DO occasionally see a larger variance then that, but rarely.
I guess technically that is .2gr total, target weight, + or - .1gr with most at the target weight. If the powder hopper is fairly empty I can/will see a larger variance (usually on the lighter side, like up to +.1 down to -.2gr). Out of 10 rounds I might get 2 or 3 that measure +/-.1gr.
Lighter loads like 9mm, the variance is less than my electronic scale can measure (.1gr max) generally. I might get 1 round in 10, if even that many, that measures +/-.1gr from my target. I don't generally use my beam scale as I just frankly don't care about fractions of a tenth of a grain.
I'd imagine once I get in to .308 and .30-06 I'll see larger and more common variances (because I am sure I am getting hundredths of a grain variance on almost every drop, just not raising to the level of precision my electronic scale can normally measure). Just like what is a 6-8fps SD on an 800fps 38spc ends up with a 20-30fps variance on .223.
consistent velocities is certainly one key in accuracy, but doesn't seem to be the most important part (and different neck tensions, bullet weight, bullet diameter, temperature of the propellant when fired, temperature of the barrel etc. all weigh in on that velocity).
The biggest issue that I have found is trying to run extruded powders with them loading rounds with smaller case mouths. Other than that, I give it a solid A on the grade scale.
steves1911
Ultimate Member
Been playing with the new 101gr lrx In 257 wby. They seem to like reloader 26 and fly like a laser @ 3600fps
Trimmed 500 7.62x39 brass. Got powder, got primers, got no projos. Bit of a funny situation.
- Feb 4, 2013
- 28,175
Although if you believe in the OCW theory, 1.5% is the difference between and accurate load and an inaccurate load.
Although, every time I check my Dillon powder measure with ball powder, it is spot on.
KRC
Active Member
Math stuff:
A +/- 0.3 gr. range on a 30 gr. throw would produce a 2% throw to throw range (27.7 to 30.3gr.).
Whether or not that makes a difference in downrange ballistics or matters to the shooter . . .
A +/- 0.3 gr. range on a 30 gr. throw would produce a 2% throw to throw range (27.7 to 30.3gr.).
Whether or not that makes a difference in downrange ballistics or matters to the shooter . . .
85MikeTPI
Ultimate Member
I spent the day resizing all my .310/.311 projectiles down to .309 just in case AFT decides to re-interpret the Ruskie ammo ban differently and shoot my dog
shocker998md
Ultimate Member
Measured to the lands on a Mauser rebarreled in 35 remington. Then loaded 5 180 grain soft points .010 off the lands and used n133 for powder. I'm excited to see how it does.
YMMV, but Erik Cortina has a couple of videos talking about how he specifically doesn't measure the lands, and explains how he develops his seating depth to find where the rifle/load combination is the most accurate. I watched them both and they seemed to make sense. He's a much better shooter than I am, so for me, it's worth looking at.
Part 1
[YT]oRXlCG9YZbQ[/YT]
Part 2
[YT]9FKq8Jj8YEI[/YT]
shocker998md
Ultimate Member
I've watched those and agree with most of it. My thought processes is this is a rebarrel Mauser in 35, not a laser to begin with. Being a betting man I'd guess it will be a fair amount different then most published data that would be put out for your average levergun. So I found jam, backed it up a touch and will stay there unless it's horrible.
Starting out without any history of the rifle I figured that would be a smart move.
Ok, so you've basically done what he did - found jam, backed it off, and are loading from there. Most of this stuff - working up a load for a particular rifle with a particular bullet, is really new to me, so I'm trying to learn what I can from any source I can find it.
To be clear on my part, I wasn't by any means trying to convey the message he does in his video title - just wondering about your method and seeing what I could garner from it.
shocker998md
Ultimate Member
Loaded some xtreme 230 grain round nose with 5.8 grains of 231 for my 1911. Tested 14 rounds and it grouped decent, but felt pretty snappy. I may bump the charge down and shoot it over the chronograph to see if I can tone it down.
Still need to test the 35 ammo I loaded
Still need to test the 35 ammo I loaded
shocker998md
Ultimate Member
Err, Hogdon shows a 5.3gn max for 231.
Speer shows 5.3-6.2 which was the book I was using. I'll have to look at a few more and see if Speer is off.
It's 45ACP, guys, you could probably be backing that 230gr with 5gr of iced tea mix and it would work just fine.
One of the things I find mildly irritating about load manuals is that there is very little consensus among them. There's usually a middle ground of agreement, but there's almost never a consensus on minimum or maximum load for a particular bullet/cartridge combination.Err, Hogdon shows a 5.3gn max for 231.
That doesn't even touch on modern load manuals vs older load manuals. I have some reloads for 25-06 that my Dad loaded in the early 1980s that are a full 2 grains heavier than the max listed for current manuals. He would sometimes work a load up to max according to the manuals, but he wasn't one to exceed a manual maximum, and when I posted about that on a Facebook reloading group, I was informed that older manuals had a higher max on certain loads - in this case it's 58.0 gr 4831 under a 100 gr Hornady bullet, loaded specifically for a Mauser 98 sporter - the action is tough enough to handle the heavier load, and apparently older manuals list loadings even heavier than that.
I see this as a case where the manual publishers - Lyman, Lee, Hornady, Sierra, etc - are covering their butts from liability as much as it's about safety.
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