Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Drop Tube technique?

I have a .375 H&H Mangum (CZ 550) that seems to like IMR 4350 better than anything else I've tried. To get good velocities with 270 grn bullets I'm having to use highly compressed loads. So I bought an RCBS drop tube kit. I thought that I wouldn't have to compress the powder as much, but I cannot see any difference in the outage of brass loaded with the drop tube compared to just dribbling it into a funnel and tapping the bottom of the brass while doing so.

Is there some kind of technique I need to understand when using the drop tube?

I don’t have a 375, but what’s worked for me is dribbling the powder into the funnel in a swirling motion, and tapping the case lightly. The drop tube does help ‘seat’ the powder. Hope this helps,

Old70

Did you pass on RL-15 and/or H 4831 SC? I just use a longer tube (provided) with my red, plastic MTM set.
You can vibrate powder down some by using an electric razor or whatever set against the brass, but after a while the bullet (even crimped) can push back out.
Do up some fresh loads before hunting because the compressed powder gets "clumped". At least it was when disassembling older rounds to swap bullets.
Vibrating can also "bounce" some of the granules out so keep a close eye. Cheers!

Thanks old70, I'll try that.

RL-15 was the first powder I tried as I use it in two Whelens, but accuracy wasn't very good.

If you have a vibratory case cleaner it can be used to help settle powder. Put the powder in the case, put your finger over the case mouth, then buzz the case head against the running cleaner.

Rather than using heavily compressed loads why not use a slightly quicker burning powder? Reloder 17 comes to mind.

When using 270gn Barnes TSX in my .375 Rem Ultra Mag, RL17, H4350 and RL19 all give pretty much the same velocity with load densities being less than 100%

I'm not saying I won't try other powders, I'm just having such a good combination of accuracy and velocity with the IMR 4350. This weekend I got an average of 2655 fps with 270 grn TSXs and one five shot group that was just a little under one inch.

I have some H4350 laying around I use with a couple of .30-06s - do you think I could get comparable velocity with a lesser volume of powder using it?

So what I'm really curious about is this - do drop tubes really work?

I've given up on long drop tubes. I just grab that funny bullet looking thing in my wife's night stand and apply it to the case with my finger over the mouth. Easily packs the powder more than any drop tube.

'Tis true...........