quote:

Originally posted by Idaho Sharpshooter:
RGB,

interesting hypothesis. Back in 1978-79 a gentleman named Caldwell (you would have liked him RGB, he had both eight bore and four bore DR's both by H&H. He even let me shoot them in the Speer test lab in the basement. You haven't lived until you have accidentally "doubled" an eight bore, even with BP loads!!) tried to replicate the SEE phenomenon. Their only success was with about a 50% loading density of 4831 in a 25-06 with a heavy bullet. Their findings pointed at a low density charge that caused the primer flame to "...dance across the horizontal powder column, igniting ONLY the surface portion...causing a back lash-type of secondary ignition of the other half of the charge...the bullet had moved forward into the chamber leade area and stopped...then got hit with the SEE of the other half of the powder charge as it ignited". They suspected that the initial flame racing across the top of the powder column may have somehow "scorched" the outside of the sticks of 4831 and burned off some of the deterrent coating. That would change the burn rate considerably, and that would cause a tremendous pressure spike at the base of the bullet. Made sense to me.

Any here with a chemical background to add to this?

Rich
DRSS