I notice that Horniday is using "blended" powder in it's Creedmoor loads. Just a mix of powders or some sort of layering? We used to load just a pinch of smokeless in the bottom of black powder loads to improve ignition. (Didn't seem to do anything so stoped!)
OK so what the heck is blended powder
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Chuck 100 yd
Hunter
Blended powders are just what it says. A blend of powders intended to give
the maximum velocity while staying in safe pressure limits.Propriatary,secret blend. Reloaders don'tHave access to test equipment or knowledge required to replicate the factory Loadings and have to use CANISTER powders and data to stay safe.
the maximum velocity while staying in safe pressure limits.Propriatary,secret blend. Reloaders don'tHave access to test equipment or knowledge required to replicate the factory Loadings and have to use CANISTER powders and data to stay safe.
Yeah, blended powders are just a mix of 2 (or more) powders. Hodgdon Superformance canister powder is a blended powder.
The layered powdered are what were called duplex or triplex loads
The layered powdered are what were called duplex or triplex loads
Rick Courtright
Hawkeye
Chuck 100 yd said:
Hi,
Chuck and Laserbait, wouldn't you guys agree that canister powders in essence are also "blended" powders, in the same sense we might see a "blended" whiskey: for our purposes (as reloaders) we can buy either product and know it's going to perform, or taste, essentially the same way whether we bought it five years or five minutes ago. Otherwise, as you said, those guys in the white lab coats with the millions of dollars worth of test equipment can do all kinds of things a little bit beyond what our trusty RCBS 5-0-5 ever could, so they can't dare turn their products loose on us!
I always liked our Federal ammo rep when I ran the trap and skeet range. At the time, Federal's paper target shotshell was arguably the most popular ammo on our shelf. Cut one of those shells open and it appeared to have Hercules/Alliant Red Dot in it, but somewhere around 19.5 gr or more when the books shut us down around 18 gr. When asked (rather constantly) if indeed it WAS Red Dot, his stock answer was "It STARTED as Red Dot, but it's not the Red Dot you can buy. So don't get any ideas about using our factory recipe as your own. You'll just break something!"
Winchester had their own version of his advice with the asterisks in their books that referenced a comment that "This load duplicates the ballistics of (such and such a factory load.)" In other words, our handload should shoot the same as the factory load we were trying to copy, but it wasn't that same load.
Rick C
Chuck 100 yd
Hunter
Rick Courtright said:
^^^ exactly ^^^
I would submit that most canister powder, the granules are all the same powder and blending is done before the granules are made.
In a blended powder, it contains 2 or more types of granules in the canister to create a burn rate profile that is not able to be duplicated by any single powder.
In a blended powder, it contains 2 or more types of granules in the canister to create a burn rate profile that is not able to be duplicated by any single powder.
The ammo manufacturers may(and usually do)use powders custom made for some applications. When the ammo plant gets a production lot of powder, they adjust the loads to meet their specifications for the loads being produced. "Canister powder" is produced to meet an accepted burn rate/energy level that allows reloaders to utilize data manuals safely.
Trying to match factory loads with commercial canister powder can'/may be both frustrating and dangerous. I'm surprised that old timers like Elmer Keith survived their somewhat scary experiments.
Trying to match factory loads with commercial canister powder can'/may be both frustrating and dangerous. I'm surprised that old timers like Elmer Keith survived their somewhat scary experiments.
Rick Courtright
Hawkeye
Psb1911 said:
Hi,
That sounds quite similar to the scheme Remington devised a couple of years ago to get an advertised 1700+ fps from waterfowl shotshells. If memory serves, the primer ignited a small charge of fast powder which then flashed into the larger charge of slower powder, igniting it better than a simple primer flash could. I haven't kept up with the idea to know if it took off or not.
Rick C
Yep - those are duplex loads and triplex loads. PO Ackley wrote a bit about them in his books. Using fast burning powders to help ignite slower powders.
I think it was more useful in the early days of smokeless powders, where we didn't have such a variety of powders, and good promers like we do now.
I think it was more useful in the early days of smokeless powders, where we didn't have such a variety of powders, and good promers like we do now.
