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Hi ,problem is :I am shooting 465gr bullets at 1600fps with a hardness of bhn 14 -39gr of LIL GUN powder when I increase the powder charge to 40-41-42 the velocity stays about the same and I know others are getting 1700-1800 fps with this bullet,could the hardness of the bullets limit my velocity by stripping out or some other reason,I can go to lynotype or Lyman #2 if I have to.the crimp is correct for these loads so I dont think that is the problem, Thanks Sean | ||
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475/480, It sounds to me as if you have reached the point, at 39gr, where that is all the powder that will burn in your gun. Add more, and it just gets blown out the barrel. Either go to a slightly faster powder, or a heavier bullet? JMHO>>>>Bug. | |||
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problem is others are using the same loads and getting better velocity,I cant talk to them to find out the hardness of there bullets ,the same thing happens when I go to a different powder, velocity is not were it should be,I have to believe it is a bullet problem though. | |||
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Sean, the Bug is correct! However, your accuracy should be at the best level that can be obtained with that powder with that boolit, because that powder is acting as a perfect filler. Much like using 4227 in a 44 mag, a powder slightly too slow for the case length and diameter. A slightly faster powder will increase the chances of leading after so many shots, but how many rounds can you shoot between cleanings? That's the criteria for where the line is drawn between speed and accuracy when a strong revolter is in hand. Try 2400. ... felix | |||
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N110 is another powder to try. It is a single base powder, whereas 2400 is a double base. A double base powder has more energy in the same speed range, but the powder deterrents might be enough in your situation to not allow all that extra push to be released in time, considering that bore diameter. ... felix | |||
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One thing that has not been discussed yet is the differences in total ignition because of primers. Your gun might have a softer hammer fall, making reaction time within the primer formulation appear different than what is in the other guns. You can easily test this with different primers. Accuracy is usually best, though, with the softest reacting primers, but not always. For accuracy, you are looking for the most consistent pressure rise curve between shots. ... felix | |||
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Thanks ,Does it make a difference if there is no unburned powder in case or barrel? | |||
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I am shooting the S/W 500-8-3/8" bbl, it seems with all powders AA1680-Lil Gun-the velocity is 150-200 fps under others claimed velocity with cast bullets. [ 09-16-2003, 17:58: Message edited by: 475/480 ] | |||
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| <shooter223> |
475/480, What others claim and what they are actually getting may be two different things. If their load is not chronographed, it's only a guess. shooter... | ||
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I agree with Bug. You are at the flatline level. Its giving you all it was designed to do in that cartridge. Toss the Lil'Gun aside and grab a can of H110/W296. Also others may be getting more velocity and with that every firearm is different when it comes to speed. a little extra B&C gap with shave some speed in a hurry. Have fun with your new toy. | |||
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quote:475, One other souce of the "problem" you are seeing is that you may just have a slow barrel. Years ago Speer put an interesting sectoin in one of their manuals entitled "Why Ballisticians Get Gray". The chronoed a bunch of .357 loads in guns of different makes, in guns of the same make, with barrel lengths that ran from 2.5" to 8.375". Even in guns of the same make, with the same length barrels, they got very different velocities. The article first appeared in Manual #9 and was then reprinted in #12. Some examples, three 6" Pythons: 1227, 1477, 1468 from a 125 grain load; 1142, 1373, 1364 with a 140 grain load. Three S&W Model 19s: 1400, 1372, 1603 with the 125s; 1282, 1281, and 1417 with the 140s. When this issue was disussed in one of the better gun rags, a gunsmith reported building two identical XP-100s for two buddies. Both barrels were cut from the SAME blank, both chambers were cut with the SAME reamer. Using the SAME load, one was 200 fps faster than the other. Go figure! With the .500 claiming the title of the fastest with the mostest, you can expect to see a lot of unhappy owners whose gun won't run with someone else's just because they fall on the slow end of the distribution. If your goal in getting one was to throw heavier chunks of lead faster than the Linebaughs or .454s, you have a PROBLEM. If your goal was to have an effective handgun for hunting heavy bodied dangerous game, then you only have a "problem". Nathan Detroit | |||
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quote:The above statement is not strictly true. In fact getting powders to burn completely is one of the secrets that one manufacturer of precision bullseye .22 rimfire uses to hold their edge over the competition. There was an article years back in Handloader by a fellow that worked for the above manufacturer. He attempted to apply the same principle to the .44 Mag. To capture the unburned powder, he fired numerous rounds into a VERY large plastic bag, and then collecting the unburned powder for measurement. The bag volume has to be large enough to prevent its rupturing from the exit gas volume. The precentage of unburned powder might just surprise you. Re: the .38 Special and Bullseye powder. More than one PPC competitor has locked his gun up TIGHT by forgetting that Bullseye DOES NOT burn completely and then not holding the gun vertical when ejecting the empties during the reload. One or more unburned flakes get caught under the extractor and prevents the cylinder from rotating once it has been closed. This is one of the most common ways that "fault-tolerant" revolvers malfunction. This is also true for competitors using the .45 ACP chambered S&W revolvers. Seen it happen and done it to myself. Nathen Detroit | |||
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| <shooter223> |
Sorry, I stick by my statement regarding powder burning. I suppose I could have listed an arms length of caveats like proper crimp, canister powders, etc. I just assumed the cartridges were properly loaded. Can you get unburned powder from a load? Of course. Happens all the time. The chances are, however, that that powder might never have burned for any of a number of reasons. I don't think any canister powder is 100% efficient. So why is your gun a little slow? Because it wants to be. Sorry, I do not mean to be trite or sarcastic and hope you take not the comment that way. Some guns, as the man said, are just plain slower than others for reasons that we do not fully understand. Go back and try different powders and/or primers. It may help. But if the gun is accurate and you like it, don't let this be a show stopper. shooter... | ||
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While I haven't loaded for the 500 S&W, my experience would lead me to believe that a 465 gr bullet in the 500 would lead me to believe that Lil gun would be too fast burning for best velocities with that weight of bullet. I think Lil gun will be best for bullets 400 grs or lighter. I think you'd be better off with H-110 or W-296. Not sure about AA-1680, but it might be just a tad too slow burning for the application. One things for sure about 1680, it likes to be compressed for best accuracy. As far as the speed issue goes, guns will vary as far as what they will do. My buddies 7 1/2" SRH 480 has always been 50 fps faster than my 480 when we run the same ammo through both guns. | |||
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quote:Shooter223, You can stand by any statements you like, but, in this instance, you would be smarter if you didn't. To put it bluntly, you are wrong! You can list all the caveats you like to cover your ignorance, but you are still wrong. This is a fact that can be demonstrated ON DEMAND any day of the week. You can demonstrate it for yourself, if you have the initiative, or you can have someone demonstrate it for you. In fact, this is a phenomenon that is demonstrated every day at indoor ranges all across the country. At the private club I run, we have our own indoor and outdoor ranges. Starting in the fall we run two series of matches indoors and have several nights of practice by our teams. After EVERY session we clean the range down and collect a pile of unwanted brass and a pile of unburned powder. It does not matter if it is the rimfire league or the centerfire league. The result is exactly the same. How do I know that it is unburned powder, and not just dirt off of the shooter's shoes? One of our senior members tells of the time he and a friend set a match to the pile on the old East Cleveland police range where they were practicing, and the fire that resulted. When we run NRA firearms safety classes or instructors classes, we have to use factory ammo only for liability reasons, according to the NRA. At the end of the class we have the same result: a pile of brass from the slidegunners and a pile of unburned powder. With the factory ammo, there are no excuses. The brass is all new, the primer pockets are all clean, the primers are properly seated, the cases are all the same length, the cases are equally hard, the crimps are all the same, the powders are all OEM grade,...., yada, YAda, YADA. You still wind up with the same problem: unburned powder. And on indoor ranges this is a serious fire hazard. At our club we even looked into getting a shop vac, but we could not get a determination if it HAD to be explosion-proof due to the unburned powder it would be picking up. It is possible for tightly controlled applications to develop ammunition that does not leave the powder unburned. Applications like the Olympic rimfire ammo that I mentioned in my earlier post. But the general rule is that you are going to blow unburned powder out the muzzle. And this is independent of who loaded the ammo. For poorly assembled reloads, the problem can be made worse, but it happens with all ammo, factory or reloads, rimfire or centerfire, handgun or rifle. The truth of the matter is that the first time you have to clean up an indoor range after you shoot, you will no longer stand by your opinion. Whether it's your perfectly assembled relaods or perfectly assembled factory ammo, the outcome will be the same. Nathan Detroit [ 09-18-2003, 17:42: Message edited by: Nathan Detroit ] | |||
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Nathan, I don't see the argument. Shooter223 did say, or implied enough so, that not all the powder is consumed by using his "100 percent" statement. It would probably take a true "detonation" to eliminate all traces of unburnt powder, and even then you can probably find some tell-tale signs that gun powder was involved in the explosion. ... felix | |||
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| <shooter223> |
Ah, Mr. Detroit. I've been many things in life. Even wrong, but not this time. You are repeating the same myth that's been around for years about how fast powder burns. Don't take my word for it? Fair enough. How about Dave Scovill, John Barsness or Robert Rinker? In Handloader #217 John states in his article on "Handloading Myths" (page 53), "In any modern cartridge all the powder burns within the first few inches of the bullet's travel". The same thing Dave Scovill said to me in a personal correspondence some years ago. Robert Rinker's book "Understanding Ballistics" also mentions this in passing. Frankly, I trust them more on this subject than the guy who sweeps the floor. Wolfe Publishing used to offer a service where you could send in question, and for a modest fee, ten bucks or so, you could get a personal response. Cheap considering the level of expertise. I suggest you type them a letter, print out this thread, and see what they have to say about powder burn rates. To 475/480. Please refer to Handloader #220 and an article by Brian Pearce titled "What Causes Revolver Velocities to Vary" (details, details, details). Again, for a modest fee you can get the issue or a reprint of the article. What he has to say directly addresses your question and is beyond the scope of this response. Not to mention plagerism. with respect to all. shooter... | ||
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Thank you,Sean | |||
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quote:OK shooter, you have stated the problem above in a manner that shows that you are talking about two different things simultaneously. In your first post you comment on the fact that the barrel on 475/480's S&W is probably not too short to CONSUME all of the powder. In the statement directly above you claim that I should learn something about powder BURNING RATES. There is a big difference between HOW FAST a powder burns and HOW COMPLETELY a powder burns. I have no truck with the Barsness/Rinker/Scovill claim that all of the powder that is going to be consumed in the reaction will be consumed in a very short period of time (within a few inches of bullet travel). The above statement is not the same as stating that all of the powder loaded into the case is consumed in the reaction (i.e., burned). This latter statement is patently false. I don't need to write to Handloader to find this out. I have a wealth of personal experience. I am the president of the club I speak of and one of my reposnsibilities is to make certain that the proper maintenance procedures are followed to protect our indoor and outdoor ranges. What's more, if you check the NRA Range Development Manual, or talk to the bullet trap manufacturers, like Caswell or Detroit or SuperTrap, they will warn you about the fire hazard due to the unburned powder that collects on range floors. That powder is not falliing out of the shooters' pockets or out their range boxes. It comes from one source and one source only: it is ejected out of the muzzles of their guns. There is a big, BIG difference between HOW FAST smokeless powder burns and HOW COMPLETELY smokeless powder burns. These are two TOTALLY separate concepts. One of the wonderful things about this issue of "degree of consumption" is that you don't have to take anybody's word for the accuracy of the statement that some percentage of the powder loaded in the case is not burned and instead is blown out the barrel. You can demonstrate it for yourself! And you can do so much more easily than you can verify how quickly the powder is consumed. If you are not familiar with how to carry out such a test easily, go back in your Handloader collection to #33, September-October of 1971. Turn to page 35 and you will find the article that I mentioned in one of my earlier posts on this subject. The author is a gentleman by the name of Richard Underwood who was a research chemist for one of the major primer/ammo manufacturers. Mr. Underwood was examining "Component Compatibility for Peak Efficiency". Efficiency here was defined as the percentage of powder consumed (burned). His test bed was the .44 Magnum. In Table 3 entitled "Percentage of Propellant Unburned" shows values for three different bullets. The 225gr jacketed bullet left 18.3% unburned, the 215 gr cast bullet left 28.6% unburned, and the 235 gr cast bullet left 23.7% unburned. This article predated the use of the heavyweights now in vogue and these heavier bullets may result in better efficieny. Now I am going to quote directly from this Handloader article. From page 35, column 2: "As everyone knows, not all the propellant energy is expended pushing the bullet in a pistol. Some propellant is burned outside the barrel, producing part of the flash. Some of the propellant isn't burned at all, but few people have tried to do anything about it." From pg 37 bottom of column 2 and top of column 3: "One thing that is really shown here is something that pistol shooters have known for some time: unburned propellant literally pours out the muzzle of a pistol. It can be seen on the range just ahead of the firing line, which is why an indoor range must be swept regularly. If it is not, a range fire may be the price." If it wasn't for the fact that the physical laws governing the internal combustion of smokeless propellants in small arms had obviously changed since this article was published in Handloader and Mr. Scovill, Mr. Barsness and Mr. Rinker became the leading authorities on internal ballistics, I would suggest that this might be an informative and entertaining article and worth your reading. affectionately, the floor sweeper, Nathan Detroit [ 09-20-2003, 19:49: Message edited by: Nathan Detroit ] | |||
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Maybe we should exchange the word "efficiency" with "cost/effectiveness". Open systems just can't be efficient by any stretch of the imagination. Consider all of that noise, heat, vibration going down the tube(s) besides pistons and boolits. ... felix | |||
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quote:Felix, You bring up an intersting point. I have no vesting interest in the use of the term "efficiency" to describe the event; that was Mr. Underwood's choice. Using "cost/effectiveness" might have its own problems since it has an intuituve meaning for most shooters. For example: right out of Speer #13, pg 585 for the .45 Colt. With their 225 JHP, 16.0 of Bluedot give 1343fps, while 23.0 of N110 give 1339fps. Since Bluedot uses only two-thirds as much powder to achieve the same velocity, Bluedot would be more "cost/effective". For all we know, both powders could wind up burning the same percentage of the propellant charge. Or vastly different percentages for that matter. Bur we could wind up with cost/effectiveness(1) nested inside of cost/effectiveness(2), which just begs to cause confusion. Maybe the thermo people or the systems engineers have a better term for this, but as long as we are using the same term in the same way, I don't think that it is a big issue. Nathan Detroit | |||
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| <shooter223> |
Felix, right again. Most smokeless gunpowders, in terms of energy imparted to the projectile, are only about 40% to 45% efficient (Rinker, Understanding Ballistics). And, to satisfy Mr. Detroit, 1% to 2% of the inefficiency is unburned fuel. Mr. Detroit. I do not consider it my duty to convince you that you're wrong. I can only give you references. Whether you use them, or believe them, is entirely up to you. As for me, I trust the authors and am convinced they're right. Try not to take a difference of opinion personally. FWIW, shooter... | ||
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