I always see soot on my brass

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mugsie

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I was looking at some of the pictures on the forum which showed expended brass. They looked clean even before tumbling! When my brass is ejected, either from my revolvers or my autoloaders, there is always a soot blowback area on a portion of the brass, from the neck back. It's not a tremendous amount, but always there.

Now I'm wondering if I shouldn't load a little hotter. I realize the brass isn't fully expanding, and consequently there is some blowback, but a hotter load should stop that since it would force the brass to fully expand and seal the chamber.

Do all of you see blowback soot on your brass or like I said, I need to load hotter. I usually load somewhere in the mid ranges, since I'm shooting paper and there's no reason to go hotter, but should I? Does it matter? Just a little more cleaning I guess. By the way, most of my pistol rounds are lead, hand cast.
 
In 45, I have soot on about 99% of the loads as they are lead and on the low end. My FMJ's and plated are much cleaner.
 
Nothing to worry about.

If you have a good load, it's a good load.

And while pressure plays a large part in expanding the case to seal it?
It isn't the only part at play.

The more times you fire and resize your brass, the more work hardened it gets.
So it takes more pressure to expand it because it is harder then it was the time before.

Also, slower burning powders take longer to develop max chamber pressure to expand the case before the bullet leaves it.

Again, no big deal as long as the loads performs to your satisfaction in all other ways.

You have to clean guns & cases anyway.
(Well, you don't have to clean cases unless you want too.)

rc
 
It is difficult to get squeaky clean brass in .45 ACP, or any other auto caliber. Unless the cases are just filthy dirty, don't sweat it. Faster powders that get up to full pressure fast and complete their burn more quickly will generally leave the cases cleaner than slower powders.

If you want to see some really filthy cases on loads that shoot well, shoot them in a blowback action carbine.
 
If you want to see some really filthy cases on loads that shoot well, shoot them in a blowback action carbine.
Click to expand...
My .30 M1 carbine was the second cartridge I started loading. Every load I ran through it left the brass smoked. I was concerned at first because everything I read indicated this is a result of too light of a powder load. I took the powder up the max recommended and still had smoked brass. After seeing that everything I fed the carbine did the same thing, I just accepted it as reality. Several brands of factory, milsurp, and my loads all left the brass covered in soot. I've since discovered that my rounds using a 100 gr SJ lead bullet is more accurate and caused more damage to the target than any milsurp or factory round. I can live with soot covered brass.
 
I use both Clays and Titegroup in .45 ACP. Both powders perform well. But TG, no matter the bullet or powder charge, leaves the case sooty, while Clays is quite clean (like in 12 ga., where I mostly use it). When I first started using TG, I mentioned this to an acquaintance who also uses it, and he said "You clean your guns, don't you?"
 
That is one reason I like using WST. It burns clean even at and below the recommend load. But like said if the load is accurate who cares if the brass is a little dirty.
 
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