Power Pistol issues

I have been reloading for a little while, and am having serious issues with 45acp 230gr with 6.3 grains erratic squibs. But I also use it in my 40 S&W 180gr with 6.1 grains working perfectly fine with no squibs. Any ideas?
I use a Lee single stage loader, and extremely meticulous since my last squib fire incident caused a firearm explosion.
 
I have been reloading for a little while, and am having serious issues with 45acp 230gr with 6.3 grains erratic squibs. But I also use it in my 40 S&W 180gr with 6.1 grains working perfectly fine with no squibs. Any ideas?
I use a Lee single stage loader, and extremely meticulous since my last squib fire incident caused a firearm explosion.
Your last squib was with the same load?

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Could be a gun issue. Do you shoot other .45 ammo without issue? Could be a primer problem also. Cases come in both small and large pistol now. What primer are you using?
 
You might want to bump that charge up a little. Take a look at Alliant's on-line data. It seems to me you are running just over 20% below a max recommended charge.

Too little powder can be just as dangerous as too much powder.
 
Just taking a quick look at the reloading data on the Alliant powder reloading website, at a minimum you should be dropping at least 6.7 grains of Power Pistol (the exact type/construction of the bullet you're using would be helpful), and a middle-of-the-road load would be closer to 7.6 grains of powder.

I think you're getting squibs in your .45 auto loads because you're well under the minimum amount of powder for your bullet.
 
Hornady load book I have is 5.5-7.1
All my loads(.380,45, 40, 38spl 7.62 NATO &5.56) are CCI primers. Primer goes bang, powder goes poof and bullet stops somewhere down the barrel. The bullets are 230 round nose Hornady.
My FNX tactical has spit out everything from Wolf and bear to match ammo without a problem
 
Your powder charge is too light.
Speer Manual #14 :

Starting load 7.0 grains

Max. load 8.1 grains

Power pistol needs a certain amount of pressure to burn properly, with your load you aren't getting a complete burn.
Bump it up to 7.5 grains and watch metering very closely.
You do not mention how you are weighing/measuring your powder charges . They need to be precise and consistent .
Gary
 
Your powder charge is too light.
Speer Manual #14 :

Starting load 7.0 grains

Max. load 8.1 grains

That's Speer's load data for their round nose only. That particular bullet does not sit very deep in the case, reducing pressure, slowing burn, and is a "one-off," so to speak. Their Gold Dot data has a much more modest - and typical for weight - charge window: 6.3 to 7.4 grains.

Personally, I stopped my load work up at 7.1 grains, when I was getting 970 f/s.

Getting back to our OP: So I am to understand that these "erratic squibs" are the bullet actually failing to exit the barrel?? I started my load work up at 6.3 grains and got 867 f/s. Nothing even remotely resembling a failure to exit the barrel. I can't hardly imagine loading at 6.3 grains so poorly that they would fail to exit the barrel. I have to believe that something is going on with the gun. Maybe the slide is opening too soon, releasing the pressure?? I'm not a gunsmith. Just speculation.
 
The scale comes in the Lee challenger kit at Cabela's. The Hornady book puts the Velocity of 6.1 grains that i use at 950. And for it to be a scale issue I'd have problems across the board especially with the 7.62 NATO fired out of an M14. (Due to gas operation system)
 
And yes, the erratic squibs do exit the chamber and into the barrel. The last one stopped right into the rifling, made it a pain to get out
 
My only other guess would be that if you are wet tumbling your brass some of the brass might still be a little wet inside the cartridge. From my personal experience I have left brass out in the sun for as long as a week and there has been several instances where the brass still contained a drop of water. Enough to get the powder wet.
 
If as others are saying that 6.3gr is low but should still spit the bullet down range . I'd start thinking it's something else while not completely dismissing the charge is to low .

I might have missed it but did you say what erratic means ? Meaning many of the bullets go down range but you get squibs on occasion with no real pattern as to when it happens ????

Also , are we to assume when you get one of these squibs there is still a bunch of unburned powder you need to clean out of your gun each time ??

If not the powder charge I'd then go to primer seating . Are your primers being seated consistently . I seat all my primers by hand and seat until they stop then give it a tad more to put a load on the anvil . "if" you are not seating the primers to the bottom of the pocket . The firing pin can actually be seating the primer the rest of the way resulting in reduced firing pin protrusion into the primer . Do the primer strikes look different on the scibs compared to the ones that go bang ?????

Another thing would to check if you have a bunch of unburned powder on the ones that shoot well or at least exit the barrel ? If so that could be indicating your charge is low and you're right on the edge of to low of a charge and just barley enough of a charge .

.
 
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I have been reloading for a little while

I am curious how long "a little while" is.

am having serious issues with . . . squibs.

I just wanted to mention here that usually a "squib" is defined as a round of ammuntion that was loaded without propellant; thus, resulting in the bullet not exiting the barrel. Maybe splitting hairs. Just thought I'd toss that in. However, at this time, we understand what you mean either way.

. . . since my last squib fire incident caused a firearm explosion.

Wouldn't mind hearing that story, if you care to share.

Back to the primary issue at hand: Something doesn't seem right here. In 34 years of loading - perhaps approaching 200K rounds - I have loaded one squib (failed to load propellant into the case). And that was the only bullet that has failed to leave the barrel (well, failed to leave the cylinder, actually).

I think we all want a thorough and detailed description of what transpires during these squibs. Also, if it happens again when you're at a range, if there is anybody knowledgeable around that you could bring them into this, so they could view the situation first-hand, that may be a big help. There's no substitute for first-hand information.
 
Just to add to the possible elements here rather than saying that this is the answer, I use a ton of Power Pistol for full power loads in 40s&w, 10mm, and 45 Super and I've found that using a magnum primer gives me more complete ignition, with slightly higher velocities and lower SDs. That said, I don't use Power Pistol for light to medium loads, only full power. (I don't load up light loads of 10mm because that's what 40s&w is for nor 45 Super because that's what 45acp is for).

If I'm going for light to medium 40s&w or 357mag, I'll use either TiteGroup or Unique as that's what they are made for. Just like H110/296/Lil'Gun, full power powders are for full power loads.
 
COSteve beat me to it. Spherical formulations often benefit from changing to a magnum primer. The deterrent coating on them makes the outer layer of each grain slow-burning and harder to ignite. Hornady used the Winchester WLP in their development of these loads and it is a magnum primer (dual use, actually, as Winchester makes just one LP primer for both standard and magnum loads, but to work in large magnum cartridges, it has to make as much start pressure as a magnum primer does).


From SAAMI's glossary:

LOAD, SQUIB

A cartridge or shell which produces projectile velocity and sound substantially lower than normal. May result in projectile and/or wads remaining in the bore.

So "squib" applies to undercharged as well as empty cartridges, and the term certainly applies in this instance.


Laymenshooter,

If your primer is milder than the Winchester and if you have any high primers (inadequate seating—you generally want to seat primers fairly hard for best ignition consistency) you may be getting slow or erratic ignition that gives time for building pressure to push the bullet out of the case and into the throat before the powder has made much of its gas. That means it is burning in a bigger volume, which drops the intial pressure significantly. This will be especially true of the short nose profile bullet, as it will have a long jump to the throat as it leaves the case. While that is happening, the case expands, but not always hard enough to seal the chamber well, so a lot of the pressure can bleed off, causing the squib.

Another thing that affects pressure and ignition, especially in a short powder column cartridge like the 45 Auto, is bullet seating depth. The Hornady RN FMJ is a short bullet for the type, having a more spherical nose than the military bullets which have more elongated elliptical noses. As a result, Hornady recommends a COL of just 0.210" for their 230 grain RN FMJ bullet, where the military cartridges I've measured are usually at about 0.270", closer to the maximum of 0.275" in the cartridge drawings. You did not state what COL you are using, but if you are seating to the SAAMI drawing number of 1.275", that would explain a lot of the pressure difference. A chronograph would quickly confirm that your velocities are low (after correcting them for your barrel length) and this would indicate your pressures are lower than Hornady got.

Hornady will have loaded their test rounds with off-the-shelf powder, whose burn rate can vary plus or minus several percent. They could have had a lot at the fast end of the burn rate tolerance, while you may have one at the slow end, explaining part of the problem. These kinds of variables are why loads have to be worked up for your component combination and powder lots.

The bottom line is, you don't have enough heat and pressure to keep the powder burning properly in your chamber. That much is certain from the squibs. Your chamber is not going to be as tight as a SAAMI standard pressure and velocity test barrel, so it is possible for a load tested in these standard devices to fail in your looser production chamber.

Check that your primer is a WLP or another magnum primer and that it is seated firmly. Check that your bullet is seated to 1.210" cartridge overall length. If that doesn't correct your problem your chamber is just too much looser than the Hornady chamber was and you need to increase your powder charge as already advised.
 
I do appreciate all of y'alls help with this matter, and a little while I mean for 3 years.
The handgun explosion I refer to if a round went click so I racked the slide back not noticing that the cartridge did infact fire and left the bullet in the barrel, firing another round causing the explosion I refer to in whitch the frame blew out, safety lever to break off and a piece of shrapnel into the left side of my face right next to my nose. Still have it in there, and it's been going on 2 years.The doctor determined that it was a cosmetic surgery so they didn't and aren't going to remove
it.
And due to that I still get a little skiddish when I'm behind a gun.
That firearm hangs above my reloading bench as a reminder to pay attention to all of my reloads. That's the reason I still do single stage for all of my rounds.
After all of y'alls input I do believe I will switch to a different powder and primers.
 
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