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Along the same lines, some of the BPCR crowd place a tiny piece of toilet tissue inside the case to cover the flash hole before the case is charged. This is done to moderate the flash.

Ed

Moderating the ignition isn't what I was thinking. The pressure would still be there. The inital jump in pressure from primer ignition could unseat the bullet. A primer with a smaller initial pressure spike might not unseat the bullet. The site below shows a few large and small rifle primers, with Fed 205m primers being the "lightest" shown. I couldn't find anything similar for pistol primers.

http://www.6mmbr.com/primerpix.html

Well, you fellas may be on to something there, but how to fix it is a puzzle? I have some SR match primers, but have been shooting the WW and CCI SPP exclusively. Thing that makes me think crimp is the issue is the velocity deviations are almost random in nature, with one, sometimes two in a string taking off on their own. I note that the most prevalent circumstance for this is when I push velocity up above the mid 900 fps range. A very few have gone out of the box on the top side, but most have velocity drops. Crimp I think, but that's a maybe/maybe not deal. Next suspect on this is the bullet alloy. I had a similar experience with the Sneezer project and hardening the alloy helped a lot. I haven't the slightest idea what pressures are with this ammo, suspect it is on the low side, but that's speculation.

While I ponder such weighty things I shall wander back to the lead pot and crank out a few hundred that are a bit more hard headed and see what happens. One thing for a fact would be the tendency of these loads to wad 3 or four into one little ragged hole then fling one out in left field brings out the "hold my beer and watch this" in me. I'll sort this out in time...little clues keep popping up and doing this without conventional load tooling is a challenge, but in the end you'll see 5 in a wad, count on it.

Last thought? It works...........

Maybe a tiny bit of filler on top of the powder to keep the powder charge in a consistent place...?

Have considered that but note the velocity excursions do not seem influenced by load density. Large flake powders (700X, Red Dot etc) do it with ~80% LD and the others do it w/ 50%. Head scratcher it is. Thinking that once I test the different alloys and nail down the crimp issue I'll see what happens with the Wolf powder.

I have been reading this thread for awhile now.... I applaud all of you who are good at sorting out the puzzle... changing one variable at a time and keeping careful notes...

My brain just does not work that way..... The Clint Eastwood line about "A man needs to know his limitations" comes to mind.

I do really like the concept of a quite re-loadable small game round in a Contender carbine though. I have enough lead alloy horded away to last the rest of my days. I'm pretty frugal (cheap) too so I'd enjoy the just the cost of a primer and bit of powder in a small volume case plan.

Does anyone have experience with say a .32 Mag or a .327 Fed (if the longer case would not hamper a primary goal of accurate and quite "mouse fart" type loads) in a carbine or rifle length barrel?

No, but I have shot .32 S&W Long out of my .30-06 by using an adapter cartridge. It was very quiet and surprisingly accurate.

Ed

Will be a slave to the cause tomorrow, lead pot will be smokin'.....

Background dialog with Jimy earlier and he pegged something I've been dancing with, bullet base symmetry, or lack thereof. Sprue plate was a bit loose and some of the bullets were queer on the backside. Oh well......fixed and moving on.

I've shot round balls from a .44 Mag, but they were paper patched. Shot quite well up to around 1800 fps, how weird is that? They will strip on the rifling somewhere approaching 2400 fps though. My Chrony told me it was lucky to have survived the ordeal. Probably? They weren't quiet.

Hey Dan, any thoughts on changing the size of the thru hole ? I'm not at the shop now but weren't we at .080 ? Do you want some at say 10 each @ .070/.060/.050 or some where in between?

Thinking I would prefer to keep it at .080". Any smaller and I'll have a minor challenge with the decapping thing. Have some brass from RMC with a flashole in the .050-.060 range for the .25-20SS and don't see any performance advantage with that cartridge compared to other brands with the conventional geometry. I can try it if you like, but no more than 5 cases in the range of .050-.060"?

Don't know for certain but suspect your point out on the concentricity issue of the bullet base might have a positive effect on things. More exercise with the mould yesterday than I care to relate, suffice to say it was an education. Never had cause to do a fine detail exam on a mould but glad I did....and it's all your fault! Thanks for that and I'll be talking to Steve Brooks about a couple of points. Will probably learn a few more things about this stuff. Yesterday's run with the mould left a fair batch with .002 RO or less, BHN in the range of 9. Don't recall if I told this tale previously, but when I opened the door to having him make the mould he put one together that was the result of salvaging a block that wasn't up to specs for the big ol' .45 cal money bullet and boring the .22 hole to one side. Funny looking thing when opened for inspection. Such was his interest in the project that he tossed in the mould free of charge with the caveat that the next one wouldn't be so cheap. Boy howdy, do I appreciate that thought. Lessons in Tedium 101 is a 5 credit course!

I have suggested as much about the nature of this before, and I want to clarify for those interested, should all the fine points get ironed out and this thing demonstrates match grade precision, it will be by virtue of having worked out the fine details along the way. Assembling the ammo is easy and fair quick and I know for a fact it will be even easier once tools are available.

Time to pop some caps before anything firm is decided in any case.

DD

>.080 it will be, it might be worth making a sizing die for for the bullet seat dia, a simple bench block with a short leed in and a precision hole thru it, I'm thinking we could get the runout down to a half thousand or so by pushing them into the hole, and rotating them 180 degrees simple getting rid of the high spot and lows.
I will wait to hear how today's test go.

Didn't look good for the shoot today, but there was a break in the rain and I put Round 7 to rest.

Funny stuff for your consideration is the first fouler group of Norma TAC had good numbers for 3 shots and a 1/2" group at 20 yards. The last group after the trial went .53" for three shots, with similar numbers.

Went 5 rounds each with Bullseye, WW231 and Red Dot.



I have come to a couple of conclusions as a result.

- Norma TAC ain't all that good anymore.
-My new bullet guru is Jimy, who noted a concentricity issue on some bullets I sent his way and I sorta fixed that before this shoot. Thank you Master!
-The harder alloy did not lead, not even a flake.
-It isn't that hard to equal production SV velocity. See the Red Dot target. See the low numbers. See one of the biggest groups of the day.
-I have some more work ahead with the WW231 and Bullseye. The Red Dot has shown some good numbers along the way, but not a lot of precision. It just got fired.
-Will bump up the charge of Bullseye and 231 to 1.0 and 1.1 next round and let them race with a round loaded with Wolf powder. I'm going to crack the 1050 fps barrier with some precision before this concludes.

For what it's worth, I think it a successful project to this point and it demonstrates the functional nature of building such ammo. The brass has been fired 7 times now and has yet to require sizing, though the crimp die is useful. I've an energetic friend who keeps yakking about making a CF bolt for the 10/22....might turn him loose on that.

As this progresses stray thoughts occur and I'm curious about what others think. Recall somewhere in the past I posted a pic of my case cleaning tool, a bamboo skewer with some steel wool wrapped around. It has evolved to use bronze wool and does a remarkable job of cleaning the cases after firing.



So here I am, seating primers with a hammer, cleaning cases with bamboo, not having to size, using a file to knurl the bullets and a makeshift size die as a taper crimp tool. The Rockchucker is used to decap the cases after firing, but it isn't necessary. Not visible in the photo above is a feature of the load block which provides for decapping by use of a small center punch and my wee hammer. See the top hole in this image....high tech decapping station. Haaarrrrhhh!



All of this causes me to vacillate in regards to the ideal load tools, pun intended. Given a modicum of hand tools it is entirely possible that 4H shooting clubs, Boy Scouts and so forth could introduce our youth into the art of hand loading at modest expense. Maybe even bullet casting? Or there is the certainty that some of us dogmatic minutia maniacs might wish to build match grade ammo and that would benefit from use of more conventional loading tools and equipment. In short, I feel strongly both ways and wonder what you loonies think as well.

Thoughts?

DD

DD,have you tried any jacketed bullets in the wee little case? I am asking as that just might be a squirrel killer extraordinaire.

No, haven't even contemplated that. There be a shortage of properly sized J-bullets for the cartridge since spec groove diameter is .222" and the heel thing. Of course if any of our fellow loonies wish to explore development of a swagged jacketed bullet to spec I would be the first to welcome such effort!

For whatever it might be worth, my testing schedule has it the next round will up the ante on velocity a bit, and eventually I'll explore the supersonic world. Hell, I might even get myself a short bullet mould and try Warp speeds.

Ensign Chekov

Thanks Dan.

A lightweight jacketed bullet at 1000+ fps would be just the ticket for squirrels and bunnies.

I'd wager that soft lead would do the same. Bold assumption on my part based on how my Benjamin 312 works on squill.

Could be Dan,I just don't want any richochets as there are houses around the pecan orchard.

You'd almost have to go with a bullet similar to a "Sinterfire". Or just use a PCP air rifle.

Ed