Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles I am here to eat crow, having learned my lesson

Potsy,

BOTH of those was in an 8 week period, and the same rifle.

The first was some Black Hills Ammo, back when you could buy a 50 round box for like $11.00. They were reloads. Like a lot of folks for that price, it was a cheap way to get 223 brass. I had gone thru a box, and on the 43 round, the rifle blew up. I kept the box and ammo, took pictures and contacted Black Hills Ammo. Like 6 weeks later they sent me a check for $11.00 that I had paid for the ammo, and a brief note of 'Sorry bout that'.. and nothing more.

Meanwhile I had gone to a friend that did cabinets for a living, so he had all the wood working items. He repaired the stock, which had really come apart in the kaboom. He put would glue on it, after stripping it, and then glued it back together, and let it sit in some sort of vice he uses for a week or so. I told him, I'd refinish the stock from that point. Used Early American colored Urethane on it. It was pretty eye catching, as I had folks ask where did I get the stock at, because it looked really nice.

Had a gunsmith friend go thru the action and he replaced a few parts and got it whole once again.

Put some more rounds thru it, and it was doing just fine once again. Probably about a 100 or so.

Then reloaded some rounds with 25 grains of H 335, just 10 or so... but on like the 7th or 8th, it did another blow up, and the stock came apart in big pieces once again. I pulled the last remaining 7 rounds of the Black Hills ammo apart and their charge was 25 grains of what looked like H335 powder ( who knows what it was ), with Hornady 55 gr SPs. Sent an email to Black Hills and got NO response.

So I contacted Hodgdon and they told me they had sent out some bad batches of H 335. The one I had, was in the production range, that they said they had tried to recall. I missed that evidently. I don't burn a lot of H 335, usually bought it when it was on sale.

Mike Bellm, the gunsmith who had worked it over before, looked it over real well, and came up with the conclusion it was a bad batch of powder. He shot a lot of H 335 in his guns. I had paid $300 for the rifle used, and had put about 5,000 down the tube. Mike offered me $250 for the action and barrel. I let him have it for $200 since we were friends and he had done the previous work in repair for free. I was going to just give it to him, but he insisted. The stock was shot ( literally ), but he said he had a few other Ruger stocks hanging around. When I bought the rifle for $300, it also had a 3 x 9 Nikon on top, which survived both blow ups. So I didn't have much to complain about financially on the entire affair.

Mike repaired the action and rechambered the barrel from 223 to 222. I use to take him to shoot ground squirrels and he always carried that Ruger afterwards and put a lot of rounds thru it... he took it with him when he moved back to Colorado.

However since about anything works pretty well in a bolt action 223, there are a million other powder options other than H 335. So I don't buy it. Avoid using it totally. I know many others who use it by the trainload, and never had an issue.
I just chalk it up to a bad batch.

Hodgdon did tell me that some of that bad lot number had gone to Black Hills Ammo ( in a large quantity in fact.. bulk purchase).... Hodgdon offered to replace the powder with any of my choice from their distribution network. So I said Okay, and they sent me 2 pounds for good will. Think I took H 322 IIRC. Still burn A LOT of H 322.

It all worked out in the end, but I just avoid H 335. Left a bad taste in my mouth, and as I say.. About anything works well in a 223 case. Kinda like old VWs would pretty much run on any quality of gasoline, high or low.

So there ya go... the story of it, from beginning to end. Have never ever had another issue with any powders since. Just the incidents were luck of the draw I guess...

If H 335 is working for ya, I'd keep on using it if you are happy with it. Myself, I won't touch it, just because I don't want to repeat the experience, but I know others who have used it for decades in quantity, and NEVER had a problem...

best of luck out there!