Beartracker
Member
- Joined
- Sep 14, 2005
- Messages
- 447
When loading my Remington's or my 51 Navy I always compress my powder tight but not in a crushing manner. Just far enough that the ram stops. Today I decided to check and see just how much I am compressing my 25g of Pyrodex"P" with a .380 ball on top.
The 25g of powder fills the the chamber to about 3/8" to the top after I slightly tap the sides of the cylinder to settle the powder. This is good because the .380 ball is about 3/8" and according to "Colts old instructions" this is the way it should be loaded.Then I load and compress the ball with no wads or fillers and from the top of the ball to the top of the cylinder is 5/Th.
This is a little bit of a hot load for the .36 but this colt really loves this load and using this method it is far more accurate than this old man can shoot!
Over the years I have tried fillers , dry wads, lubed wads and pill's with no better accuracy results than I get from this method but I never really tested to see how much , If any, difference you would get from compressing the powder just enough to get rid of any space or air or just compressing until the ram stops. I have heard people talk about crushing the powder but I don't see how you would have enough ram to do that even with a full load on the .44 Remington's.
Anyway, whats your method on compressing your loads? Any problems or pluses to your method? Mike
The 25g of powder fills the the chamber to about 3/8" to the top after I slightly tap the sides of the cylinder to settle the powder. This is good because the .380 ball is about 3/8" and according to "Colts old instructions" this is the way it should be loaded.Then I load and compress the ball with no wads or fillers and from the top of the ball to the top of the cylinder is 5/Th.
This is a little bit of a hot load for the .36 but this colt really loves this load and using this method it is far more accurate than this old man can shoot!
Over the years I have tried fillers , dry wads, lubed wads and pill's with no better accuracy results than I get from this method but I never really tested to see how much , If any, difference you would get from compressing the powder just enough to get rid of any space or air or just compressing until the ram stops. I have heard people talk about crushing the powder but I don't see how you would have enough ram to do that even with a full load on the .44 Remington's.
Anyway, whats your method on compressing your loads? Any problems or pluses to your method? Mike