Large case reloading, Pack or not

[Patrick Chadwick]

Dear Edward,

as interesting and amusing as your contribution is, it seems to be slightly missing the point and may be confusing to the original contributor.

1) The 303 cartridge was one of the many responses to the shock effect of the introduction of the Lebel cartridge with smokeless powder in 1886. As the British had not yet got an acceptable smokeless powder, the loading of the 303 case with black powder was a stopgap measure, and they had to use some tricks to force enough powder in to the case! In other words, the 303 was not designed as a BP cartridge, and your comment "If the .303 British can make the change over from black powder to smokeless powder other cartridges can also take advantage of “smokeless powder” " - is therefore an incorrect interpretation of the historical development.

In the "Handloaders Manual of Cartridge Conversions" it says:
303 case capacity = 55.65 gns of water
577-450 case capacity = 123.20 gns of water
Which means that the 20 gns of powder in the 303 case in your picture would look very meagre in the 577-450 case, which is 2.2 times larger.

Furthermore, the loading on P.234 of the "Cast Bullet Handbook" which you present shows pressures that are specified for the Ruger #1 and #3, but are NOT acceptable for original BP rifles. Loads for original rifles are shown on P.232-234, and have considerably lower pressures.

As to the relative burn rates of BP and nitro powder - it surely depends a lot on the packing density. The 16" sharges for the Iowa class battleships use (used?) a black powder starter charge, as it appears that BP does indeed ignite faster than smokeless under pressure.

Which leads me to the final point, on which I hope you have some info in your capacious store of information. And that is, the mysterious "shock wave" supposedly caused by minimum loads of smokeless powder. Often heard of, but I have never seen any proper documentation, rather some comments to the effect that in most (all?) properly analyzed cases, the cause was erroneous double charging. I suspect there may be a certain mythological content in the shock wave story, and would be grateful if you could dig up any properly researched reports.

Whether or not the cheap gentlemen of doubtful parentage have more fun I cannot say - I leave that to your personal expertise - but it is the stupid ones who worry me!

Patrick

Information

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[JBS]

Trail Boss powder, and call their “800” number. Ask them for loading info for your application. They will give you the simple info on how to calculate your start and max load.

[Edward Horton]

Patrick Chadwick

I have never fired a black powder charge in any firearm in my life, I also never hunted with a bow and arrow, a spear or thrown rocks at game.

I also had a Ruger No.3 in 45-70 and fully understand the three different loadings in the reloading manuals for this cartridge and pressures.

Loading 18 grains of 2400 in a .270 case made me “nervous” and slightly paranoid about double charging cases. This led to many inspections of the filled cases with a flash light and nagging thoughts about too much powder in these cases.

SR-4759 was made specifically for reduced loads and higher loading density and Trail Boss is used as a black powder substitute with a high loading density.

It is impossible to double charge a case with SR-4759 without knowing it when looking inside the case.

In the majority of cartridge cases if SR-4759 is used a filler is not required because of the higher loading density.

My main point here is MORE people should read the front of the reloading manuals and attempt to learn something rather than ask questions in a forums where bad answers can be given out.

The answers I gave here were from these manuals and don't contain rumors or bad advice, this does NOT mean any of the advice given in this posting is bad advice. BUT it does mean reading current up to date reloading manuals will keep you out of trouble.

Right now in a cast bullet forum a person famous for writing about "inherent weakness" here in this forum is handing out reloading information and this person doesn't reload or cast bullets. (He is passing out information he read in other forums and much of it is bad information)

The manuals will not tell you to lube your cartridge cases, fill the cases with Cream of Wheat, sawdust or sock fuzz.

My final point is I don't reload MY cartridge cases and shoot them with internet rumors, I reload my cases from the manuals and even cross check them in case of a printing error. (Such as Sgt. York and the Kaiser) RTFM

BUT I am a cheap bastard especially at going out of business sales.
(don't ask me how many cans I bought of SR-4759)