Chronograph results from tumbling loaded rounds.

[snuffy]

Hey maybe we will get contacted by myth busters!!?¿

Well just one hour til 48 hrs. is up. I cheated, dug one out while the Midway/FA tumbler was running. Man, you wanna talk about shiny? I put a dribble of flitz i with them as well as about 100 45 acp cases. Got to be the shiniest 45 I will ever have!

1SOW Easy for me to say, but measuring the oals before shooting might show some differences.

Why? Surely you don't think the mild vibrations could move the bullet in or out?! The same goes for the paranoia of those that think one round could fire the primer in another round it's in contact with. There just isn't enough movement present.

I gotta go back to edit my post, the load is 4.5 231! That's what I get for trusting my memory.

I'm going to pull a couple bullets from the tumbled rounds, pile the powder along side some fresh WW-231, then take a pic. And take a long look at it with 20-X magnification, to see if there's any degradation. BRB,(Be Right Back).

 

[snuffy]

Okay, tumbling is complete! Damn those shells just plain sparkle! Here's a pic I took, no need to label which are the tumbled rounds!



Close examination of the powder showedNO DEGRADATION! {For those in rio linda, that means no broken granuals, still shiny, no dust} Comparison between new powder right out of the 4# jug, and the 48 hour tumbled were identical!

I re-assembled that one round I pulled apart, I'll keep it separate so I can see if there's any difference from the other 24. I don't have a collet for .40, and I wanted to capture ALL the powder so I could reassemble it, so the impact puller was out! I used my multi tools needle nose pliers in the die hole of my press. It left a tiny mark on the front of the driving band, shouldn't make much difference.

I took a pic of the powder, can't get close enough to see much, and it's out of focus. My very old olympus point & shoot digital can only get 9" from anything. Well here are to two pics anyway.

Can't tell them apart? Neither could I. But the first pic is the 48 hour, the second is fresh powder.

A quick check of the weather for tomorrow showed partly to mostly cloudy with a high of 30 degrees. Sounds like a storm will miss us to the south.



I had to take several pics to eliminate the glare!

I'll be posting tomorrow night about 9:00 pm, I'll stay up at the club for the normal every wed. night BS session, seeing as how I'm off this week!

 

[rcmodel]

Well, you very obviously breathed at least once or twice while taking the pictures of the powder.

That no doubt blew away all the finely ground micoscopic powder dust in the tumbled one that would have doubled the pressure and blew up your gun.

Unless you inhaled?

Good work so far Snuffy!!

rc

 

[snuffy]

Who was that who said he didn't inhale, slick willy? Nope I didn't inhale. Hmmmm what happens if you snort powder? Nasty flatulence?

 

[EddieNFL]

Geez! Couldn't you post a "Sunglasses Required," warning?

Look forward to the chrono/target results.

 

[navyretired 1]

"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch" Who utter those words.

 

[snuffy]

"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch" Who uttered those words.?

That quote was taken from "The moon is a harsh mistress" by Robert A. Heinlein. While it is science fiction, no truer words were ever spoken. It means nothing is really free. A "free lunch" most times is at a tavern. Little does anybody notice that they jump the price for beer to drink WITH the meal, to cover the cost of the "free" lunch.

 

[navyretired 1]

Snuffy get's the free lunch prize I first read that quote in jr. high school 48 years ago.

 

[Walkalong]

Who uttered those words.?

I don't know, but I borrowed part of it earlier today.

I'll be taking my 25 rounds out of the tumbler soon.

 

[Walkalong]

I took them out at 9:00 PM. About 15 minutes early. (I'm getting tired..old age you know)

Shiny, that's for sure. I marked the primers on the ones that were not tumbled, but it's easy to tell.

Powder looks great. Open pics at 100% for a good close up look.

.

 

[Roccobro]

Now those are some pixs!

Justin

 

[The Bushmaster]

Yawn....Oh-hummm. This is getting boring. When do we get the range tests?

 

[Walkalong]

This evening if the weather holds.

 

[snuffy]

Well today is relatively nasty! 25 degrees, cloudy, with about a 10-15 MPH wind. The older I get the more the cold "gets to me"! So it's gonna have to be another day for the firing test. Hopefully walkalong will have better weather down south in Bama.

It wouldn't be a big thing to drive up to the range just to pop off 50 rounds. But setting up the chronograph takes quite a bit of time and handling things with bare hands. Besides trying to shoot nice groups while shivering isn't exactly fun.

Don't get me wrong, I love Wisconsin. I'm living 8 miles away from where I was born, that was 64 years ago on Saturday!

 

[Walkalong]

Hopefully walkalong will have better weather down south in Bama.

It's rainin' like a cow pissin' on a flat rock down here. It rolled in around 3:15 PM

It is supposed to quit sometime tomorrow. Better luck then.

 

[ljnowell]

I must say this thread is really interesting! I am truly excited to see these results, perhaps it can even be something that we can point to in the future when people bring up tumbling loaded ammo.

 

[LiveLife]

From what I read on THR and other forum threads, concern over powder breakdown seems to apply to really older powders and not for newer modern smokeless powders.

Thanks to all the posters who have devoted much time and effort proving modern smokeless powder DOES NOT break down even after 24-48 hours of continuous tumbling. I used to tumble my loaded rounds for about 20-30 minutes, but now I feel much comfortable tumbling my loaded rounds longer to remove lube from lead bullets and making jacketed/plated bullets even more shiny (shiny bullets don't improve my shot groups, but make my smile bigger).

 

[1SOW]

If you don't measure OALS for changes due to tumbling live rounds, I'm going to hack your pics and modify them to show dirty .22 cal only.

There isn't much movement, but those bullets have a lot of mass.

 

[LiveLife]

1SOW, I started a thread asking that question: OAL change due to tumbling with light taper crimp

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=499818

"As to slight increase in chronograph speed, I think this is worth verifying whether the bullets are being seated deeper during the tumbling process with other bullets acting like "tiny jack hammers".

One variable is the amount of taper crimp used by different reloaders. Perhaps the real concern over tumbling loaded bullets has more to do with lightly taper crimped bullets being seated deeper causing increase in chamber pressure.

Would you consider doing some additional tests using different taper crimps and measuring OAL and recording chrono speeds?"

 

[1SOW]

bds: No, but I would consider tumbling some of my 9mm 124gr fmj Zero 130PF loads and checking oals against un-tumbled rounds. I use a fairly consistent .377-8 taper crimp, and I'm picky about oals.. I'm short on bullets right now and can't afford to to do intentional bad crimps.

I was hoping these guys would check since, THEY ALREADY TUMBLED THEIR ROUNDS!!!

I don't think they'll move much, but if they do, they'll get shorter---higher pressures. In 9mm it might matter re chrono"ES" data..

 

[snuffy]

I was hoping these guys would check since, THEY ALREADY TUMBLED THEIR ROUNDS!!!

I don't think they'll move much, but if they do, they'll get shorter---higher pressures.

I can't believe anybody could possibly think a bullet could be moved by the gentle vibrations in a tumbler. Even if there were forces that strong inside an operating tumbler, what would hold the case?

And no, I'm not going to check. mainly because it's ridiculous to think the bullet could move, and there's no way NOW to prove it one way or another. You would have to have measured the same shell before AND after tumbling. No way to mark them that wouldn't be tumbled off!

 

[LiveLife]

I believe if the taper crimp was sufficient, there would not be any problem. My comment was for "lightly" taper crimped bullets possibly being seated deeper in an over-loaded tumbler.

Many new reloaders read THR threads and may be lead to believe that tumbling ANY loaded rounds in a vibratory tumbler for an extended period of time maybe safe.

What if someone, after reading THR threads, buys some older looking reloads at a gun show and dumps them into an over-loaded tumbler. What if the reloader used old stock powder and light taper crimp that decreased the OAL of the rounds during the tumbling (while trying to get the case shiny again to impress friends) thus increasing the chamber pressure.

I think most posters on THR emphasize safety practices and the thousands of viewers are drawn to the quality and accuracy of comments here compared to many other "gun" forums. Just thought perhaps we might be giving "false sense of security" in posting that tumbling loaded rounds is absolutely safe.

 

[1SOW]

Inertia and other cartridges will hold the case, but I've stated I don't believe it will move much if it moves at all.

Actually, the comparison of tumbled and untumbled AVERAGE OAL cartridges would show an 'average' change if they move. Assuming you know what your press puts out for the oal +/- .00X" If there are increases in the ".00X" normal variation in the tumbled cases it would show up.

My Lee turret puts out +/- .0015ish with the bullets I'm using now...they're fairly consistent length bullets and I check OALs. If I find several with -.0025 or more variation in only the tumbled rounds, I would have an indication that tumbling caused set-back.

Most agree powder is not an issue.

The only potential problem left is OAL change.

The chrono won't show much with bigger volume cases like 45acp-40cal. If there is a fairly large set-back it will show up on the chrono data.

 

[The Bushmaster]

Sunshining all day up here and 65* Walkalong. You could have drove up here and used my range [just outside the back door] and my chronograph.

 

[LiveLife]

And that's what I am trying to verify - Will the bullet move? Without actually testing this, we can only guess what will happen.

I have some time off from work coming. I was going to do some load testing on new powder/bullet/primer combinations, but may do some OAL/taper crimp test.

For my match loads, I will continue to "hand" wipe the lube off until I do my tests or see other posters' test results.