Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles flash holes in brass

kgw20,

I measured the diameter of the flash holes by inserting a long, gently tapered steel "needle" and measuring the diameter where the needle stopped. But here's a photo of the basic difference, which appeared with the article:



To tell the truth, guys like you are one reason I don't post very often outside of the "Ask The Gunwriters" and "Free Classified" forums. You apparently have little comprehension of how to test handloads at least semi-scientifically, by focusing on certain variables during your tests, and trying to control them as much as possible. Swifty and others have tried to point this out, but you're not really getting it.

There's a lot of good information out there on all of this, but apparently (like many these days) you prefer to wing it without doing much research beforehand--and then post on the Internet asking questions (and posting "test" results) that indicate your lack of previous research and understanding.

MD

KWG,
In one of my first posts I alluded to a chronograph even a cheap pro chrono or chrony would suffice. The reason for this is that I go by the old rule velocity = pressure. You can try looking at primers or brass all you want, but it is still one of the most inaccurate ways to judge pressure, which has been proven many times over the years.

Next you don’t have to use new brass, range brass will work just fine as long as you take the time to make them as even and uniform as possible. Weigh, deburr, uniform the pockets or whatever you desire. Uniformity is the key. For your test 10 cases should be sufficient.

Take the uniform cases without flash holes modified to the range and document the velocities and any other pertinent data that load gives. This is your control group or baseline. If you want organize each case to corresponding chrono order so you know which case did what.
Now go back home take these exact same cases, one at a time to maintain proper order, drill the flasholes to your first step. Repeat range day.

Now repeat this for all steps of drilling, when all is said and done you will have data that corresponds to each change in each case. Then you can compare it.

I will not argue that deburring and uniformity of flash holes is a wasted effort because it isn’t. I will say that there comes a point in time to decide if all that work is justified by the results. For general purposes you will find that your rifle can’t really take advantage of it. I.E. accuracy increase smaller than the amount of work. I did an awful lot of thing when shooting BR whether it actually helped is debatable, but it made me feel better. For the typical varmint gun or hunting rifle it just isn’t necessary.
Conclusion is that you might be better off changing primer brand than flash hole size as I have seen large changes in velocity/accuracy by doing this. Also save your components until you can afford a chronograph. Doesn’t have to be a magneto speed, labradar or an Oehler.

KWG,
In one of my first posts I alluded to a chronograph even a cheap pro chrono or chrony would suffice. The reason for this is that I go by the old rule velocity = pressure. You can try looking at primers or brass all you want, but it is still one of the most inaccurate ways to judge pressure, which has been proven many times over the years.

Next you don’t have to use new brass, range brass will work just fine as long as you take the time to make them as even and uniform as possible. Weigh, deburr, uniform the pockets or whatever you desire. Uniformity is the key. For your test 10 cases should be sufficient.

Take the uniform cases without flash holes modified to the range and document the velocities and any other pertinent data that load gives. This is your control group or baseline. If you want organize each case to corresponding chrono order so you know which case did what.
Now go back home take these exact same cases, one at a time to maintain proper order, drill the flasholes to your first step. Repeat range day.

Now repeat this for all steps of drilling, when all is said and done you will have data that corresponds to each change in each case. Then you can compare it.

I will not argue that deburring and uniformity of flash holes is a wasted effort because it isn’t. I will say that there comes a point in time to decide if all that work is justified by the results. For general purposes you will find that your rifle can’t really take advantage of it. I.E. accuracy increase smaller than the amount of work. I did an awful lot of thing when shooting BR whether it actually helped is debatable, but it made me feel better. For the typical varmint gun or hunting rifle it just isn’t necessary.
Conclusion is that you might be better off changing primer brand than flash hole size as I have seen large changes in velocity/accuracy by doing this. Also save your components until you can afford a chronograph. Doesn’t have to be a magneto speed, labradar or an Oehler.

Excellent post. In my response I purposely stated that each step is incremental in how your results will end up. Sometimes these incremental steps won't make enough difference to be detectable and other times they might, but only the person doing the reloading can determine if it is worthwhile for their purposes to pursue all the little processes that can be found in reloading research materials. I tend to do it more as experimental and as a way to relax and wind down while I am concentrating on something besides every day problems. I don't compete and I don't often share my results with others because I do these little things for myself only as a learning experience. I can't say if anyone else will find it helpful to their reloading but I find it enlightening at the least even when the results aren't earth shattering....

Bob