Military surplus powders

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Lhigginsqrb

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Has anyone found good load data for wt846?

They’re saying to compare to hogden but cut the load 20% then work up from there. It sounds like they’ll get sued at some point to me. I bought some for my light loads because I know those won’t get near max pressure.

I’m looking at some options. I want a chronometer anyway. Relatively cheap. But I can’t find anyone offering pressure testing services. Someone suggested starting with a recipe and working up using the chronometer as a guide. Sounds a little risky. Velocity and pressure are different variables and there’s a lot happening here that could interfere with them being proportional.
 
Compare it to hodgdon what? And in what case?

A chronograph is a valuable tool, but it won't tell you much about pressure. If you want to get technical, case head expansion is usually what you'll want to measure to gauge pressure, but reading the primer is generally a good point

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Hogden blc2. Let’s say 3006.

The hogden site has a lot of the slugs grayed out. So your saying that if I worked a load up from the safe point I should see signs in the cartridge first? I’d still like to find a pressure tester or something.

What’s the factor of safety on the cup pressure?

I think where I want to be for a while with this is shooting those weak rounds I mentioned. I’d like to see if those burn well and if they hit any respectable velocity.
 
You won't be able to find a pressure tester, there kind of a specialized piece of equipment. But yes, you should see signs of pressure on the primer first, but it depends on primer brand. Some are harder than others. But excessively flat primers (looking at the edge of the primer, it should still be at least mostly rounded) cratered around the firing pin, and things like a sticky/heavy bolt lift in bolt actions as well as ejector marks on the case head. Basically anything showing that the case head is under so much pressure that it is beginning to flow into nooks and crannies.

There is generally a safety factor of two in modern firearms.

Honestly, I wouldn't start messing around with uncharted powders until you get a better understanding of metallic cartage reloading and principals. It's extremely easy to get into dangerous territory very quickly.

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The purpose of using a chronograph when working up loads is twofold. Looking for accuracy nodes and watching for spikes in velocity. When you have a small increase in velocity over a range of say three different load levels it’s a possible accuracy node since the velocity doesn’t vary much it allows for minor differences when dropping the powder thus having a smaller affect on velocity and the timing of the bullet exiting the barrel at the same time in the barrel harmonics. While velocity isn’t a measure of pressure a large spike in velocity can indicate excess pressure. While monitoring primers can be a useful thing, it’s not always a good indicator of pressure. I’ve had starting loads that were definitely not high pressure flatten primers in some guns, and even craters in bolts with overly large firing pin holes. Watching the base of the brass for signs of ejector imprints or ejector swipes or excessive bolt lift pressure are more dependable signs of excessive pressure.
 
Jetinteriorguy gives some good advice there!

If you want to know pressures, you can always get the RSI Pressure Trace.
I think they run about $500.
With it you glue a transducer to your barrel at the chamber. Wired to a laptop, it will show you your pressures.
 
I dunno, I've been reloading since Nixon was president and am in no way a timid soul. But a by-guess and by-golly approach to creating blind loads makes me uncomfortable...
 
Call Jeff Bartlett over at GIbrass, in Owensboro, KY..he deals in surplus powder, bullets and cases. He may have data on that particular powder. I've dealt with him for years...great guy, long time competitive shooter. He'd know if anyone does. Rod Here's the number: (800) 714-6348.
 
BL-(C)2 is canister grade WC846. The surplus will be bulk grade WC846. The difference is the more expensive canister grade undergoes an additional process to narrow the burn rate variation so that published load data will be valid for it. The bulk grade costs the large-scale manufacturer less, but its burn rate varies much more from lot to lot. The commercial loader gets away with that because they use pressure guns rather than published load data to determine their loads and can adjust the charge weight accordingly.

When your seller recommends loading down pretty far, what he is saying is, "we don't know what the heck burn rate this lot has, so you are on your own to determine a safe charge with it." That's not a lot of help. As already mentioned, you can buy a pressure trace instrument to measure it. If you have a chronograph you can compare it to BL-(C)2. In general, if it produces less velocity for a given charge weight, it is slower and its pressures are lower, and vice-versa. If it matches BL-(C)2 velocities at a lower charge, then it is faster and going to full BL-(C)2 velocity will only happen at pressure higher than BL-(C)2 produces.
 
I use WC 846 for .223 and .308, I use BLC-2 data and back off 3 grains and work up. As stated, different batches have different burn rates. It works, just start low and work up.
 
Thanks guys. I think I can work with it using an abundance of caution. I was tempted to cancel the order due to their advice being a little misleading.

So the canister powder is going around 80 a lb. people are price gauging. So for that situation I could load 3006 at around 60 cents a shot just in powder. Another 50 cents for the slugs snd primer(primers were high too.) so at that rate I’ll be better off just buying rounds off the shelf except that there are no rounds on the shelf. I have found a few here or there but I like the reloading method better.

I’ve got about $.50 in slug and primer like I said. With an 8 pound jug of this powder I can reload 1100 rounds at a rate of 13 cents a round for powder. That’s a big improvement. Actually if the powder does burn hotter and can produce the same velocity I I even save more money but it’s not enough to mention.
 
If a powder burns "hotter" and produces the same velocity, then the peak pressure is higher. Velocity does not tell you peak pressure (the pressure you have to watch out for). When identical bullet's fired using a fast and a slow powder produce the same velocities, their average pressure is the same, not the peak values. The fast powder gets to that average with a combination of higher peak and lower muzzle pressures than the slower powder produces.

So the chronograph can't tell you directly if the peak pressure is safe. Indirectly, if you use it as I describe in my earlier post, you can say whether your lot is faster or slower than the canister grade product.
 
I find my magnetospeed most valuable not for the actual "FPS" number but more as a tool to establish "comparative" data. A specific data comparison would be me testing a temp sensitive powder such as W748 in 85f temps in July, logging my data, then testing the same load in 50f weather in October, and data logging my relative accuracy .
 
…If you want to get technical, case head expansion is usually what you'll want to measure to gauge pressure, but reading the primer is generally a good point…
Click to expand...

If you want to get technical, primer appearance can be a very poor tool to determine pressure. Speer has noted this for decades in their manuals, yet many seem to think they can tell pressures by looking at small differences in the primer. Here is a link to a respected writer’s take on the topic, and a photo out of Speer #14.

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbt...3/march-column-primer-flattening#Post13673133

 
I think the photos illustrate the problem perfectly. Primers will show how much pressure the primer can take. Whether or not the brass and gun can handle that same pressure is pretty close to unrelated because brass primer cups vary some in thickness and hardness by manufacturer, and how a gun handles them varies, too.

The same problem exists with case head and pressure ring expansion. Like a copper crusher, they are metal deformation tests. The problem is that even copper crushers in different labs using copper slugs calibrated with known weight loads can get results that vary by 25%. Now you go to brass cases with all manner of thickness, hardness, and alloy variation and section profiles that are all over the map, and then try to deduce a pressure number from that mess? Denton Bramwell showed with pressure measuring equipment that even with one lot of cases all with the same load history, variation was enough that 0.0003" case head expansion would correspond to about 42,000 psi in one case and to about 76,000 psi in another. So closing in on 2:1 indication errors. If he had fired more, it was clear he would get something 2:1 sooner rather than later. So, once again, all the case shows you is what that particular case could handle. People saying they can discern pressure is in the 50-60Kpsi by looking at brass are fooling themselves.

That said, Bramwell's data shows that if you have a pressure measuring device for calibration and a particular lot of brass, you can probably fire 30 rounds of each load level and average the result to close in on the pressure values indicated for the load. But that begs the question, if you have a pressure measuring device, why are you spending time trying to read brass tea leaves?
 
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