Ammo Company Published Pressures-Good Idea For Safety ?

C

COLT_45

New member
Some of the threads on various forms of ammo got me thinking.
Do Y'all think this might be a good idea for ammo company's ?

Voluntarily, not a requirement.....
Publish a chart on their respective sites that would publish
their pressures as part of their specs & tests on their ammo.

I'm not suggesting they should have to re-do all the boxes
with this info-Just to publish on their own sites a pressure chart.
I don't think it would be cost prohibitive to them-cause heck I don't
wanna be paying more for ammo than I already am.....
 
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Sounds like restaurants posting fat grams and stuff on their menus. One of those things we've done without forever and never missed.

Besides, since most loads are within a standardized pressure range and those that are over pressure are marked +P or +P+, it would just complicate a simple system that works. Plus, we'd be answering tons of questions from newbies about this pressure vs that pressure, can my XYZ pistol handle Brand A at 34,500PSI or should I stick with Brand B at 34,000PSI....

As long as they continue to list velocity and energy somewhere I can find it I'm happy, not worried about specific pressures.
 
There would also be the complication that succeeding lots of ammunition might not, would not, operate at the same chamber pressure. The factory buys powder on performance and price and loads that are within specifications are still not identical.
 
Publish a chart on their respective sites that would publish
their pressures as part of their specs & tests on their ammo.
Click to expand...

SAAMI sets the levels that all the manufacturers follow to avoid liability.

It is a voluntary membership organization.

They are telling what the average pressure is when they give a velocity.
 
Kinda of an example here:

We shoot alot of 45 Colts out of various SA handguns.
With so many choices of manufactured ammo such as
to compare a Buffalo Bore 255 Standard Pressure to a
Winchester 250 Cowboy Load it would be nice to see
some "AVERAGED" , within reason, various pressures.
 
I have some pistol ammo boxes that have the muzzle velocity & energy printed on the box. Without going to my supply and looking I think theses are Federal .45ACP ammo.

Anyway, I find it useful when shopping off the shelve to have these numbers on the boxes, not super important, but good information.
 
We shoot alot of 45 Colts out of various SA handguns.
With so many choices of manufactured ammo such as
to compare a Buffalo Bore 255 Standard Pressure to a
Winchester 250 Cowboy Load it would be nice to see
some "AVERAGED" , within reason, various pressures.
Click to expand...

Does the manufacturer make velocity data available?

There is more than one "pressure" to be concerned with.

The average pressure can be directly calculated from the muzzle velocity and barrel length.

The problem is that peak pressure is what blows things up, and it can only be determined by measurement.

Even when measured, a decent amount of uncertainty remains in the values.
 
Yes, measuring peak pressure is a safety issue. Buffalo Bore and others achieve higher velocities by using powder blends to sustain the peak pressure (or near peak pressure) for a longer period of time while in the barrel. That's what creates higher velocity. Thus, as brickeye said, you can infer the "average pressure" from the velocity.
 
It would be useful if gun manufacturers would also publish the pressure limits for their firearms, particularly when trying to determine if a specific +P+ loading is within the operating limits of a particular firearm.
 
JohnKSa said:
particularly when trying to determine if a specific +P+ loading is within the operating limits of a particular firearm.
Click to expand...

I guess just old timer trivia, but I remember many years ago when Bill Ruger came out with the Security Six series in .38 spl. When asked, he said that the Security Six could handle +P or +P+ in un-limited amounts.

That may not seem bold, but at the time Smith and Colt were being very cautious about advise on shooting +P ammo in their .38 spl. models.
 
It would be useful if gun manufacturers would also publish the pressure limits for their firearms, particularly when trying to determine if a specific +P+ loading is within the operating limits of a particular firearm.
Click to expand...

They do not know what maximum pressure the gun will withstand.

They design and test against industry standard loads, and whatever pressure they produce.

If it does not fail, the job is done.

The most they can say is that X PSI (or CUP) is safe in this gun.

If you look up the SAAMI standard for a round the manufacturer has said is suitable, that is the pressure the gun was designed for.

There is NO WAY to tell exactly how much higher you might be able to go.

No manufacturer is going to tell you what the margin even is since they do not know, and do not want the liability.

Why do you think just about every manufacturer disclaims the use of hand-loaded ammunition?
 
They do not know what maximum pressure the gun will withstand.
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This is probably true. However, they do know that the gun will be safe up to a particular pressure limit. That may not be the true maximum the gun will withstand but it is a guideline that, if followed, will not result in an unsafe condition.
They design and test against industry standard loads, and whatever pressure they produce.
Click to expand...
That is certainly true, however it's not the entire story. Some manufacturers do test beyond the minimums required by industry standards. For example, Glock used to publish pressure limits for their pistols in their Armorer's Manuals but gave up the practice awhile back. The early armorer's manuals quoted pressure limits that exceeded ammunition industry standards by a wide margin.

In addition, there are a variety of industry standards. CIP and SAAMI are the two largest, but NATO is another organization that provides their own pressure specs for ammunition they purchase. And SAAMI provides dual specs for some cartridges if a +P level is defined for the cartridge. The odds are that even if a gun manufacturer knows only that the pressure limits on their firearms conform to known standards, they can still provide more information to the user than he currently knows.

In fact, they do. That's why some manufacturers state that their guns are rated for +P while others discourage the use in their firearm. That's why some companies (e.g. Ruger) have very open-ended ammunition recommendations in some of the firearm manuals.
No manufacturer is going to tell you what the margin even is since they do not know, and do not want the liability.
Click to expand...
I agree that they're not going to quote a limit that's right at the hairy edge of what their guns can handle. But that doesn't mean that it would be unwise to quote a limit that leaves them a reasonable safety margin between what the gun can actually tolerate and the pressure spec they publicize.
The most they can say is that X PSI (or CUP) is safe in this gun.
Click to expand...
Right, and that figure would certainly be significantly lower than what the gun could actually tolerate to provide a safety margin. With that figure, one could determine if a particular loading was safe in their pistol, if they had the pressure specs for the load.

It's a non-issue with industry standard loads because you know the pressure specs conform to industry standards, but with +P+ (no defined industry standards) it could be helpful to know the actual pressure spec. Assuming you could find pressure specs for the gun in question too.

Which was my main point. Knowing pressure specs for ammo doesn't buy you much if you can't find pressure specs for guns to match them to.
 
I think it would contribute NOTHING to safety. The "beauty" of a specification is it cuts out the details for the end user. Pressures would muddy the waters. Plus as others have pointed out it's meaningless unless you have data on what guns will take a given pressure.

Knowing what a given round does out the barrel is much more interesting to me than the exact pressure it is operating at as long as it is within spec for my gun... i.e. SAMMI spec. In guns that folks routinely push past SAAMI spec all of the manufactures I have encountered are VERY specific as to which guns, and which iterations of said guns the ammo is suitable for.

That should keep things as safe and as clear as possible. I tend to only go with the heavy loadings, rarely go +p even though many of my guns are rated for it. I just don't see the cost / benefit being there most of the time and I don't like beat my guns to death with max loads.
 
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