My formerly misplaced disgust for Titegroup

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heydawg

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So a few weeks ago, I posted something about how much I hated Titegroup. How it was dirty, flashy, lots of bits of unburned powder, stole my dog, caused me to be the victim of identity theft, made my son run away and join the foreign legion, and stole my car. Long and short, how it was epic fail.

Well here's the deal: it wasn't the powder at all. It was the bullet / powder combo.

I was shooting a Pk380 using Berry Plated bullets -- which are pretty accurate, easy to load, easy to use, clean, no exposed lead, etc... but I switched to cast bullets which were .001 larger in diameter and all the mess went away.

This I attributed to the plated bullet being undersized for the chamber. I slugged it at .356". Using a lead bullet at .357 seems to result in significantly cleaner performance. As for accuracy, I have more issues loading lead bullets due to inexperience, but once loaded correctly, the results are the same.

Titegroup worked just fine. No issues with cleanliness or excessive unburned powder. So, moral of the story, it wasn't the powder.
 
Interesting. Jay from Berry's is in love with Titegroup as he's indicated to me several times in emails. I have had good luck with it in my 9mm and 45acp using Berry's bullets, so it does appear that your PK380 may have a bore on the larger side.

How did the PK380 shoot with jacketed rounds? Did you ever use Titegroup with jacketed rounds that you reloaded?
 
heydawg said:
So a few weeks ago, I posted something about how much I hated Titegroup. How it was dirty, flashy, lots of bits of unburned powder, stole my dog, caused me to be the victim of identity theft, made my son run away and join the foreign legion, and stole my car. Long and short, how it was epic fail.

Well here's the deal: it wasn't the powder at all. It was the bullet / powder combo.

I was shooting a Pk380 using Berry Plated bullets -- which are pretty accurate, easy to load, easy to use, clean, no exposed lead, etc... but I switched to cast bullets which were .001 larger in diameter and all the mess went away.

This I attributed to the plated bullet being undersized for the chamber. I slugged it at .356". Using a lead bullet at .357 seems to result in significantly cleaner performance. As for accuracy, I have more issues loading lead bullets due to inexperience, but once loaded correctly, the results are the same.

Titegroup worked just fine. No issues with cleanliness or excessive unburned powder. So, moral of the story, it wasn't the powder.
Click to expand...
I'm glad you got the kid and dog thing settled, did it help with your E.D.?
 
TG is my favorite handgun powder. My only gripe with it are the velocities it generates; in my .357 the min. load still creates some leading. Otherwise, very accurate and consistent.
 
i have never had much luck with TG, i ahve 2lbs of it and never once found a load that W231, Universal, or PP wouldnt make better, so it has sat on my shelf for 2 years. Just a week ago, i wanted to experiment with some heavy 9mm for my 5,25XDM IDPA gun, so i loaded some 147berry 9mm with 3.5" TG and dear god, all 10 test rounds were perfect, 1" group at 10yards, soft recoil. I was very happy with the results, and for the first time, i liked it better than any load with Univ and PP that I tried. I was just about to post for sale locally my unopened 1lb of TG
 
I agree with john16443 - that is very interesting!

In my experience, Titegroup & lead is dirty, very smokey & inaccurate.
In the same Model 10-5 that's dirty, smokey etc, I can shoot Berry's or HSM plated bullets
(again using Titegroup) & can wipe the feces off of a fly's rectum (without killing the fly)

OK- yes, that's a bit dramatic, but my buddies started calling me Wyatt as in Wyatt Earp because of my accuracy with 125 gr plated bullets.

I know w/o pics, it didn't happen, but at about 15 yards, I was breaking little shards of pottery.
I'm no where near as accurate with lead in that gun.

I guess this just proves that every gun is different.
 
To summarize what I have read on this forum and others: Something thing to remember about Titegroup powder is that it is a double based powder and burns hot. Rounds loaded with Titegroup and lead bullets smoke more than using the same bullets than with other powders. The “extra smoke” is vaporized lead. The lube will vaporize regardless of what powder is used. If there is “more smoke” with Titegroup, then “something else” is burning. Smoke with a high lead concentration would, at least for me, would make such a round unsuitable for an indoor range.
 
I noticed no difference between Titegroup and HP38 in terms of smoke when shooting cast bullets. Accurate #2, #5 for instance are also double base powders with manufactuer supplied load data for cast lead bullets.

Without doing a before and after weight of a recovered cast bullet, I don't know how one can tell if the smoke is due to lead, primer, gun powder, or bullet lube.
 
Not all double based powders are the same. The amount of Nitro in them varies considerably.
 
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