I loaded 21 Gr W296, behind a 265gr FNGC, Federal Magnum Large Pistol Primer and one did not detonate fully. The bullet entered the barrel about one inch and had to be knocked out. I had clean cases, clean primers, clean bullets, and the rest of the bullets performed normally, about 1250fps. Any ideas? Was the load too light? Appreciate any help as this was my go-to-powder for hunting. I am now reconsidering.

But I was able to get some measurements from the bullet and now I know what size bullets to order. There has to be a better way to slug a barrel.

Thanks,

JimC

ps-44 mag

Not really a detonation...if ti were, you'd be hanging onto a grip frame wondering where the top 1/2 the frame and the top 1/3 of the cylinder got off to and slapping yourself looking for holes.

Load doesn't sound low enough to cause that effect through excess volume. When you drove out that bullet, was there a big 1/2 melted wad of powder stuck behind it (it kind of fuses into a plastic mass when it refusess to ignite?

Are right to worry...that kind of "squib" load is one of the things to look out for when loading slower powders under their max. Could be (1) contaminated primer (2) containated powder (3) too little resistance to bullet movement to allow ignition (4) miss-loaded ammo (charge lighter than waht your had set the measure for) (5) a warning of impending detonation.

I'd bet on #1 through #4....but it's not my call, as #5 is a possibility as well.

On thing H-110 requires is a TIGHT bullet fit to the case..no amount of crimp is going to make up for the resistance of a tight bullet/case fit (crimp does add something...just not as much resistance as can be gotten by using a smaller expander).

Thanks for responding,
Yes, there was a big wad of unburned powder behind the bullet.
Is that known as a squib? I don't think it was an incorrect powder charge as I weigh each charge in a RCBS scale and am very careful, but it's possible. It was a new box of primers and the cases were freshly cleaned. I will be more careful with the bullet fit though and not rely on the crimp alone. So a squib is most often by a low powder charge?

JimC

Yes, you had a squib load. W296 doesn't like being underloaded. The problem is that no two manuals agree on what the maximum load is, but you need to be close to it. I use it in the .357 Magnum, and I noticed light loads had 3-4 out of 5 up to crusing speed and one or two "dropouts", 100-200 fps slow. Add powder and the dropouts disappear.

Bye
Jack

Yes, you had a squib load. W296 doesn't like being underloaded. The problem is that no two manuals agree on what the maximum load is, but you need to be close to it. I use it in the .357 Magnum, and I noticed light loads had 3-4 out of 5 up to crusing speed and one or two "dropouts", 100-200 fps slow. Add powder and the dropouts disappear.

Bye
Jack

Take that kind of squib load as a warning to stop what you are doing and to put the ammo aside to be disassembled and not fired. Odd things can happen on the ragged edge of ignition, not all of them as easy to take as clearing a squib.

IF you want a reduced load, try something besides H110. H-110 seems to do it's job best when it occupies more than 90% of the avialble case volume....for low vel. plinking type loads, try powders on the fast side of Blue Dot (and make it a nice bulky flake powder rather than dense ball powder).
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Had a recommended load of 2400 do that squib trick in a 45-70. Melted the powder into a mass behind the bullet...bullet about 1" into the rifling. Powder that was dug out was a kind of translucent scorched tan color, melted into a chunk.

Try this web site. It provides load data for low, medium, and high velocity for use in pistols and lever action rifles.

http://www.gmdr.com/lever/lowveldata.htm

PT = Powder Type.
PW = Powder Weight.
Vel = Velocity.
SD = Standard Deviation
GS = Group Size

Also, go to www.hodgdon.com then click on DATA, then PISTOL, then on 44 MAGNUM. I like and use Hodgdon Titegroup in any and all calibers, rifle and pistol, for reduced velocity loads. Titegroup is not position sensitive and there are no problems with loading small charges. I use it in loading for Cowboy Action Shooting. 4.1 grains yields 700 fps with a 200 grain lead RNFP out of a pair of 5 1/2" barreled Ruger SS Vaqueros in 44 Magnum. You can click on COWBOY in stead of PISTOL to get the low velocity/pressure CAS loading data.

Stay safe,
JJ

I appreciate all the good information. I really wasn't trying to load a reduced load. Is 21 grains of w296 behind a 265 gr cast bullet considered a reduced load? I think it's good advice to not shoot that load but increase the powder charge.

Again thanks,

JimC

Well, yes and no. Hodgdon #26 lists data from 19 to 22 grains (for either H110 or WW296), with a 260-265gr. bullet (exact type not specified), BUT their starting charge is listed at 1300fps, too.

So.... if you have a bullet with a lot of weight out on the nose, and are getting the lower velocities, then it sounds like you aren't running enough powder.

Also, they could be jumping crimp, if that wasn't the first one you fired. That would make the problem worse, in terms of too much case capacity for the powder at hand.

With your 265 grain bullet (Hornady, I am assuming) 21 grains of powder is within a grain or two of MAX. The Hodgdon web site lists 24 grains of H110 (W296) as max for a 240 grain Nosler Partition JSP and 19 grains for a 300 grain bullet. The Hornady book indicates that 23 grains is max for their 265 grain JFP.

Sooo, you are near max with your 21 grain load and, I do not have an explaination nor a solution to the problem. However, I am confident that "insufficient powder" is not the cause.

JJ

It was about the third bullet fired. Ribbonstone emphasized the importance of a tight bullet to case fit and to not depend entirely on the crimp to hold the bullet in place. Maybe it did jump crimp. I think I'll increase the charge to 22 grains and be careful to not over expand the case.

Thanks,

JimC

With your 265 grain bullet (Hornady, I am assuming) 21 grains of powder is within a grain or two of MAX. The Hodgdon web site lists 24 grains of H110 (W296) as max for a 240 grain Nosler Partition JSP and 19 grains for a 300 grain bullet. The Hornady book indicates that 23 grains is max for their 265 grain JFP.

Sooo, you are near max with your 21 grain load and, I do not have an explaination nor a solution to the problem. However, I am confident that "insufficient powder" is not the cause.

JJ

I've always used WLPP and never had a problem. This is the first batch of Federal Magnum Pistol Primers I used and had a squib first time out. But I really don't think it was the primer. The powder was given to me, about a half pound, the person no longer used it, maybe it's contaminated.

JimC

Jim,

I am a trusting soul but would never trust someone else's open container of powder. It could be contaminated/moist or possibly even mixed with a much faster powder. I suggest that you buy a new bottle of H110 and, using it as the control group, load 15 or 20 rounds with 21 grains of powder and compare the results with the rounds loaded with the suspect powder. Use the same brass, same primer, same loading procedure, same OAL, and same crimp. If you have, or have access to, a chronograph, then the testing will be more meaningful.

You just may have solved the problem.

JJ

I'm thinking the powder was contaminated -moisture/lube. Or squib primer. Or not enough crimp/ over exspanded. What was the bullet sized too? Need more info.

Another possibility. If you tumble your empty cases, and miss getting out a piece of media, stuck in the flash hole, it could cause a squib, too. I've seen where some guys just leave 'em in, thinking the primer will blow them out of the way. I cannot agree with that idea. ==Bob

JimC -

Sorry about joining this thread late...

but my guess is (from our experience): a) a lame primer (some brands have more than others, all brands have some... and part of the reason we've moved almost entirely to winchesters - we find only 1 per 2000 or so there; others we've seen as high as 1 in 100)... 296 is a difficult powder to ignite (it's very heavily coated) and is designed for conductive ignition (ie, thermal tranfer from contacting grain to contacting grain), and once there's no conductive pathway btwn grains, it's almost impossible to get the charge going - a weak primer will give you what you saw; b) related to the lame primer - a plugged flash hole will have the same effect, though sometimes the primer will clear the plug... but will have altered the nominal flash profile sufficiently that you'll get a difference in velocity - if the blockage mostly held up, ie, only a little heat from the primer made it through, then you'll get what you saw, and c) the powder was contaminated (but I take this as a less likely choice), ie, most reloaders are pretty religious about thier powders and keeping them clean; and I'm hard pressed to think of a single handloader that would offload some knownly contaminated powder to another reloader...

bottom line: the primer or flash hole blockage.

do shoot straight (assuming the bullet will leave the bore),
greg
www.gmdr.com

ps. ribbonstone is exactly correct: if this were a detonation... you'd be thinking more about taking up butterfly collecting vs worrying about reloading the next box [having detonated a 6.5 swede round and blown the barrel and top off an old m96... it's a road you never want to go down].

pps. In the 70's and 80's the powder mfgs kept hearing reports of exploded/detonated guns... and not quite understanding what was happening (ballistically), but seeing a pattern that involved ball powders and lighter than full loads, started publishing warnings about not reducing loads [they had to do something: it's not good seeing your customers getting hurt; and likewise for culpability reasons]. But today, the detonation question is pretty much understood, ie, when a load designed for conductive ignition convectively ignites, then one gets an undue/unexpected pressure rise... called detonation. [loads designed for convective ignition assume a 15-50 usec pressure rise time and take that into account in their design; conductive loads rely on the latency induced by the grain to grain ignition and the resulting several hundred usec delay until maxP is reached - a conductive load that goes convective: is an explosion; a convective load, since it's already "detonating" (in a very controlled manner)... can't get any "worse".]

New thought (well..and old one, but it got lost for a bit and the last post jarred it loose).

Was playing with a beat to dirt .38 S&W M&P (what they called the Mod. 10 before they used numbers). Fiddling with the mainspring.

Noticed that as tension went doen past a certain point, the action was not only much "easier" to cock, but groups got much worse. Going past that point gave occasional missfires and truely horrible groups. Increasing tension made all the "bad" go away.

At one point, when tension was low but firing had been 100%, had a squib. That one sent the bullet about 1/2 way down the barrel, powder was littered in the barrel but not melted into a congealed mass. Until that point in time, I'd have sworn bullseye would light off with the slightest primer flash.

Evidently, a high primer (that absorbs some of the pin's energy in seating itself), a contaminated primer, too weak a pin hit (which could be from the spring, or from inadvertant rubbing of the hammer as it falls), or a clogged flash hole can all do the same things: weaken ingniton, promote squibs, and usually increase group size considerably.

Could well be that you had one faluty primer...or a clogged flash hole...or that for that one shot, the hammer rubbed against your thumb on the way down.


But I'm still betting on low powder density, hard to ignite powder, and a loose bullet/case fit.

In fact, if you handed me a revolver and instructed me to create a squib under the conditions you describe (without contaminating powder or primers)...I'd weaken the fring pin strike, clog the flash hole, load a reduced load of hard to ignite poweder, and load it with a loose bullet/case fit.

If I understand what your saying-convection ignition occurs(all the powder ignites at once), with a powder designed for conduction ignition, when when the charge is too low or if case volume is too great, (which is the same thing)as when a bullet jumps crimp. I guess this is obvious, (being a relative newbie I didn't think about it), but powder charge to case volume is the issue. I just thought if you had the proper charge you really didn't have to worry about ignition problems. But if the bullet moves you no longer have the same relative powder charge. Also, the flash holes were individually cleaned and each case was examined for debris. Are there more primer failures with Federal than with Winchester?

Gunnut454 referred to bullet dia.-they were sized to .430

Thanks for the good information,

JimC

Given Hornady's 23 gr H110/W296 is a proper max load, with a 265, 21 gr is an 8.7% underload, from max. Hogden suggests no more than 3% under max.
No direct experience, just doing the math.
Humpty