mousefarts

[Oak Ridge Regulator]

I’m not fast enough that loading the very bottom of the powder range is going to give me a win because it recoils a little less, I have only had one squib ever and it locked up my cylinder but it was enough to make me very careful about not getting loads to lite

[Capt. R. Hugh Kidnme]

Like Gateway Kid, I use 3.2 gn Titegroup, with Federal SPP. I use 125gn Chey Cast bullets in my rifle, and 105gn Chey Cast  bullets in my pistols (4 3/4" and 5 1/2" brls). Haven't had a problem in 8 years. I load on 2 Dillon SDB presses and use a beam scale.  Maybe I'm the second luckiest shooter alive?????

[Eyesa Horg]

I load Ellie's 38s with 125gr. pills and 2.8gr. Clays. No squibs ever! Both rifle and pistol.

[Marauder SASS #13056]

First, I have a lot less experience than folks like Cliff Hanger that were "professional" cartridge reloaders for many years.

But I did start reloading in the mid 1980's.  I reloaded for a few calibers including 38 Special, 357 Magnum, 380 acp, 9mm, 44 Special, 44 Magnum, and 45 ACP.

I didn't want to have to stock more stuff so I never did the 32's or 45 Colt.  I shot a lot at local ranges before starting SASS in the 1990's.  In the late 1990's, I got more serious and shot about 4 times a month including matches and some practices.  So only about 10,000 or 15K rounds of cowboy per year in addition to the other calibers.  (No where near my pards that shot 40K or more a year.)
As a poor cowboy, I used various Lee loaders with two different powder measures.  Then got an RCBS measure but it was not "automatic" with my progressive loader.  Yes, I use a level, stable loading bench and a vibrator on top of the measure reservoir for the last 20 years.

 

For Cowboy, I experimented with various powders of national and international brands.  I used a lot of Clays and VV 320, plus some others.  With Clays I did 2.7 - 2.9 grains with lighter bullets and up to full loads for 158 grain.  When TightGroup came out, I jumped on it. But I found I got squibs with my set ups.  For the really light loads of 2.8 or 2.9, I had to use an adjustable disk and that just didn't work - partly because the hole shape is not really round but sorta "3/4 moon" shaped.  I found I had to go up to 3.8 grains to be reliable.  I know many friends with Dillons did not have that problem. 

So I had to give up on TG for cowboy loads in 38.

 

More recently I loaded a lot more 9mm and tried TG again.  The 3.8 grain loads worked great, but when I went up to 147 grain bullets and tried 3.6 and even 3.7, I had problems.

 

So the lesson is, what works for some will not work for all.  You have to know your equipment limitations.

[Marauder SASS #13056]

A few years ago, I suddenly started getting a few "puff" loads in my 12 ga loads and could not figure out why.  Using the same powder (I think Clays).

 

I switched to a new bottle and it still happened sometimes.  So I finally took things all apart and found a little slip of paper - you know the thin paper that is on the cap of most bottles of powder.  Only a small peace.  But it got wedged in the bottom of my powder measure and was restricting the flow.  I could not see it from the outside.

So then I took the suspected bottle and strained the rest of that bottle and found another similar slip that I probably had fall in when I first opened the bottle.

 

FYI.

[Doc Shapiro]

On 5/19/2023 at 5:28 AM, Oak Ridge Regulator said:

I’m not fast enough that loading the very bottom of the powder range is going to give me a win because it recoils a little less, I have only had one squib ever and it locked up my cylinder but it was enough to make me very careful about not getting loads to lite

 

As I mentioned earlier (and I have the data to prove it), going to these light loads will slow you down.  There is an amount of recoil that's needed.

[Abilene, SASS # 27489]

17 minutes ago, Doc Shapiro said:

 

As I mentioned earlier (and I have the data to prove it), going to these light loads will slow you down.  There is an amount of recoil that's needed.

Howdy Doc, I understand the theory and the data.  But how close were the targets when you gathered that data?  With some of them now being large and less than 3 yards away, speed becomes even more important than ever, especially with multi-taps per target.  I recall videos of Matt Black dry-firing in the house and he was way faster than most of us will ever be, with no recoil at all.  I'm not trying to be argumentative, I hate super light loads and the super close targets, but I'm seeing videos of the fastest shooters with those big targets and there doesn't seem to be any recoil so I'm curious.

[Doc Shapiro]

14 minutes ago, Abilene, SASS # 27489 said:

Howdy Doc, I understand the theory and the data.  But how close were the targets when you gathered that data?  With some of them now being large and less than 3 yards away, speed becomes even more important than ever, especially with multi-taps per target.  I recall videos of Matt Black dry-firing in the house and he was way faster than most of us will ever be, with no recoil at all.  I'm not trying to be argumentative, I hate super light loads and the super close targets, but I'm seeing videos of the fastest shooters with those big targets and there doesn't seem to be any recoil so I'm curious.

5 to 7 yards.  Big targets.

 

Don't forget that grip and technique hava a LOT to do with the amount of recoil you see in videos.  What you see isn't the story.