Well guys, I can recommend this.. those having troubles with Blue Dot in the smaller cases are just trying to squeeze too much velocity out of them, OR are not working up properly...
I am looking at doing the 17 Fireball myself as a rebarrel.. just has to work around the budget right now which is kinda tight ( for most of nowadays right?)...
However, for anyone working up with ANY case, I can recommend the following...
fill the case up to the brim with Blue Dot.. I call that full case capacity...
take 20% of that figure and start working up from that point.. that won't give you a squibb load...
I also recommend to start with pistol or small pistol primers..
Figure what 50% of that FULL CAPACITY, is and use that as a stopping point to work toward...
start working slower ( in smaller increments ) once you get to 40% of FULL CAPACITY...like in a fireball case, I'd start working in 2/10 grain increments..from 40 % of max case capacity... then 1/10 grain increments if I was playing with over the 50% FULL Capacity mark...
in a Hornet or Bee case, I'd work in 1/10 increments from 40% of full case capacity.. and 2/10s grain increments from 20 to 40% of maximum...
a little extra work and time and focusing on details will be well worth it in the long run...
hey ANYONE who wants to send me a barrel that is threaded for a Savage action, chambered in any of the smaller rounds, I'll be more than happy to do the load development with Blue Dot on it...
So far the 204 is the ONLY sub 223 caliber I have blue Dot tested on.. but it still maintained the same patterns as the 223 for capacity...
other folks have written me for advise and I gave them the above info, and they have tried it and it has worked just fine...
many of them have been in wild cat stuff, like a 22.250 AI necked down to 20 cal; and 19 cal...or a 22 BR necked down to those.... the responses back have shown they have found acceptable results without blowing up anything...
do the math ahead of time before you hit the reload bench, and 3/4s of the work is already done and you have boundaries you know you are safe within...only trying to squeeze the max amount of velocity is where folks get back into trouble, and that is not what I was working with Blue Dot to accomplish....
