Hodgdon H110 - excessively dirty

KIBarrister · Dec 1, 2019

First time reloading for my 458 socom and using H110 powder. Eighty rounds, about 50/50 Buffalo Bore and reloaded with H110, and the carbon build up is extreme - like those eighty rounds are worse than 1500 milsurp and/or commercial rounds through my standard ARs. Admittedly I am new to the 458 as with the H110, but I am shocked by the level of carbon buildup.... anyone else have this experience with H110 or do we think it’s more likely the caliber?

GunBum · Dec 2, 2019

What bullet were you using? That has an effect on carbon buildup as well.

KIBarrister · Dec 4, 2019

Lehigh defense (the monolithic copper Phillips bits) 250 grain

Squaregrouper · Dec 4, 2019

I run H110 in .300AAC and never had issues. Now CFE223 in 6.5 Grendel is filthy- to the point I gave the can away.

John from MD · Dec 4, 2019

It depends on the bullet wt and bullet pull as to whether it is dirty or not. I also use it in the 300 BO and 7.62x40WT and find it to be clean burning using 150gn bullets. With 123 grains, it get dirty.

KIBarrister · Dec 4, 2019

John from MD said:
It depends on the bullet wt and bullet pull as to whether it is dirty or not. I also use it in the 300 BO and 7.62x40WT and find it to be clean burning using 150gn bullets. With 123 grains, it get dirty.

I guess that explains it - I am using light for caliber bullets... good to know.

Allen65 · Dec 5, 2019

The burn rate of smokeless powders is at least partly a function of chamber pressure. Some powders are more pressure sensitive than other, H110 seems to be one of the more sensitive. I use it with M1 carbine loads, and find it gets very sooty with lighter loads, most likely because not enough pressure is generated to ensure complete combustion.

John from MD · Dec 5, 2019

Allen65 said:
The burn rate of smokeless powders is at least partly a function of chamber pressure. Some powders are more pressure sensitive than other, H110 seems to be one of the more sensitive. I use it with M1 carbine loads, and find it gets very sooty with lighter loads, most likely because not enough pressure is generated to ensure complete combustion.

That's about it. Using heavier bullets allows the pressure to increase (within limits) thereby leaving less carbon and other by products of combustion.

With a M1 carbine, you are screwed since you can't put a decent crimp on them and there aren't a bunch of different bullets to try. What probably would work though is if you used lead powder coated bullets. I have experimented with PC vs traditional lube and size and the PC bullets do get better ballistics. This is probably because they are usually .002 to .003 larger than those sized in my lubrisizer. I let the bullets size themselves in the throat and the accuracy has been almost as good as my best hand picked, weighed, lubrisized cast bullets.

Hodgdon H110 - excessively dirty

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