This Poll/Discussion is about new, modern, high-pressure Cartridges and the appropriate Firearms for them. It has nothing to do with the old Low Pressure Cartridges.
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I've seen any number of people mention that if you want to know that a Load is SAFE, to simply fire that specific Load, in a specific firearm, using the same Case(1-5 Cases typically) " X " times or " XX " times. Then if the Primer Pockets are still snug when Seating a Primer, you know you have a SAFE Load for that specific Lot of Cases. For discussion, we can call it the "Safety Load".

The " X " value seems to have a rather wide variance. Some folks Anneal Cases to extend their useful life and some prefer to toss them after a few Reloads rather than; 1. Lower the Pressure. 2. Anneal the Cases to prevent Neck Splits.

I do agree with the concept that if a Case, or set of Cases, can take " X " shots without causing Primer Pocket Expansion that it should be a SAFE Load.

That does not necessarily mean the "Safety Load" is utilizing the full Potential for that Cartridge. You might be getting 30-06 performance from a 300Mag and have a "Safety Load" - and there is nothing wrong with that - if that is what you actually want.

Good Hunting and clean 1-shot Kills to all you folks.

Question:
How many shots per Case do you believe is appropriate to create a "Safety Load" and still have Snug Primer Pockets?

Choices:
1
2-3
4-6
7-10
11-15
16-20
More
I don't use this criteria.

Question:
How many Range Trips do you think a Beginner will make Testing Loads before becoming frustrated when trying to create the "Safety Load"?

Choices:
1
2-3
4-6
7-10
11-15
16-20
More
Don't agree with the premise of the question.

Question:
How far is it to where you go to Test Loads?

Choices:
Out the back door.
1-5 miles
6-25 miles
26-60 miles
more
Does not apply to me since I don't Test Loads.

 

Hot Core, very interesting and important question. The results surprised me. I'd expect 4-6 reloads before the primer pocket got to loose to hold a primer safely, but many seem to only expect 2-3 - amazing. Glad you asked this question. Regards, AIU

I don't seek the maximum charge I can get into a load. I select a powder charge I know will be safe, then shoot it until I learn its peculiarities. I could go up four or five grains and be within a grain of the maximum for the powders I use, but I get satisfactory performance out of my slightly defused load. I pretty much know where it's going to hit, so I practice and practice with that load until I know it inside and out...

I'm finding a combo of lower pressure loads and a lot of neck sizing, with some loads not even having to neck size after firing is extending case life quite a bit..

changing some of my practices.. I am loosing case to split necks.. the few I have lost have finally cracked at the web instead...

some lots I have been experimenting with now are at the 20 reload mark.. this is in 22.250, 223, 243 and 7 x 57.....

I have been tracking this exact same question the last 3 or 4 months now...

quote:

Originally posted by seafire2:
I'm finding a combo of lower pressure loads and a lot of neck sizing, with some loads not even having to neck size after firing is extending case life quite a bit.....

Hey Seafire, 303Guy is doing some Reloading on his 22Hornet that uses a Method totally different from anything I've ever used. He does not Resize his Cases either.

Some of what he does would cause concern for me due to the potential for a Bore Obstruction - but it seems to be working fine for him. He recently mentioned that he is also trying Paper Jackets for some of his Loads. Like people did in the old Lead Bullets days but with Jacketed Bullets.

The 22Hornets I had, exhibited very short Case Life. I first thought it was due to trying to get too much Velocity, but found it to be related more so to the Chambers cut to the High side and Die Dimensions held tight. I never had good luck with Neck Sizing them using a Full Length Die either. Sure glad I have a 223Rem now which eliminates all those issues.
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The thing I was wanting to see from the above Poll was primarily where people thought the Beginners would become frustrated. As of today, that number is fairly low.

I still agree some number of multiple shots through a Case is an excellent Pressure Indicator. The only problem is the number of Range Trips it takes to know the Load is in fact a Safety Load. For a person who can step out the back door and shoot, or has close access to a Range, it is obviously less of a hassle factor. But for a Beginner, it apparently only takes a few trips for them to become frustrated. That has the potential to lead folks into trying to take short-cuts which I've never seen as a good thing in Reloading.

And I am a bit surprised at the number of folks who do not use Case Life as a Pressure Indicator. Perhaps it is because of the number of Range Trips required. Anyone care to comment on "Why?" they don't use Case Life?

Using case life is an excellent criteria for determining that you have a safe load. I consider the laod safe when the primer pocket does not yield for more than 20 loads. After 20 loads I don't think it will ever yield. Statistics says the sample size needs to be 30 though. The only problem is that most of us only learn that over a long time or by reloading a small number of cases repeatedly. I tend to inch up the pressure until I am about 2% below manual maximums for loads that require any performance such as hunting ammo.
Everything else gets loaded to somewhere around starting loads unless the neck does not seal the case. If the neck does not seal I up the pressure until it does or anneal the brass if it is too hard. Then I check the bore to make sure there is not a lot of unburned powder left. This usually means my primer pockets wear out due to lots of primers being pressed in and out. Otherwise the case eventually splits the body or the neck.
However I am a little leery of depending on primer pockets for determining safety when the passing criteria is only a few loads such as less than 5. All it takes is one soft case in the next batch of brass to surprise you with a blown case head. If you have ever been blasted by leaking gas you know what I mean. The leak that I got was from an ancient side by side shotgun and the load was not an overload so far as I know. It was in a paper base shell that split around the rim. I would really hate to have that happen at 3 times the powder charge and 5 times the pressure in a center fire rifle.

Yeah trips to the range take time and effort. My trip is 35 miles from one side to the other of a city of 650,000 with rush hour type traffic all weekend.
But it is something I love. There are not a lot of sports that you can participate in until you drop dead or go blind. If you don't love it maybe you need to do something that you do love. The clock is ticking and you only get one go round....

Hotcore,

Since I was the one who suggested that this is the best way for persons without a ballistic lab to "proof" a safe load, let me explain my technique.

First, you work up a load the "old fashion" way, until you achieve the velocity or accuracy or an acceptable combination of the two. You will determine during this process if you have a fast rifle, a slow rifle, or one that is in line with the book. You stop if you reach book max or develop other traditional signs of pressure with appropriate consideration for whether your rifle is fast, slow or average.

Second, You take your portable press, priming device, and scale to the range, and proceed to shoot five cases the requisite number of times with the load you are testing.

Third, If you make 5 shots with a magnum or 8 with a standard case, you have the winner. If you get less, back off a grain and retry.

It really works pretty smoothly. I found because of wind, that the best place to measure charges is in the cab of my truck. In Tallahassee, this is a winter time activity. Kudude

By reducing about any load down 5 to 8% of what is the max load, you increase case life a lot...

reducing it by 10% you can reduce it even more..

We all know that working the brass during resizing is what kills a case...

I try to target a schedule of from new case, getting 4 neck sizing instances before I have to full length resize it..on the 5th load...

then do 4 more neck sizings until I get to number 9.. on number 10 full lenght size it again.. and trim to length...

doing it this way, I am getting case life out to 15 loads so far.. and many will stretch it to 20...

I've also taken cases who have gone thru 10 reloads and experimented to see how far I can stretch them out with the other techniques used on the control groups..

all of those have stretch out to 15 reloads so far.. and a couple of batches to 17 reloads..once again the casualty spot is the web cracking.. had one today do so at the range.. this was its 18th reload.. the other 9 in the test batch look fine so far.. will redo them later tonight..

Learning to neck size with a full length die is worth the effort..and it is different for each case also..

experiment with different brands of brass on each caliber...what might be great in one brand in one caliber does not mean the same applies to another caliber in the same brand..

Lapua claims that they get as high as 300 reloads on some of their brass.. then is what me going on this kick... I have yet to purchase any.. I am holding off until I see what Rem and Win brass do for me...and Fed to some extent..

another spiffy product I'll recommend to stretch out brass life is Hornady's Universal Neck sizing die.. one per caliber.. like their 6.5 will size a 260 Rem or a 264 Win Mag...
It is better than the Lee Collet Neck sizer even..IMO..

I havent' gotten to the point of doing the Redding Bushing dies.. but that will be in the future after I get a handle on more knowledge on the subject...

I am in the mood of paring down the number of firearms I have...with thought of switch barreling etc..

however I know 223, 22.250 and 243 will easily be in the gun cabinet..

but once I get my Master's Degree here on Case life extension...I am thinking, with Lapua brass, Reddings neck bushing die and the right loads... one can really get some mileage out of a lot number of brass...

with cost going up, long case life could become a real advantage..

thinking outside the box also...

say a person can live with a certain velocity out of a cartridge... say 30 caliber, 165 grain bullet and desires 2800 fps....

to stretch out cost of brass, one may actually be better off purchasing a 300 Win Mag.. do a lower pressure load to give 06 or even 300 Savage performance.. and with discipline and proper neck sizing techniques.. say using a Redding Neck Bushing set up....

considering the strength put into Mag brass expecting higher pressures... a 300 Mag to lower performance, might even be a better choice than a 30/06 in that case....

the same thing considering a 30/06 with lower pressure might be a better choice than a 300 Savage or 308 even..

you get the point..

as wacky as the world is going, we don't know what is going to be happening.... 5 years ago, did anyone even guess that prices for a lot of things would be where they are today?

and with we shooters, facing certain unfriendlies in the white house and congress, be it from either party.. its not like we have blue skies on the horizon....

We can't reuse powder, or primers or bullets in most instances...but we can reuse brass..and that is where economy in shooting can start...

and for us serious volume shooters... you will see more and more using the faster powders.. as they burn less... powder in OZ and NZ for American powders is like $80.00 a pound someone reported...

I knonw you don't support Blue Dot there H/C.. but it is economically all the more appealing to me all the time...as is 5744, RL 7, 4198 etc..

I forgot to add this above, but this may be better any way....

I am finding a major decrease in split necks from neck sizing.. but also in how I neck prep..

some one gave me a bottle of Amzoil spray lube...its like $8.00 for a spray bottle on this stuff.. but it is working real well...

first step on neck sizing brass is that I take a bore cleaning brush in a caliber one or two sizes up from the brass I am getting ready to size.. I swab out each piece of brass's neck wth this bore brush, on a short rod for handguns...

next I do a squirt of this Amzoil lube, but Rem gun oil in a spray etc, does close to just as good... its just Amzoil is not leaving this gummy feeling after a few days if It didn't get cleaned...

anyway, neck I will spray it onto a bore brush of the same caliber as the brass I am sizing and lube the necks on the inside with that...

after that the decapping pin and expander ball assembly is running thru there just like running your finger over silk...

also chamfer the neck if it has not been done so.. or lightly touch it up... that helps also..

since doing that, the lot numbers of brass I have been working with.. case neck splits have disappeared...

cheers
seafire

Hot Core,
You know that this question is going to attract me like the bat signal gets Batman's attention.



By the time I get 257 Roberts Ackley Improved cases prepped and formed, I do not want them getting short brass life


Where I work we have stress analysis programs that cost $10k/ seat.
I just tried to get the Von Misses calculations on the Mauser case head done for me.
You can see that Varmint Al is into that.
ASS_Clown was into that before he left AR in a snit with Don.
Now I am being told that the tensile strength of cartridge brass has a transient component.
What does that mean?
It is like Silly Putty.
If you hit it, it is hard, if you push it, it is soft.
And as we know, stretching the brass make it harder to stretch.

Maybe that explains the following:
New Win 243 brass
Primer hard to insert
100 gr Hornady round nose moly jammed into the lands
45 gr H4350
Quickload predicts 66,000 psi
On the first firing, the extractor groove expands .001"
The primer is now easy to remove.
The next primer is easy to insert.
Over the next 10 firings, the brass does not get any more growth, and primer decapping and insertion force stays moderate.

If I lower the load to 43 gr, there is no initial brass expansion.


SAAMI specifications on primers and primer pockets per "Sinclair International's Precision Reloading & Shooting Handbook" 10th edition 1999
Depth min max diameter min max
small rifle primer pocket .117 .123 .1730 .1745
small pistol primer pocket .117 .123 .1730 .1745
Large rifle primer pocket .125 .132 .2085 .2100
Large pistol primer pocket .117 .123 .2085 .2100


Height min max Diameter min max
Small rifle primers .115 .125 .1745 .1765
small pistol primers .115 .125 .1745 .1765
large rifle primers .123 .133 .2105 .2130
large pistol primers .115 .125 .2100 .2120"

As you can see the pocket range over .0015" range up to the bottom of the primer range that is .002".
So a primer pocket diameter change that is tolerable [without getting loose primers] could be anywhere from .0000" to .0035" change

Clark,

you are BATMAN???



COOOLLLL!!!!

you are BATMAN???

I used to do Batman jobs, but nowdays the only openings I can find is butler work.


And John, as educated as you are, you know a simile from a metaphor.

quote:

Originally posted by tnekkcc:



And John, as educated as you are, you know a simile from a metaphor.

I forgot both that and Einstein Theory of Relativity along the way...

Wait a minute..

a simile.. is a misspelled Smile.. has one to many 'i's

Metaphor.. I don't know what's a metaphor.. but ah do know whut a tar arn's phor...

quote:

Hey Seafire, 303Guy is doing some Reloading on his 22Hornet that uses a Method totally different from anything I've ever used. He does not Resize his Cases either.

Yup. I seat the bullet using a paper hand towel cup arrangement 'glued' in with molten wax/bullet lube mix.

Works pretty good! Keeps the bore squeeky clean to boot. (In the hornet, anyway). I also headspace on the case mouth - made possible by my loading method. I have no idea what you folks mean by "case life". Cases last forever, don't they?

In the hornet, I need more Lil'Gun to get pressures up but in the 303 it seems to make no difference.

Hey Ireload2, Nice post. I understand your concern for the "less than 5" shots criteria. Plus they are getting close to Cumulative Metal Fatigue levels for the firearm.

quote:

Originally posted by 303Guy:
I seat the bullet using a paper hand towel cup arrangement 'glued' in with molten wax/bullet lube mix. ...

Hey 303Guy, That wax/lube combo is the only thing that concerns me, since it has the potential to become a Bore Obstruction. But I might have mentioned that to you before.

The Paper Patches are one area of Reloading that I would like to spend some time messing with. I believe I mentioned to you that I met a guy at the Range who was using Paper Patched Lead Slugs in a 45-70 B78 and the barrel was spotless. The Paper polished the Bore with each shot.
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Hey Kudude, I can see where having Portable Reloading equipment would be a HUGE help in the process. I spotted two of the really old Lyman Hand Presses(new in the box) at a store 2 years ago. They can be used as a Hand Press or reverse the handle and they can be bolted to a bench. The owner was out of town and the folks working there had no idea about them. I forgot about them until you mentioned Portable Reloading.
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Hey Seafire, I'm all for Extended Case Life. Anything you do in that reguard I'll be interested in hearing about. The most I ever got on a set of Cases was 33 Reloads. It was a SAFE MAX Load in a 7mmRemMag and the Test stopped due to Neck Splits. Had I been Annealing, the Case Life would have obviously been even better. In that situation, the Full Length Die and the Chamber apparently matched up extremely well, so there was very little Squashing of the Case Walls or Neck as they were P-FLRed.
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Hey Batman, Had no idea the Batguns were a 257Rob AI and a 243Win.

Got a question for you concerning the 43gr BatLoad. If you take a new BatCase and fire it 3 times with the 43gr BatLoad, then shoot the 45gr BatLoad does the Primer Pocket still expand 0.001Bat"? Or has the 3-43gr BatLoads Hardened the BatCaseHead?
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Still no posts from folks who do not use Case Life as a Pressure Indicator. I do wonder what kinds of Pressure Indicators they use. That might make an interesting Poll. Plus people can respond to it and not have to say who they are if that concerns them.

quote:

Originally posted by Hot Core:
Hey Batman, Had no idea the Batguns were a 257Rob AI and a 243Win.
Got a question for you concerning the 43gr BatLoad. If you take a new BatCase and fire it 3 times with the 43gr BatLoad, then shoot the 45gr BatLoad does the Primer Pocket still expand 0.001Bat"? Or has the 3-43gr BatLoads Hardened the BatCaseHead?

I can do that test, but not this morning.

quote:

Still no posts from folks who do not use Case Life as a Pressure Indicator. I do wonder what kinds of Pressure Indicators they use. That might make an interesting Poll. Plus people can respond to it and not have to say who they are if that concerns them.

Did you want to conjure up the dark knight [Denton]?
I thought you killed his character off.

Could you take care of Al Gore and his global warming next?

quote:

Could you take care of Al Gore and his global warming next?

Well Al Gore is 100% correct on Global Warming....

just what the lefties and the environMENTAL nuts don't get, is it is being created by all the hot air Al is spewing into the Atmosphere, screaming global warming....

if he shuts up, we have NO Global Warming..

quote:

Hey 303Guy, That wax/lube combo is the only thing that concerns me, since it has the potential to become a Bore Obstruction. But I might have mentioned that to you before.

The wax/lube mix is soaked into the paper between the bullet and the case. All excess wax is wiped off. This could make the paper 'sticky' and remain in the bore but it doesn't. I checked the bore very carefully after each shot before I was satisfied nothing could remain behind. The bore stays squeeky clean and lubed sufficiently not to rust in damp weather. This system has been so reliable that I no longer bother to test the loaded rounds for fit in the magazine or chamber nor do I bother to clean the bore after use. The wax/lubed paper cup not only holds the bullet very firmly and straight in the case, but makes the round water proof too. (The system is slow but quite rewarding to me).

quote:

Originally posted by seafire2:

quote:

Could you take care of Al Gore and his global warming next?

Well Al Gore is 100% correct on Global Warming....

just what the lefties and the environMENTAL nuts don't get, is it is being created by all the hot air Al is spewing into the Atmosphere, screaming global warming....

if he shuts up, we have NO Global Warming..

Leno was saying last night the Global Warming is a good thing because it will make Drilling in north Alaska easier.
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Hey Batman, I'm kind of surprised you have not tried that. Just wondering if those 43gr BatLoads are enough to Work Harden the Case Head.

denton who? Sounds like a Bat Villan!
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Hey 303Guy, The more I think about it, it sounds quite similar to a Wax Coated 22LR. Obviously they have worked quite well for a good while. And without creating a Bore Obstruction.
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As of this AM, it looks like the Beginners will become frustrated prior to them getting enough Range Trips in to use Case Life.

I would not use a load if they got loose before 6-7 loadings. My brass always gets neck cracks before the primer pockets get loose anyway.

quote:

Originally posted by Hot Core:
Leno was saying last night the Global Warming is a good thing because it will make Drilling in north Alaska easier.

Obama has the wrong build for a photo shoot North of the Brooks Range.
His primer pocket would shrivel.

Loose primer pockets are a good way of telling when your loads are too hot.