Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire blue dot mis hap

I've been telling you boys to stop fooling with the pistol powders. Fire forming, squib loads and any other way...you're fooling w/dynamite in a small package. One pulled trigger is all it takes to lose an arm, eye or your life. Do as you please. powdr

I do some light Unique loads in 223/40 VMax. I made sure my load density was a little over 50% so a double charge would overflow and make me aware.

I weigh them out too, due to possible powder bridging in the thrower.

Maybe others are right, in that it could be a practice that just isn't worth getting hurt over.

I have almost a pound of BlueDot.

You know I'm going to have to try that.

Okay, so you weighed each charge.

What's the possibility of an over-charge (scale mishap) or an actual double-charge?

use gas, send me the Blue Dot. Got some .41mag to load.. lol

HazMat is too expensive. I'll run into multiple jacket holes this year. I'll just use each, at least once.

There are a lot of pistol powders listed for cast loads in the 222, 223, and similar cases - including Red Dot, Green Dot, Unique, and Herco among Hercules/Alliant powders. What's interesting is that Blue Dot does not show up in Lyman's data until you get into the pistol cartridges. Perhaps Lyman (and Alliant) know some things that aren't commonly known among the masses?

This is probably true.^^^^^

It pays to have a library of old loading manuals. I have had good luck with BD in heavy shotgun loads. Not so much in pistol loads. Lack of accuracy or unexpected pressure spikes compared to other powders. There are many other good powders to use in heavy pistol loads without these problems.

The problem with the new Alliant load tables is that their marketing staff makes them list only their bullets. Not good for a powder company to do that. It is still usable data, but I do not like it.

Finally something that makes sense, well kinda!

I noticed that too. I was pointing out the "pistol" powder thing. I have no idea why lyman didn't list blue dot when they have listed many powders both above, and below it in burn rate. They have pressure testing equipment and I do not. I should add that I've loaded a lot of 223 blue dot loads with jacketed bullets and never had a problem. I've also loaded them with unique, I think I'll just stick with the unique from now on.

If I want a reduced load, then I'll typically just pick a smaller cartridge. You can do reduced loads in rifle catridges, but you have to manage the excess space in the case one way or another, either with fillers, or different powders, and those approaches have their pitfalls.

I dabbled some with reduced whitetail loads in the .375 H&H years ago, and they shot extremely well, but if you didn't watch you'd get either a hangfire, or had to use a filler.

Here's a recent reply I got from Alliant about the 41 Mag problem with Blue Dot:



That doesn't really spell things out, but it is their current prescription.

I wonder if it's at all like some of the shotgun powders where a fairly large primer flash ignites a powder charge that's always in contact with the flash hole? Perhaps some powders aren't so perfectly suited to the more open conditions of the pistol cases, working many times, but occasionally misbehaving?

Could be the charge was spot on for weight and for some reason the load had an unexplained pressure excursion. Something we'll never know as the proof went poof when he pulled the trigger.

That could be, yes.

The FAR MORE LIKELY scenario is that there was too much powder in the case, as thousands upon thousands of Blue Dot loads have been used without incident by just the members here, let alone everyone else.

I generally go for the simplest explanation that would handle the data.

The problem is when a pistol powder got used in a rifle case.
Period.

Thats not the problem as noted lots of pistol powders are used in rifle cases

Its all I use in 300/221... pistol powder...

I"d say either over charge or detonation due to no filler.

A case(221FB) that holds about 20 grains is not a fair comparison to a case(243AI) that will hold double or more...

Any "AI" case is meant to run hard and fasted than standard cartridges with case full of proper rifle powder,mostly on the slow side at that. It's in the man's book..
P.O.Ackley was an frontiersman and smart builder

I'd still recommend weighing the remaining cartridges, to see if any are under or over-charged. That might help determine exactly what happened.

True,good caution..but doesn't matter now,gun is trashed...

I've got both of Ackle's books, and don't remember seeing anything like this.

Can you tell me which book he wrote this in? Was it book 1, or book 2?

Respects,
Richard