why hot loads?

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35W, I have to agree that this falls too far under a "blanket statement". One sentence about "happy for you" does not quite justify the rest of the paragraph about net nannies or sniveling worryworts.

You last sentence " I'll go one step further and say anyone who gets their loading data, be it mouse fart loads or fire belching magnum loads from an internet forum without consulting a manual OR relying on existing experience is an accident waiting to happen to begin with" confirms this and contradicts what most of the rest of your post says.

Your last sentence here, was infact the best and safest thing you stated in this thread.

Bear in mind, not harping on you for anything, just commenting on how the post read.
 
Well... For the most part, thanks for the responses. I meant this as a question to help me understand, not as a means for two camps to argue a point.

As far as the car anaolgy, I have a miata with a 480HP V8 motor in it. I guess one could consider that a hot load, it is very fast and I love it. Just don't have the desire to do so with reloads :)
 
When I bought a .44 mag in the early 70's my father thought I was crazy. Use a rifle he said. His opinion a .45 Colt was more than enough in a handgun. And the .38 special was all you need. A .357 was too much flash and kick. I wonder what he would have said about the .460 or 500 magnum.

Now at 64, I think he may have been right.
 
WYOMan said:
Some people may not have a little"Captain in em", but they seem to have a little "Elmer Keith" in em.
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NO ONE mentioned this excellent line? Fine. If no one else is taking it I am.

And for the record, I have been known to participate in a little beyond-SAAMI loading. It does the soul good to look over the cliff now and then.
 
Hey Steve, it's Jeremy. Nice to see you here. :) Anyway another thing to consider here is the variance you will see from gun to gun, considering that factory loads are theoretically made to run in the lowest common denominator. What's hot for one gun isn't necessarily hot in another, one of the many reasons to handload. For example warm loads in my 1911 10mm are pussycats in my 610 revolver. Warm loads in my Smith 629 are less warm (from reading the brass) in my 77/44 carbine, and inversely WWB factory loads in the 77/44 are more deforming to the brass than they are in the 629- this is probably due to the powder used vs. barrel length & other things. Not to mention in my 300 WSM I had some Winchester factory loads that were hammer-the-bolt-open hot whereas I can handload to keep it at a safe level & actually get better velocity. Another example in my modern 6.5x55 it's happy with roughly the book powder numbers for older actions, but it spits them out at a few hundred FPS faster with a much shorter barrel. It's all about fine tuning which you know something about. I like to run my loads, for the most part, warm up to the point of best accuracy or consistency but not push into the area where the brass starts doing funny things. Because of normal variances between actions, brass, primers, OAL etc. I always use the loading manuals as a guide to get started but then let common sense & prudence find the safe upper end for any given gun & load. If I want a weaker load, I'll get a smaller gun. :)
 
No, but SAAMI specs and published reloading manuals are the closest thing to a bible that handloaders have. They are there for a reason and for that same reason is why ammo and firearm manufacturers follow them.
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True but SAAMI specs are what they are for varying reasons and reaching the potential of a 100yr old cartridge in modern guns is not one of them. Fact: several cartridges have a very low pressure rating due to the old guns that chamber them. Fact: it is no more or less safe to load modern guns chambering those cartridges to higher, known pressures than any other cartridge in any other gun at any other pressure level. Fact: it is no less safe for a new handloader to load the Keith .44Spl load for his new Ruger flat-top than it is for me or John Taffin to do it. If you can't follow safe handloading practices for one gun you can't follow them for any and shouldn't be handloading.

As most things, the difference is perception. Some folks just have a need to have everything pigeon-holed. I don't.
 
I have am 8mm mauser that I load routinely over book spec for and it shows no signs of pressure at all.
I also have a Browning BLR 30-06 that I can't load much over 54gr of IMR4350, with 57gr being max load, due to an undersized chamber, or it flows primers all over the place not to mention a herendous recoil, that is not comfortable or normal.

Why we load over maximum or at minimum for a particular rifle or pistol could have alot to do with our experience and knowledge of what we can do safely because of our research, and those that doesn't know what to watch for, shouldn't be doing it and probably will blow up their guns.

Some overload as a controlled experiment,I know someone on this forum that does it just to see what a given pistol can stand before it blows, myself, I'm not that curious. I stick to the pressure signs and use the published data as a starting reference, research my choice of powder to see if it is spiky at hotter loads of published data and so on, but just because I load over spec for my mauser which also has one of the strongest actions made, doesn't mean I'm being unsafe or I'm a chest thumping idiot like the ones that are blowing up their actions.

This mauser is the only rifle out of the 9 that I own that tells me through pressure signs that I can safely go 1 gr over max and is it's most accurate there. My other rifles, some stop way short of ever getting to maximum load, and the rest are just statis quo with published data.

That being said, obviously it not for the beginner or
 
If I want to jump out of airplanes, ride a motorcycle without a helmet, hunt grizzlies with a pocket knife, or handload my .38 Special beyond the limits printed in manuals, that's my business. And if any of these activities influences some indiscriminent, careless person well, he or she likely was an accident waiting to happen in the first place. I'll go one step further and say anyone who gets their loading data, be it mouse fart loads or fire belching magnum loads from an internet forum without consulting a manual OR relying on existing experience is an accident waiting to happen to begin with.
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So who pays for you life long hospital bills as you are no longer able to work and be a wage earner for you or your family. Who supports them after the accident that you were sure would never happen.

I had a father in law who felt the same way. Took him 8 years to die after his foolish hunting accident and was only able to move his eyes, couldn't speak or anything, fed thru a tube.

Yup it was his business and the whole family suffered along with him. Mother in law is now pennyless, and yes she had insurance. Any idea how fast even the best insurance is used up with 24 hour care? It was gone long before the 8 years were up.

No man is an island!
 
^ Posts like these are the reason threads get locked. You don't even explain what he actually did as a lesson for everyone else.
 
Ignoring all of the above.

aside from hunting, I'm wondering what appeals is for hot loads. do some of you use them for purposes other than hunting or self defense?
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What do you mean by HOT? To me a hot load is something at or near the high end of the published data for the caliber in question. If we use that as a definition:

I like to push my rifle hunting bullets quite fast for flatter trajectories and more terminal energy. I have never exceeded published specs in doing this but consider them hot.

Handgun ammo: I used to like to push the limit on my 44 Special. I had a modern gun not one of the older ones. I was shooting this at the time Elmer was hot rodding the 44 Spl. It was great to have so much power in your hand. (This right here is the answer you seek) You gotta remember I was just a kid in high school at the time, and Elmer was my hero. I look at it a little differently and don't load near so hot for the 44 Spl these days. I sometimes wonder if I was lucky to not have blown up a gun?

I now have a 44 magnum and have never shot factory rounds in it. I will likely never load to its full potential because I have no need for that much power. Comes a point where the recoil is enough. Who needs to beat themselves up ?? The first 44 Mag I ever saw, a feller had it but couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with it. Truth is he flinched because of the heavy recoil. He liked to brag about how much power it had.
(There you go again)

I have seen the same thing many times with guys and their deer rifles bragging about how fast or how much power their "Super Whatever" Was.

If you are shooting paper or tin cans, not much use in pushing the top end. One can usually find a good accurate load below published max.

I don't mind if you want to push the envelope, but please do it carefully and watch for signs of overpressure.

My experience tells me that learning to shoot is way more important than pushing the ammo for another few FPS.
 
^ Posts like these are the reason threads get locked. You don't even explain what he actually did as a lesson for everyone else.
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OK! He insisted he didn't need a safety belt while in a tree stand!

Broke his neck in one place and his back in 2 places, all on the fast way down.

Now the thread won't get locked, at least because of what I posted!
 
NWcityguy2, did you bother to read the quote I pute at the top of my post? It reads

If I want to jump out of airplanes, ride a motorcycle without a helmet, hunt grizzlies with a pocket knife, or handload my .38 Special beyond the limits printed in manuals, that's my business.
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Jumping out of airplanes, riding a motorcycle w/o a helment, or hunting grizzlies with a pocket knife has nothing to do with SAMMI specs either.
 
35Whelen's post had to do with calculated risk, which is what we're talking about. Jcwit's posts have nothing at all to do with this discussion.
 
But then you followed me over here and made a derogatory post about me. At least in my mind.

Why do you insist on bickering with me and my opinions, or am I not allowed to have or express my opinion.

You may have your opinion as I may have mine. At least I think I still have that right.

I'm going over to Benchrest central, wanna come along?
 
I can only give my personal reasons to stay within SAAMI or published data.
First, I don't have any testing equipment so I don't know exactly what pressure a certain load in a certain gun is producing. Second, from what I've read, it is really hard to read brass, primers, etc in handgun cartridges to ascertain what pressures are safe. Third, just because a certain load works one day doesn't mean it will work the same the next day as temperature when loading and firing has an effect on pressure. Fourth, in handgun ammo little changes in charge weight, and bullet setback can make big differences in load discharge. For all of the above, I'll stay with the conservative load data. If I need more thrill, then I just buy a more potent weapon.

All that being said, I have no problem with others experimenting with nuclear loads in any variety. Just please let me know at the range before you fire..........
 
Steve, I have no idea why people would want to load over published max loads. Keep good records and chart accuracy as you increase powder. When accuracy starts to fall off, stop. As you gain experience and confidence, you may want to experiment a little. I've been reloading since 1974 and have always followed the manuals. So far, I've yet to have a problem.

An Air Force Wild Weasel pilot once told me:"There are old pilots. There are bold pilots. There ain't no old and bold pilots."
 
But then you followed me over here and made a derogatory post about me.
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I didn't follow you over here. I've been participating in this thread for a week. Get over yourself.

Saying that your posts are off-topic is derogatory??? :confused:
 
Like I already said, the post you quoted was about risk and responsibility, which is directly related to this discussion. Your response, was not. Sorry YOU can't get THAT. Either way I'm over you and your foolishness.
 
I load one cartridge _way_ beyond SAAMI specs. Because SAAMI was smoking crack on that one. 8x57 Mauser. 35000 psi? I think not. Thankfully, much of the reloading data out there is loaded to the more sane CIP standard of 57000 psi/49000 cup. I do wish SAAMI would come out with something like "8MM Mauser +P". At least Hornady is loading to a more useful level.

With most of the rifles I load for, the most accurate loads I've found are in the hot end of the min-max range. I think that has something to do with the most efficient burning pressure of modern powders, but that's just a guess.

Matt
 
I agree with Morcy, my 8mm mausers from the 1940's (3 of them) tend to run better (accurate with no signs of pressure) with loads in the 46,000-50,000 cup range. While they may be considered "Hot", I believe they perform the way they were intended and are very accurate. I don't recommend this for others; I took my time and worked up these loads over several years.

My Spanish mausers from the 1930's I run a bit lighter @ 42,000-45,000 cup and they perform very well; based on the design of those actions (93 & 95) I don't feel the need to run any hotter.

By reloading I can tailor loads for each individual gun, it takes time, but it's well worth it, I am confident that any gun/load combo I take to the field, will do it's job as long as I respect it's limitations.

I tend to have better success with loads that fill 90-100% capacity of available space after bullet is in.
 
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