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Old April 2, 2023, 09:23 AM   #1
Recycled bullet
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Super light loads for Revolver and Rifle.

For a couple range trips I experienced/experimented as low as one grain tite group with flush seated rem hollow base wadcutters in 38 brass and got consistent holes on target.

It was fun in the magnum snub!

It shot to the fixed sights at ten yards!

Last week I experienced the joy of four grains trail boss pushing 150 grain powder coated plain base bullets in 308.

I could hear the firing pin noise at the indoor shooting range with other shooters blasting away with my electrical hearing muffs!

The most important thing is to use a target with good contrast under the best lighting available where you are. For me that's paper plates. I can see the holes for every shot this way.
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Old April 2, 2023, 01:31 PM   #2
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When working with ultra light loads, being able to see the bullet impact (AND THAT THERE IS ONE) is vital.

You REALLY don't want to fire a second bullet in a barrel that has a bullet stuck in it!!!

Anytime you don't see a bullet impact, or the sound of the report, or the recoil is different from the rest of the ammo you are shooting, STOP!!! and make sure the bore is clear before firing again!
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Old April 2, 2023, 02:35 PM   #3
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Hey 44 AMP, do you have experience with handloading 300 blackout or 308 Winchester with both really light and also really heavy for caliber bullets you may be willing to share?

I have some ideas maybe worth sharing about those 208 grain hollow point thirty caliber bullets I have been casting.

The 300 Blackout Ruger American ranch has a fixed 4x Simmons shot gun scope on it, and claims a 1 in 7" rate of twist.

I shoot the heavies into a medicine bottle cap sized group propelled by ten grains of 4227.
The barrel is threaded, I do not own suppressors unfortunately.

I am tempted by the hollow points molds designed for 30 Carbine and 32H&R Magnum.

I imagine they might even be stable enough to make round holes in a paper plate at fifty yards, propelled with a pinch of titegroup at cross bow velocity.

My rifles are standard turn bolt style manually operated, one is lever action with the rotary bolt like a gas gun.

My new favorite is the Remington model 7 CDL in 308 Winchester.
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Old April 3, 2023, 01:54 PM   #4
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Never had anything to do with the .300 Blackout, sorry.

Did some work with .308 and 173gr cast bullets about 50 years ago, using pistol powder making what at the time were called "gallery loads". Youthful ignorance and enthusiasm allowed an accident that almost blew up a rifle, and I dropped the idea of gallery loads in general.

I have loaded some cast in .308 Win, same slug a (nominal) 173gr RN but with rifle powder and loaded "full" for the cast slug, which puts them in the 15-1600fps range.

I have done 10gr Unique under a 400gr cast in the .45-70. Plinker load no idea the speed but if its 800fps I'd be amazed.

Which brings up a point, when using small charges of fast powder in LARGE cases, which is where the powder is in all that empty space.

People say bad things can happen when the powder charge isn't held back against the flash hole. There are lots of discussion about methods to do this and also about using (inert) fillers.

When I was loading "cat sneeze" loads in .45-70, I never bothered with any of that. My method was simply to load the round into the chamber then point the muzzle straight up for a few seconds, so the powder was at the bottom of the case, then lower the rifle down to level shooting position, and fire. I took care to never shoot those rounds any other way, and since I was the only one shooting them, it was never a problem for me.

Using a filler would be a smarter, safer way to do it, though.
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Old April 3, 2023, 03:01 PM   #5
reddog81
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I have a RAR in .300 BLK. 5 grains of Unique got me 991 FPS with a 311299 bullet that was about 200 grains+/-.

6 Grains Unique got 1102 FPS. I settled on 5.5 grains as it is subsonic but should be pushing right at the supersonic limit.

5 Grains VV N340 got 971 and 6 grains got 1081 FPS with the 311299 bullet.

Using a Lee 155 Grain gas checked bullet and 14 grains W296 I got 1,400 FPS.

The range I go to has a selection of metal targets at 100 yards. One of the targets has a 2 or 3 inch cutout with little popper target behind it that clinks real loud when you hit it. I have no idea what MOA I'm getting but with 5.5 grains Unique and that 311299 but I can hit that popper 20 times in a row. It's so quite and easy to shoot it's basically like shooting a bolt action .38 Special.
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Old April 3, 2023, 03:08 PM   #6
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I believe the "light load unicorn kabooms" were very light loads of very slow powders that were not held to the primer. Fast or heavy powder, despite considerable effort...

no one has ever been able to reproduce the effect in a ballistics laboratory.

People manage destruction very often firing bullets with a too-slow bullet obstruction or triple or quadruple charging very fast powders which leave enough space for even more gross overfilling than that!

I like 11 grains of Unique with a 180 grain cast bullet in 30-06. It has three advantages- it's accurate, fun to shoot, and the same amount of Unique as my .44 Magnum load so it often doesn't require anything being changed on my powder measure. Oh, I reckon it would thump a coyote pretty good, which was another thought for it. I have not chronographed it, it's well under max load.. I reckon it's about 1300 fps. Maybe someone has a ballistics calculator and can tell me.

I've tried it with whisps of poly pillow fluff filler (just hardly any, enough to hold the powder) and without. I could not tell the difference, even shooting barrel to the floor before raising the gun to shoot. (powder all at the front of the shell)

Others mileage may vary.

Oh, I got this load from Phil Sharpe, complete guide to handloading, 3rd edition 1953.
I bet the 1939 version has it, too.
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Old April 3, 2023, 07:26 PM   #7
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The whole "underload of slow powder in magnum rifle case going kaboom" was something they worked on replicating in labs for years. Its been a while, but last I heard they had managed to have it happen in the lab.

What they hadn't been able to so far is make it happen on demand or consistently.

No idea if that has changed. Not anything I follow closely.
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Old April 3, 2023, 10:45 PM   #8
tangolima
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I did my share of tinkering with cast bullets. Some of them are light loads. That's why I stock up trailboss. 70% load ratio as minimum load and work up from there. It always works, and works well too. Its bulk eliminates position sensitivity.

-TL

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Old April 5, 2023, 03:08 PM   #9
Paul B.
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I've probably shot about 100 cast bullets for every jacketed one in most of my rifles. Light loads using Unique and 2400 and near full power loads with IMR3031 and H4895. Most of the time it was a 30-30, .308 or 30-06 as those were my main hunting rifles.

As the subject is super light loads probably one that should work quite well is a 120 gr. bevel base round nose bullet from SAECO. Shoots surprisingly well in the 30-30 and .308 with 5.0 gr. Unique and a quarter square of two ply toilet paper tamped lightly against the powder to hold it next to the primer. Nice 25 or 50 yard plinker. The same bullet with 10.0 gr. Unique will give decent groups to 100 yards most of the time. Sorry, the mold I have for that bullet does not have a number. I found it at a gun show.

I have played with lightweight bullets in the three cartridges for yeas and have 10,110, 120, 130, 150, 175, 180, 190, 200 and 225 gr. bullets for 30 caliber.

Probably the load I like best though isn't all that light. The Lyman #311284 at 225 gr. is a hoot to shoot in a Browning B78 single shot rifle. Still tinkering to get groups at 50 yards. about the best I can get is 1.5" but according to reference material I have, Browning uses a 1in 12" twist in the 30-06 and my problem might be one of stability.

I have loaded the 175 gr. bullet to about 1950 FPS in the 30-30 and taken deer with the load. Alloy is right at 11 on the BHN scale and works reasonably well on game.
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Old April 5, 2023, 08:30 PM   #10
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I am reading all your responses and glad that we all share this fascination with hand loading!!!

There are some interesting ballistic similarities in between 38 Special/357 Magnum and 300 Blackout using some of the same amounts of the same powders propelling similar weight bullets.

I wish my 77/357 had a 1 in 7" twist
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Old April 8, 2023, 09:42 AM   #11
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CAUTION: The following post (or a page linked to) includes or discusses loading data not covered by currently published sources of tested data for this cartridge (QuickLOAD or Gordon's Reloading Tool data is not professionally tested). USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. Neither the writer, The Firing Line, nor the staff of TFL assumes any liability for any damage or injury resulting from the use of this information.

Two events I've seen reported. One is that Dr. Lloyd Brownell wrote that he'd seen light loads more than double normal pressure in his lab and pointed out these events have a random distribution with a long tail toward the high-pressure end (something like Rayleigh distribution, I expect). The very high-pressure events happen way out in the tail, where the probability is extremely low. In other words, every time you set up the conditions for the problem, the actual event is a roll of the dice, with the particular "kaboom" combination of stars lining up being very rare (a.k.a. outliers), but not never. He published this in letters to the editor in a rebuttal to an article claiming there was no danger in it in Handloader long ago (the late '60s, IIRC).

The Finnish Gunwriters site has a brief paragraph on a gunwriter who almost lost his sight, wearing despite shooting glasses, when a .308 Win rifle with being loaded subsonically with 3.1 grains on N320 (a pistol powder that is slightly faster than Unique), blew his rifle up, whereas 7.8 grains works just fine. One interesting point they make is that you get a good clue (and Brownell's data indicate the same thing happening), and that is very erratic velocity, reflecting that peak pressure varies a lot, despite charge weight consistency. Also, note that the Finnish experience dismisses the idea that only slow powders present this problem. It just happens at different levels of reduced charge space. For IMR rifle powders in 30-06, Brownell showed it started occurring in the range of what works out to <60% loading density. For N320, the Finns suggest avoiding what works out to about <20% load density fill and showing good velocity consistency at that 20% level in the 308 W.

I have no proof but suspect the use of something to hold powder over the flash hole is likely to avoid the issue by keeping ignition complete. The only way a detonation would normally be possible is if the explosive mass becomes fused so a shock wave can travel through it without interruption. We see fused powder in many squib loads so that part of the puzzle has been demonstrated. What then causes the initiating shockwave is pure speculation, but it's not difficult to imagine ignitable vapors from heated, fused powder producing the equivalent of an engine knock in the chamber. But I don't know that's what happens. I just mention it to point out that nothing unheard of needs to be conjured up to propose a potential explanation.

The bottom line is that if I were experimenting with these ultra-light loads, I'd have a chronograph out to look for wide velocity variation, and I would be using polyester pillow ticking or Pufflon or something to hold powder against the flash hole to be sure it was fully exposed to the flame of the primer. I would use a magnum primer to promote that exposure. But that's just my personal thinking. I DO NOT RECOMMEND ANYONE ELSE DO THIS.
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Old April 8, 2023, 10:52 AM   #12
tangolima
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Unclenick. I have read about the danger of extremely light load. I think they call this unusual phenomenon REST, but I don't remember that it stands for.

Not that I doubt Dr Brownell or the Fins (I used to work for a Finnish company. I enjoyed working with coworkers from Finland. They are serious, similar to Germans in a way.), But I do have questions on their conclusions.

The phenomenon is known to be very difficult to replicate in the lab. Some reported it was impossible, and some reported it wasn't possible till very recently. If it is so difficult to replicate, how can a pdf (probability density function) be established to indicate its Rayleigh like distribution?

Extremely light load has very little powder. The total energy content is hence very low. Even with complete release of that little energy within very short time (high power), the amount of energy may not be enough to do that sort of damage. One speculation on the mechanism suggested the incomplete ignition smother the powder. The powder releases gaseous contents. Such contents burns much faster when subsequently ignited. It explains the high power, but it doesn't explain the energy though.

Anyway I agree that anything lower than 70% load ratio should be avoided if all possible. That's why trailboss is my favorite. Its bulkyness maintains high load ratio. Fast burning promote good ignition. Low energy content... well keeps it tame. Even with that I rarely go below the suggested 70%.

Most "extreme light load" is about speed, subsonic or whatnot. I would maintain 70% load and use heavier bullet for lower speed. It is little powder, little bullet, and big brass(literally) to chase little speed that will get one into trouble.

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Old April 8, 2023, 12:09 PM   #13
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It has been some time since I shot cast bullets in .30-06 but I have target notes, unfortunately no chronograph readings.

H322, IMR 4198, and Norma 200 were just so-so.
SR4759 was better, 2400 was good and easier to find.
700X was fun and pretty accurate.

Best load of all was a spitzer nose bullet, which is not supposed to work in cast, and 16.1 gr 2400. Unfortunately, the number I have for the mold does not come up. Maybe 311329 where I have 311429.
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