How nonsense becomes fact.

[epoletna]

There's something to be said for an old guy's opinion: they lived long enough to become an old guy!

 

[25WSM]

Takes a bunch to destroy a modern firearm. A customer brought me a remmy 700 that was locked up so hard I couldn't even get the barrel loose. Sent it to Remington. They got it apart and said the load was in excess of 125000 psi. The case head had actually flowed into the extractor groove and broke the extractor. They checked it over and put in another extractor and said it was good to go. Customer is still shooting it to this day. He swears he only had one powder open. We will never know what he did wrong. But that rifle held twice the pressure we load to. So basically what I'm saying is that if you blow a gun up it wasn't because you went one grain too far. I personally don't care what kind of pressure my rounds have if my brass last 10 or more shots and my bolt lift is easy and my primer edges are well rounded and there is no ejector swipes I call it within the design limits of my rifle and brass.
As reloaders that's all we can do. And I consider bolt lift and primer appearance THE first signs of pressure.
Shep

 

[epoletna]

Bolt lift and primer appearance are good indicators. Flowing brass is not a good indicator -- it's a sign that you should take up bowling or something. Definitely NOT reloading.

 

[25WSM]

If you flow brass it's because you ignored the first 2 pressure signs.
Shep

 

[J E Custom]

A LOT of older reloading manuals should be kept for an outhouse emergency, in case the Charmin runs out. Lots were published without reliable pressure-testing equipment. CAVEAT EMPTOR!

Just a difference of opinion

I feel just the opposite about "Old loading manuals" for that very reason. Back when there were only a half dozen manuals available, their loads were tested in a pressure gun under real conditions. Now everything is calculated and the results can vary a great deal from one manual to the next.

We also see a lot of APS for our phones for load data and they are only as good as the input in to them. They work very well in some cases but can be very dangerous if taken as absolute fact. Like the printed manuals of today they need to be compared to other sources before loads are tried.

It is interesting that when I use the old manuals, I never had problems as long as I stayed within their guide lines. Now if you don't start well below the maximum you will probably have loads that are excessive.

I also miss the new manuals not having the basics of reloading and terms that the new reloaders could benefit from and the proper way to use the reloading equipment.

In this sport, velocity is very important, but if you want 300 win mag velocity, don't buy a 308 win
and push it beyond its limit. If anything buy a 300 rum and kick back.

We are all going to do our own thing, but maybe some of this discussion will save the newer shooters/Re-loaders the grief that many of the old timers experienced.

Just My Opinion

J E CUSTOM

 

[epoletna]

I have seen brass stretch once -- not flow really, but stretch due to overpressure. And it was not a hot load. It was a thick neck. I was making .243 brass out of .308 brass (back in the sixties, when .243 brass was not available in abundance where I lived).

I turns out necking brass down that much ( .30 to .24) thickened the case neck sufficiently to make the pressure spike. I asked a gunsmith what had happened, and he explained the neck getting thick. Then he sold me a reamer for reducing the thickness of the neck. Worked perfectly. Nowadays, we would reduce the outside of the neck instead of the inside to make it the right thickness.

Lesson learned -- ask before you do something that involves high pressures in confined spaces.

 

[L.Sherm]

There is no shortage of tested loading data for wildcats.

17 Badger

 

[rsmithsr]

ii think you have not been learning while loading.
there is DATA and there are INDICATORS.
a chrono gives you DATA, bullet velocity.
bolt lift, primer condition, and brass condition are INDICATORS. PRESSURE indicators.
BOTH are valid TOOLS for hand loaders.

I was reading up on 30-06 AI, and came across an article on Shootingtimes.com , 30-06 AI reloads .

In there the writer describes his journey to producing reloads, and ends with

"... I used the usual pressure indicators of primer appearance and bolt lift to estimate how safe the "hotter" handload recipes were ..."

Usual since when, and by whom.

There is an example of a respected publication spouting often repeated nonsense, that people who don't know better about will assume is the right way to find the limit on hot handloads.

Imagine - "I can't understand why, I added one grain of powder at a time, and the bolt lifted easily each time till everything suddenly blew up ."

There is a way to find the optimum load for your rifle, that could improve on factory data, but that is not it. He measured velocity, but was comparing it to nothing known. The point of recording velocity is to check it against the known limit.

The writer ends with "Coincidentally, the Speer Reloading Manual #4 (circa 1960) includes recipes for the .30-06 AI, and the maximum velocity listed exactly matches my results."

So, by sheer dumb luck, the "feel" and the "look" gave the matching result to a measured proof barrel. At least he's lucky.

This is an example of when nonsense is repeated often enough, it becomes generally accepted fact. You cannot determine pressure change by looking at or feeling metal. It requires physical measurement.

The correct approach is to first find reputable data, and work up the load. If there is no data, there is software nowdays to estimate for you. But not to keep adding powder while checking how the primer looks and how the bolt feels.

 

[bigngreen]

In this sport, velocity is very important, but if you want 300 win mag velocity, don't buy a 308 win
and push it beyond its limit. If anything buy a 300 rum and kick back.

I find this far more dangerous than pushing a smaller case hard, I've seen two 300 RUM's locked up due to guy trying to download and with that big case and lower charges the powder detonates. Loading smaller cases harder at least give you some incremental indicators, detonation just strikes like lighting!!

 

[25WSM]

1957

 

[fiftybmg]

ii think you have not been learning while loading.
there is DATA and there are INDICATORS.
a chrono gives you DATA, bullet velocity.
bolt lift, primer condition, and brass condition are INDICATORS. PRESSURE indicators.
BOTH are valid TOOLS for hand loaders.

The indicator is reliable if it's measured. How it looks and feels is unreliable.

If you can't measure it, making stuff up doesn't count.

 

[AlphaDogs]

17 Badger

No doubt something close here you could start from.

You are being redirected...

 

[Jud96]

The indicator is reliable if it's measured. How it looks and feels is unreliable.

If you can't measure it, making stuff up doesn't count.

You can have low velocity and high pressure. If you load Bullseye in a 300 win mag you're going to blow it apart before you reach the max velocity with the book's listed max velocity. You have to be able to tell when things are going in the wrong direction before they become a major problem. The book is a reference. I've gotten faster and slower loads compared to multiple books. They're a starting point. If you're 200fps over their max then yeah something isn't right. But if you have no pressure signs and you're 50fps over their max, then you're most likely fine.

Another thing, why do manuals with data for the same cartridge, same bullet weight, same powder, and same COAL vary in charge weight? You're saying to only go by the book and their velocities. But I have many reloading books and many have similar loads listed and they are sometimes a 2+ grain discrepancy and even 50-100fps difference in max velocity. Where do you choose to start and stop? You have to be able to read pressure signs in YOUR rifle with YOUR load combination. If you can't do that then you're playing a dangerous game with your rifle and loads.

 

[AlphaDogs]

Nothing you will ever kill will die faster because of an extra 100 fps.