OCD load development

Yup I've got this

Once upon a time I aspired to be one of those guys.......

And I realized that I just don't have the......... Oh hey look at that...... The the....ummm......

I got a OCD buddy that is having a fit trying to figure out why he is getting 50 ft per sec difference in his .45 auto loads. I told him not to worry about it just shoot & have fun. I only check the speed of my first ladder loads, after that I load for best accuracy & never check the speeds again.

I walked into the house of a friend of my wife, her husband was sitting at a reloading bench in a spare room. Of course I walked over to introduce myself and noticed he had a good bit of gun powder spread out in a primer tray.

After introductions I asked exactly what he was doing, he the. Explained to me he was cutting the longer grains in half. I guess I had a look on my face because he kind of grinned and said “I don’t really think it helps, but it makes me feel better”

Turned out he was an okay guy, little strange but he was alright. Haven’t seen him in years. If there is such thing as OCD reloader, it’d be him.

DeepSouth said:

I walked into the house of a friend of my wife, her husband was sitting at a reloading bench in a spare room. Of course I walked over to introduce myself and noticed he had a good bit of gun powder spread out in a primer tray.

After introductions I asked exactly what he was doing, he the. Explained to me he was cutting the longer grains in half. I guess I had a look on my face because he kind of grinned and said “I don’t really think it helps, but it makes me feel better”

Turned out he was an okay guy, little strange but he was alright. Haven’t seen him in years. If there is such thing as OCD reloader, it’d be him.

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Did you tell him it changes the burn rate when he does that. LOL

Was he cutting them with a squared chisel edge or rolling a groove and breaking them in two? If cutting them, were the ends perpendicular? Does he know the flame rate changes by angle of cut and proportion needed to maintain the overall label rate to prevent making it burn faster or slower?

I'm sure I saw that chart posted here just a few weeks back, it was laid out by diameter, angle of cut, and what substrate the powder is laying on, brass vs stainless vs polymer. Of course, all bets are off when you actually dump the powder in a case as it causes further fracturing of undiscoverable weak grains which will destroy the accuracy of a charge load. I gave up on it when attempting to build a frangible tester for powder, the impact of the test anvil in plates of various brands and types became a massive headache.

I just pour ammo out of a box and try to get them all pointing in the same direction now. Best I can do.

I just set the powder measure and seating die and have at it. I'm sure there are variances, but they don't matter much to me. Pretty much all of my preferred pistol loads are in the middle of the load data, so a little variation is just fine. They all go bang and make a hole in the target!

I am a little OCD when making a ladder to work up a new load. I want to know for sure what my acceptable range is.

South Prairie Jim said:

Thought I would share this little bit with yall

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The recent discovery of permanent, rare-Earth, Superconducting magnets has made spin testing much safer than it used to be with the old raw metals Supermagnets and alternating current fields. We hardly ever see bolt sheers anymore like in the old days, three or four years ago. JK

AK Hunter said:

I told him not to worry about it just shoot & have fun.

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And he's still talking to you?

Robert said:

I've always used the middle of the road powder charges and it's worked well for me. But I know a guy with a handmade powder trickler that drops one single grain powder at a time if need be. To each their own I suppose.

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Kernel. It drops a kernel of powder, and/or a portion of a grain made up of a number of kernels up to a grain or several grains. A grain is a unit of mass which is measured with respect to gravity containing many individual units of an object or objects; a kernel is a solitary object.

I'm not OCD, I swear it! I'm CDO (because that's the correct order for the letters ).

You and he will fit right in here!

When they started touting the importance and testing of sorting primers by weight I was done. I dont believe in gadgets but high quality measuring tools and standards are a good idea.

I am presented with 100 to 150 rounds of 'range pick-up ammunition' per week to "dispose of" because the store can't sell it. Some of it is lost, dropped, misfires, or jams. Jams are rounds that failed to feed in semi-auto pistols or rifles. I shoot the stuff that fits a case cage and has a good primer. The other stuff is pulled down and sorted. Bullets go into same Weight & Caliber boxes, brass sorted by caliber and powder into either of two bottles 1] Pistol Powder is 22 LR to 500 S&W, may include 7,62 X 39. 2] Rifle Powder is 22 Hornet to 45-70. The Rifle or Pistol powder is thoroughly mixed before reloading ammunition with it.


EDIT: I am not kidding, do this process every week.

You are kidding?

Engineer1911 said:

The Rifle or Pistol powder is thoroughly mixed before reloading ammunition with it.

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You should rejug it and sell it. "Random: The Powder with SNAP! CRACKLE! and KA-BOOM!"

Have you ever wondered why bench rest shooters use powder measures and hunters tend to weigh each charge to 0.1 grain?

I find it easier to use winchester ball powder and roll each ball into my Lee Loader 2.3cc scoop until its exactly full...perfection every time...

I seen an add on Armslist: 1000 .452 SWC cast bullets $45

Call the guy and arrange pick up.

I get there and he starts sitting ZipLock bags on bench. I am looking at the bags and he has written with a Sharpie; #36 199.0gr, #22 199.1gr, #43 199.2gr ... #12 201.4gr

The bags are in order by weight, 0.1gr increments, up to 201.4gr.

I give him the $$ and take a M&M container
and dump all of the bullets in.

I thought he was going to pass out. After he resumed breathing, I told him, I was going to powder coat them. After coating, resizing, I would weigh and seperate. He felt better.

Engineer1911 said:

I am presented with 100 to 150 rounds of 'range pick-up ammunition' per week to "dispose of" because the store can't sell it. Some of it is lost, dropped, misfires, or jams. Jams are rounds that failed to feed in semi-auto pistols or rifles. I shoot the stuff that fits a case cage and has a good primer. The other stuff is pulled down and sorted. Bullets go into same Weight & Caliber boxes, brass sorted by caliber and powder into either of two bottles 1] Pistol Powder is 22 LR to 500 S&W, may include 7,62 X 39. 2] Rifle Powder is 22 Hornet to 45-70. The Rifle or Pistol powder is thoroughly mixed before reloading ammunition with it.

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I hope you are kidding about reusing the powder. I get duds & dropped rounds from the range too just to get broken down into components. The powder is from so many mixed places there is no way to attempt to find a reasonable burn rate, so it gets used for fireworks or dumped out.
Attempting to use it to reload is dangerous.
I have some I need to get pulled down now, the only way I would attempt to use pulled powder is if it was my reloads & I had a lot to pull down.

Fireworks??? Load data please...

Paul R Zartman said:

Fireworks??? Load data please...

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1/2" pipe nipple 6" long
Screw cap on end
Fill pipe with powder.........


Nevermind