Reloading Myths Revisited

[wolfe28]

Uh Oh!

Reloading will save you money.

You mean this one isn't true!?!?!? (note sarcasm)
That is how I convinced my wife to let me start reloading in the first place.

 

[ranger335v]

"Most myths are harmlessly silly or ignorant but the one about "blending powders" is so dumb I almost didn't post it. I did only so I can say, "Be warned, BLENDING POWDERS IS A VERY BAD MYTH!" -- are you saying it's impossible or just dangerous? if you think it's impossible, please explain why."

Taliv, of course it is not "impossible" for any indivual to stir his own powders together. Any fool can mix a half pound of Bullseye into a pound of H4831 to obtain a combination with a bit of extra ZIP! But it would be really dumb to do so because it IS very dangerous. Powder companies spend a lot of time and money to provide us with predictable powders, we aren't going to improve on them in our garage loading rooms.

If further explaination is required it will take someone who thinks that way better than I.

 

[taliv]

i think maybe you're missing the point of duplex loads. you don't mix them together and then pour them into the case. what would even be the point of that? and a combination of bullseye and h4831 isn't going to have more "zip" than the faster of the two powders alone.


and it's not any more dangerous than any other type of wildcatting

 

[USSR]

Quote from USSR
Quote:
2. Fed 205Ms are "Magnum" primers. Federal uses "M" to designate Match primers, not Magnum primers.

You lost me here. Why do you say the 205M is a Magnum Match primer? I thought the 205 and 205M were both standard and standard (Match) small rifle.

Steve,

It was originally stated as a myth, that 'Fed 205Ms are "Magnum" primers'. I answered that the "M" denotes "Match, not Magnum", hence a 205M primer is a standard Match small rifle primer.

Don

 

[SSN Vet]

Reloading will save you money.

You mean this one isn't true!?!?!? (note sarcasm)
That is how I convinced my wife to let me start reloading in the first place.

If this is a myth, it's a myth that works quite well......it worked for me.

 

[ranger335v]

"I knew an old man that had a scar the size of a 30-30 base on his forehead. Someone threw a live round in a campfire when he was a kid. He said it nearly killed him."

I think the key here is that the "kid" was hit in the forehead and lived to tell the story! Doubt it "nearly killed him" but I'm sure he thought so at the time.

 

[Deavis]

It's been pretty solidly proven that ALL of the powder that is going to burn will do so in the first few inches of barrel

I can solidly prove you wrong, are you sure you want to chalk that one up to a fact? The right combination of powder, bullet weight, and muzzle length will leave you with unburned powder. Perhaps the better phrase is, "It's been pretty solidly proven that in most weapons commonly used, that..."

well, depends on the curvature of the Earth

good, I'm not the only person who immediately started thinking about escape velocity and a straight "horizontal" line

I can't believe nobody mentioned this one:

Tumbling ammo will break up powder, making it burn faster, raising pressure, and blowing up your gun.

Of course since I didn't ever get to finish that experiment before I left for Germany, I can't disprove it just yet

 

[sargenv]

"You should never tumble loaded ammunition as it will alter the grain size of the powder and make a dangerous condition".

Ok, I've seen this myth and believed it at one point, but this is the only way I know to massivley remove case lube from cartridges after loading them on a progressive press. I've done this with pistol and rifle ammo and had no noticable difference in pressures, performance, or velocity. Powder is a lot harder than you think and when shipped from the factory, on train and truck to your location, will jar it as if it were in a tumbler, and it never seems to have an issue, why would 15 mins in a vibratory tumbler make a difference?

I have heard of powder duplexing. Usually it is something done for large capacity cases that are going to be used in very cold weather where ignition may be a problem. A lot of very slow burning powders don't ignote well in cold weather and I have read of instances where you trickle a couple of grains of easily ignited fast burning powder near the primer, and then follow with a full charge of the slow burning stuff. These are usually nearly full or compressed loads of powder so there is little room for the faster stuff to shift. With the invention of powders that are not temperature sensitive, this kind of thought has gone by the wayside though.

Vince

 

[taliv]

sargenv, maybe it's not needed as much anymore, but that doesn't mean it's a "myth" anymore than flintlocks are myths because there are better ignition systems now.

 

[snuffy]

Here's one, "nickle plating on brass will scratch your dies, marr your chamber, and if it gets dragged down the barrel, scratch the rifling"

If your dies, barrel is so soft that nickle will scratch it/them, you'd better get a modern gun. While nickle IS harder than plain brass, it is no where near hard enough to scratch anything made of steel.

 

[R.W.Dale]

The right combination of powder, bullet weight, and muzzle length will leave you with unburned powder.

NO

The wrong combination of powder, bullet weight, and muzzle length will leave you with unburned powder. I've done it myself using IMR5010 in STD rifle cartriges

That falls well within the

It's been pretty solidly proven that ALL of the powder that is going to burn will do so in the first few inches of barrel

If it's UNBURNT powder then odiously it didn't burn?

 

[mc223]

Here are some random thoughts from other places on blending.

Some of the benchrest community have been blending powders for years and in some cases with very good result.
The following is an excerpt from another forum. The author is unknown. The testing is well thought out. As are the potential problems.

You would need to have a good understanding of your desired end result and weigh that against what is already available. Your end result very likely already exists.
Kernal size would need to be very similar to avoid the settling of one from the other. Also burn rates would need to be similar. Mixing would need to be very thorough.
Blending could be a very hazardous proposition if not done with good sense. Both powders would need to be tested and chronographed. A good understanding of each powder is necessary to theorize what the blend should deliver. Testing of the blend should be very predictable, based on collected data of the individual powders.

I started about a month or so ago blending N135 and Varget for my 30x47. I was using 41.8 grs. of N-135 or 43.9 grs. of Varget. Now I use 42.8 grs. of this blend. the reason for this was because the N-135 would increase in velosity as much as 40 to 50 fps from a temp change from 65 degrees to 85 degrees and The x count would not be there shooting score matches. By adding this blend of Varget Xtreme non temp sensitive powder I found that my velocity's are only variying about 20fps in this same temp variance and that my x count is as good as it was when I used straight N-135 on a day that powder and temp matched. and on the same note the N-135 was not filling my case as I would like it and the Varget was like a compressed load. now with 42.8 grs I get good case capacity and a velocity varaince that does not seem to affect the accuracy as much. and as far as being dangerous I can go as much 43 grs of N-135 or 45 grs of Varget, and since I'm using 42.8 grs of blend even if I would dump all of one kind or the other it would not be over the max load anyway. And by the way I get a good blend when I only do 250 grs. of each at a time

Some very entertaing myths here, Keep going.

 

[ranger335v]

taliv- "i think maybe you're missing the point of duplex loads...a combination of bullseye and h4831 isn't going to have more "zip" than the faster of the two powders alone."

I think you missed the idea of "blended" powders and have that confused with duplex loads. That's an apples and oranges thing.

"Blending" powders will change the time/burn-rate/pressure factors in wildly unpredictable ways, resulting in much different actions than from either powder alone. At least that's what the powder makers have said, but I'm no expert on it so maybe they are wrong.

 

[Sunray]

"...in very cold weather where ignition may be a problem...." That's what magnum primers are for. They burn a bit hotter for a bit longer. They're made to ignite hard to light powders and cold weather ignition.
Mixing powders is unsafe. Especially if you mix different burn rate powders. And that ain't no myth.
My favourite current myth is, "You need CCI milspec primers for the M-1, M-1 carbine and M-14 or you'll be guaranteed to have slam fires." CCI has great marketing people.

 

[Deavis]

The wrong combination of powder, bullet weight, and muzzle length will leave you with unburned powder. I've done it myself using IMR5010 in STD rifle cartriges

Depends on what you are looking for! When I make late night fireball loads, I want that combination! So it is right.

 

[BigG]

Duplex Loads - Elmer Keith made some but his definition was a little different than layering powders in a case. He had some cases made up with a long tube running up from the flash hole to ignite the powder at the front of the column with the idea that the expanding gases would hold the powder back in the chamber where it would burn more completely. This worked, but was prohibitively expensive.

The idea came from artillery shells that have the similar long tube running up from the primer, but in that case it is filled with black powder to ignite the main charge.

You can read about it in Gun Notes

 

[taliv]

ranger, i did think you were talking about duplex loads, but even blending powders is not a "myth".

the fact that powder mfgs have lots of knowledge and money and do a lot of testing is irrelevant. it doesn't change the fact that after doing all their testing, they only produce a handful of powders commercially with individual burn rates, and that leaves a LOT of burn-rate gaps in between these powders.

there is also a wide range of burn rates that are acceptable for most calibers. that should also be obvious.

so just as an example, if I take two powders that have published loads for a given caliber, and i blend those two powders, and use a quantity that doesn't exceed the max-10% of either load, then why would that be dangerous?


i think the real myth is that everything is unsafe if it's not specifically published in the most recent versions of 5 different reloading manuals