disparity in charge weight v. available case volume

B

bamaranger

New member
I have been given a 1lb can of H380 powder, no longer in production. I believe the powder is stable and safe to use, despite its age. In two of my older Speer manuals, H380 is listed as a useable powder for .223 cartridges with certain bullet weights. My old Speer books state it was a popular powder for .222 benchrest. Ought to be a good powder for .223 blasting thinks I. Hasn't worked out that way.

Wanting to load some AR ammo for general plinking and fun shoot with bulk FMJ ammo, I figured that would be an appropriate use for this old powder.
Problem is:......even the lowest charge weights listed, fill the case well into the neck, resulting in what would be a VERY compressed load. Two get a usable space in the case neck, I need to drop 2 grains below the minimum powder charge. There is no way the max charges will fit in the case. Suspecting that my mixed cases had markedly different capacities, I tried a variety of cases with the minimum charge. Just to darn full!!!

DOUBLE CHECKING THE MANUALS, AND RE CALIBRATING MY DIGITAL SCALE HAS MADE NO DIFFERENCE.

Suspecting that the old powder had "dried out" and would measure light, but do OK by volume, I dug out an old Lee dipper set and dipped a number of charges and weighed them. The dipped charges weighed very close to what they were supposed to as listed in the tables accompanying the dipper set. Thus it does not seem the old powder has dried out too much. By volume, it weighs what it should.

I have never run up on this issue with any carrtridg/powder combo in my near 40 yrs of loading. What do you think is going on?
 
Are you using 'military' brass as opposed to civilian?

Been told that military has thicker web, thus less capacity...

Just a thought...
 
Been told that military has thicker web, thus less capacity...
Click to expand...

There was a time many reloaders made up stories about thick/thin etc. I was the only one that measured, the case head on military cases, at the time, military case heads were thinner from the cup above the web to the case head. Most measured .200". After that I would say if the case is heavier it is because the case body is thicker and then I would say the thicker case would result in a longer powder column because of the thin case head. Most reloaders claimed they were 'so confused'.

I found a lot of factory ammo had thin case bodies and thick case heads, that would result in a short fat powder column and the rest of the reloaders claimed it did not matter.

F. Guffey
 
Yeah, the load data I see for a 55 grain FMJ bullet comes in right around 26.5 to 28.5 grains of H380 Powder. The H380 has a VMD (Volume Metered Density) right around 0.0892 so 26.5 * 0.0892 = 2.3638 or about 2.4 cc of volume. Looking on the high end 28.5 * 0.0892 = 2.54 cc of volume. Measuring a WCC 94 case I have laying here it has a volume of about 2.0 cc.

Something you can try is using a drop tube for your powder. Here are a few examples but you can fabricate your own:
Powder%20Drop%20Tubes.png


Another common trick is charging the case up into the neck and then tapping the case head on a surface to get the powder better settled. The 223 load data I used was from Steve's Reloading Pages. H-380 From 26.5 grains to 28.5 grains. My old Speer #12 manual does list H380 but only for the 70 grain and heavier bullets. My thinking is while it does work that H380is a bit slow for the light .224 bullets using a 223 Remington.

Ron
 
If the powder smell ok and looks ok, then there has been no change.

Whats the container look like?

I have powders 35 years old I shoot.

They go bad eventually and more so if in bad conditio0n (hot mostly) wet not so good, open to air, ugh.

Seems to me H380 is not a 223 powder (I don't have my books) may well work in something else.

It is still in production. More a larger case like a 22-250 me things.
 
I can't find anything stating that H380 has been discontinued, and it's still available on the shelf of my local Sportsman's Warehouse (1 lb and 8 lb). A lot of people seem to think it needs to go extinct, since there are many other options in that approximate burn rate that are easier to light. But it hasn't become obsolete just yet. (And I still have about 13 lbs of it... :rolleyes:)
Regardless...


It just isn't right for the application.
I know a couple people that have gotten away with using H380 in .223 bolt guns, but none have had good results with an AR.
If you do press on, be sure to use a 'magnum' primer. H380 can be difficult to light.



I've run into volume issues with quite a few cartridge/component combinations that used powders "too slow" for the application.
Generally, it's easiest to just move on to a different powder.

But when I'm hellbent on using that combination, I pull out the drop tubes and consider 'crazy' methods.

In 2008, I wanted to try some W780 ("Supreme") in .220 Swift, since it didn't work out in other cartridges where I had tried it. There was no data. So, I interpolated and calculated a charge weight, based on other cartridges.
The problem came about when I tried to charge the case. At my calculated 'max charge', I had about 10 grains overflowing the case.

I contacted Sierra, and they also estimated that my calculations were, in fact, a safe range.

That resulted in my first use of a ridiculous drop tube.
I ended up using a 24" or 36" brass tube mated to an RCBS funnel on top and a cut off bottleneck cartridge shoulder and neck on the bottom. (.257 Roberts, I think?)
That still wasn't enough.
So, I pulled out a vibrating back massager that had never been used, and clamped it to an extra chair.

I would charge the case with the drop tube, then hold the case and drop tube in place while resting my wrist on the vibrating massager. That settled the powder quite nicely, so that it was about half way down the neck.

With bullets seated, the powder was heavily compressed. But they were also some of the most consistent loads I've ever fired.


Not worth the effort, considering that I already had established loads that performed really well and the velocity was way down with W780; but those 'overflow' loads got me to appreciate the low standard deviation and extreme spreads of compressed loads.
I no longer avoid compression.
 
abort...abort...abort

Yuck. Droptubes, mag primers (totally missed that, and my cases are all primed standard) and not appropriate for AR. I've emptied the Chargemaster of H380 and will use another powder. My goal was to use up an odd powder for AR plinking. Just not going to work out. The H380 will remain on the shelf awhile longer. Looks and smells fine, but the can is a bit rough. The sticker price was $9.00!!!!!!!

I do see where H380 can be used (with large mag rifle powders) for Garands. I have mag rifle primers, and will work with the H380 for plinking ammo in the Garand.

Too, seems I was wrong about H380, it is listed in all 3 of my Speer manuals, and is still in production.

Thanks all.
 
H380 is the canister grade name for Western Cannon WC852 produced by the St. Marks plant in Florida, and originally produced for military .30-06 M2 ball ammo. The original military lots that have been surplused out have included two distinct burn rates, one safe for the Garand and one qualified only for machine gun use as the gas port pressure it produces is too high for the Garand op-rod. The canister grade loading specs indicate it is in between, but closer to the faster WC852. The faster surplus stuff was loaded by the military under the M2 bullet (actual spec 152 grains with minus 3 grain tolerance, so 150.5 grains median value) with a charge of about 53 grains, where the slower stuff had to be loaded with more like 57 grains (what I measured in my pull-downs, though others have reported as much as 59 grains; I've not seen that). This was to achieve a 24" test barrel velocity of 2740 fps at 78 feet, which, based on the bullet ballistics would be 2795 fps at 15 feet, where SAAMI and Hodgdon measure it. Hodgdon's data indicates a perfectly average lot of the current production H380 would achieve that velocity from their test barrel with 53.8 grains. Obviously, the powder will vary some from lot-to-lot.

Since your powder is old, do pour some out onto a white sheet of paper then slowly roll it off into a container and then examine the paper for signs of red dust. If that and the smell are OK, work your loads up gradually from the very bottom numbers and don't start in the middle. The reason for the caution is spherical powders have a little less than half the shelf life of single-base stick powders like 4895 and 4064. When they start to break down, the deterrent coating, which controls burn rate and progressivity in a spherical powder, can break down faster than the base constituents, leaving you with a faster burn rate. You just want to be careful that isn't happening. Storage temperature, primarily, will determine whether it has or not.

If you are unsure about a powder's burn rate for the Garand, the Garand Gear expanded volume gas cylinder plug is a good investment, as it makes even slow powders OK to use. in the gun without making the faster ones too slow. Unlike the adjustable gas cylinder plugs with gas bleed-off designs, it requires no adjustment to the particular load. It will let you use 4350 and other popular .30-06 powders normally considered too slow for the Garand. Their technical research on the matter is here. The main thing I like is that it doesn't throw brass as far with this gadget, so it's easier to find it all.

Incidentally, with a truly spherical grain like H380 has, drop tubes won't do much to pack it. They do much more with stick grains because how they fall and pack affect total volume a lot, and random hopping around from a high fall will tend toward lower potential energy states, which is what a tight pack has. But spheres tend to settle in just one optimal arrangement, so the drop tubes have much less effect. This is also the main reason they meter better from a powder measure: they powder in the hopper doesn't jiggle into different densities with the vibration of dispensing.
 
"...stories about thick/thin etc..." That don't apply to 5.56 cases, last I heard. Does to .30 calibres though.
Hodgdon H380(very much still being made) was originally developed for use in the .22-250 Remington. Nothing to do with .30 M2. Unnamed stuff until Bruce Hodgdon shot a one hole group with 38.0 grains of the stuff from his 22-caliber wildcat(now the .22-250).
WC852f is similar to H380. H380 was Olin WC852 for "full" power .30-06 loads(that are not .30 M2).
 
If you look at the current load data for H380, new made, surplus stocks long since exhausted or decayed, you will see that 38.0 grains is now the starting load for .22-250.
Ol Bruce probably didn't have a chronograph, he just seized on an accurate mild load.
 
The discrepancies in case capacity among different headstamps is mainly in .308/7.62 case and .300 WM cases. For .30-06 and .223 there are a few older exceptions, but current production is all close enough for starting loads to be interchangeable.
 
disparity in charge weight v. available case volume
Click to expand...

There was a time I did it everyday; I have always had a choice, all the way back to Lee dippers, I have three sets, one is black, another is red and the other is yellow. And then:eek: I have always had another choice, I could weight the dipped/measured by volumn load and if I did not like the results I could trickle the dipped charge up. And then there is no shortage of volume metered chargers from the old visible to Herters, Hollywood Gun shop, Pacific etc. etc..

And then there is that part about dipping that is not understood, R. Lee claimed his dippers were scientifically designed. If the reloader racks the powder off level with the dipper he is using a starting load, if the reloader can manage a cone of stacked powder above the dipper the reloader is dipping a maximum load. It is almost like there is something magic about the cone above the dipper or something reloaders do not understand about science.

F. Guffey
 
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