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Old May 2, 2005, 08:11 PM   #2
Sturm
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Join Date: March 2, 2005
Location: Central Texas
Posts: 584
almtiba, a lot of shooters use magnum powders in short barreled magnums, I'm not one of them. First off, a short barrel .357, .41, or .44 mag implies to me, that this gun may also serve in a defensive role, so I'm gonna try to eliminate flash as much as possible here. If you think of things proportionally you find that magnum powders deliver higher velocity in barrels 6" and over. As you decrease barrel length you also find that there is greater velocity loss with magnum powders proprtionate to the shorter barrel length, along with higher amounts of unburned powder and the still greater muzzle flash. What I do is to use powders just slightly faster than the magnums, that when loaded to full pressure also come closer to complete combustion in the shorter length barrel. I am evidently in a minority of magnum reloaders that have found this to be the case. I will tell you that there are some very technically capable reloaders that understand it.

Look at it from this perspective. the slower the powder is, the more gradual its' pressure peak is. There are some who believe that pressure peak occurs in the cylinder of a magnum revolver. The technical studies I have read make it clear to me that this is damn near impossible unless you are shooting very low pressure cartridges. I don't mean to overcomplicate this, just trying to give you some rationale for the logic.

Unfortunately, in the U.S. we get little or no data on powders outside of the country unless they have at least had distribution in the U.S. i.e. NORMA, Vihta Vuori, Scot and to a lesser extent, Nobelsport/Vectan which I like a great deal. SP-2 in particular. If SP-2 is available in Brazil I would recommend it without hesitation. Same applies to VV 3N37 and N-350 if it is available. I don't know how much data you get on our powders, but any I select for this role would all be considerably slower than W-231 and slightly faster than H-110 or W-296. The only magnum powders I would even consider would be Accurate #9 or Ramshot Enforcer, which may not be available to you Accurate #7 is a better choice than #9 for a 3" magnum handload.

If CBC210 and 220 are numerated to indicate burn rate as most of our powders are, I would guess that they are both slightly faster than, or near to, 231. I would certainly be interested to find out! If you go to www.ramshot.com you will find the most up to date burn rate chart that I am aware of, that seems pretty consistent to others in the past. Look at the pistol powders located in the burn rate chart ranging from Hodgdon HS-6 (specifically ball powders), to Vihta Vuori 3N38, or Blue Dot (which is extruded flake) though it will flash a bit more than the slower ball powders. If you have a CBC (ball) powder that you have experience with that is in this burn rate range, I would try it. If you don't, the majority of powders in this range will serve your purposes. Since I'm sure they're not all available to you, that will narrow the list down. If all you can locate is HS-6 or AA#7, they will work fine with bullets ranging from 180-300 grains!
Hope this will help you and let us know. Feel free to send me a PM!

Last edited by Sturm; May 3, 2005 at 12:54 AM.
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