I've got a gunsmith building me a 600 Nitro double rifle and he want's me to supply him with ammo to regulate it with.

Usually I would work up a load while checking for signs of pressure along the way. Since I don't have that luxury would like to check with you guys as to what would be a safe maximum load. Going off QuickLOAD and the powders I have on hand I get the following with a 900 grain bullet:

135 grains IMR 4350 at 1850 fps
135 grains Hodgdon H414 at 1900 fps
135 grains Alliant Reloader-17 at 1950 fps

All of these are calculated to be around 30,000psi. Leaning towards the Reloader-17. Any thoughts?

I shoot 120gr. Re15 for 1850fps with 900gr Woodleigh softs. I am not sure I have cronographed solids. My brain thinks it recoils more comfortably than all the other loads I tried which included 4350, 4831 and Re17.

If I recall correctly 140gr H4350 only gave me 1750-1775fps and hurt more.

The rifle is a verney carron.

Matthew

For the 12+ years I'be been hunting with my vintage .600, I shoot 160 grains of IMR 4831 with a lead or Woodleigh soft nose or 155 grains with a Woodleigh solid. Plains game, moose, six buffalo, two hippo and it works just fine. RL 15 will recoil less but as 4831 works so well for me and it uses no filler, I stayed with it.
Cal

Thanks Cal, I forgot to mention you must use filler with the Re15 load or you will get hangfires which is not fun when plinking and dangerous when hunting mean things.

Filler is definitely the disadvantage of Re15 but it works so well in my rifle I use it almost exclusively.

Matthew

quote:

Originally posted by cal pappas:
For the 12+ years I'be been hunting with my vintage .600, I shoot 160 grains of IMR 4831 with a lead or Woodleigh soft nose or 155 grains with a Woodleigh solid.

Plugged this into QuickLOAD and it predicts the pressure at almost 50,000 psi. I've noticed QuickLOAD has a tendency to exaggerate the pressure a little bit, but I just wanted to double check that this is safe for double rifles.

quote:

Originally posted by 56hawk:

quote:

Originally posted by cal pappas:
For the 12+ years I'be been hunting with my vintage .600, I shoot 160 grains of IMR 4831 with a lead or Woodleigh soft nose or 155 grains with a Woodleigh solid.

Plugged this into QuickLOAD and it predicts the pressure at almost 50,000 psi. I've noticed QuickLOAD has a tendency to exaggerate the pressure a little bit, but I just wanted to double check that this is safe for double rifles.

Forget Quickload.......go with either Cal’s or Matthewx’s very knowledgeable & experienced advise or data from the Woodleigh Loading Manual.
Original 100 grain Cordite loads were 11 tons psi for 1800-1850 FPS out of 28”-30” barrels.
Original 110 grain Cordite loads were 14 tons psi for advertised 1950 FPS and a 28” barrel.

Be aware that British “tons psi” is not directly convertable to SAAMI CUP/PSI/Piezo pressures.

Cal’s above loads are in line with the max loads in the Woodleigh manual (they use H4831sc or RL22).
The Woodleigh published loads run from 145grains to 160grains of H4831sc.

I don’t have a .600, just a .577, however I would go with a 100 Cordite equivalent as in Matthewx’s loads, ......much less wear and tear on the old bod.....
- Mike

Thanks everyone. Went ahead and bought some more IMR 4831 yesterday. Now I've got some loading to do.