Blending powder , have you?

I know of too many guns that have blown up from bad ammo. to even think of blending powders . I will leave that to powder manufacturers
who know what they are doing , & will do all the testing before I get it .
 
colombe said:
Please don't do it.
I would not want to see your name in the obituaries.
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This is just foolish.

COMMON SENSE needs to be used here just as with anything else to do with firearms. I have always mixed different lots of the same designation to get one large consistent lot.

As far as mixing powders with different designations, If they are similar in form and of a very close burn rate on the chart I will mix those as well into one consistent lot. IT WORKS and IT'S SAFE.

Another thing I've done on a regular basis is again I have a pound and a half of powder left over that's fairly quick on the charts, say IMR 3031 and I've just picked up three 8 pounf kegs of H4831, for my own personal use. I have no qualms about throwing in that left over IMR3031 when I do the blending. It's slightly faster but not enough to make a difference. Of course I will work up a new load with this lot but it's SAFE.

Back to the CBC Brazilian ammunition. I had several crates of that stuff. The first two crates went through my rifles without a hitch and it was very accurate. My good friend, who had just had a lovely custom HBR rifle built by Nobby Uno, on a commercial 98 action, ended up with a sliver of brass in his eyeball that had somehow gotten past his shooting glasses and ruined his rifle. We contacted International about it and found out this was one of a few.

International contacted everyone that had purchased that ammo and requested it be sent back at full refund price, even if you had used up most of the case, on their dime.

Ganderite mentioned this here in another thread. He was involved in this in some manner and ended up with all of the salvaged powder. It had been determined that the cartridges with the wrong powder only made up a small percentage of the whole batch. All sorts of rumors of how it happened were launched but the most believable is that it was an honest mistake made by a worker in the factory that threw the wrong powder into the hopper.

Anyway, Ganderite being the knowledgeable and thrifty fellow that he is BLENDED it ALL TOGETHER into one BIG LOT and used it.

The appx 5% of IMR 3031 with 95% H4831 was SAFE for my purposes because the powders aren't that dissimilar.

Blending extremes of dissimilar powders could and like will have a completely different outcome.

Just blending powders won't make the differences you're hoping to achieve. Powder burn rates are determined by their coatings.

If Ganderite would enter into this discussion he could go into a lot more depth on the subject.
 
Duplex loads are not "blending". It involves two powders of different speeds in two layers, and compressed so they don't mix.

I have done it with about 5 grains of pistol powder on the primer and the a rifle case full of black powder. helps ignition and helps make the load cleaner.
 
I'll dump a bunch of one pooundere into a keg and shake them up, but they were all the same type. That's just making them into the same lot.

Duplexing 4759 or Unique with black powder works and makes a clean burning load. That's as far as I'll go.
 
Ganderite said:
Duplex loads are not "blending". It involves two powders of different speeds in two layers, and compressed so they don't mix.

I have done it with about 5 grains of pistol powder on the primer and the a rifle case full of black powder. helps ignition and helps make the load cleaner.
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That's what I was going to say..........re: cleaner burning and better ignition.
 
I mainly reload 45ACP with Power Pistol, Unique or Bullseye. If I were ever to try mixing powders, I'd start out light and use a $300 milled framed Norinco 1911.
I would suspect that the worse that would happen is the odd bullet would be lodged in the barrel, due to loads being too light.
But one would have to be really cautious/stupid to do this on a continual basis.
 
I had to go back a long way to check the results of the IMR3031/H4831 mix.

I used that powder exclusively in two rifles. One a Remington 700 chambered in 30-06 with 150 gr sbt bullets, a Swede M96 Mauser in 6.5x55 with 160 gr fmj and a Brazilian 1908 Mauser in 7x57 with 140 gr sbtfmj.

I had just over 12 pounds from what my records indicate. 1.65 pounds of that was IMR3031 equivalent, surplus #44 powder. The H4831 was what was left at the bottom of a surplus 25 pound white paper keg listed only as 4831. None of that powder cost more than $3/pound.

There is a big note on the cover of the load diary as these rifles were used in club matches, turkey shoots etc. The note INDICATED as did Ganderite that the powder should be considered to be the speed of the fastest powder, which was the #44. My loads indicated that it developed pressure signs before H4831 specs but overall WAS SLOWER than #44 (IMR3031) specs indicated. I was using a CHRONY to get an idea of velocities which were just about where the rifles/cartridges were designed to be with military equivalent loads. The thing is, the velocity spreads were VERY small on average. NO spikes up or down on any of several hundred recorded velocities. Excellent case life and with very little powder fouling in the bore or on the case exterior. This powder became the base for some very accurate handloads from what my records indicate.

I used up all of that blend close to a decade past. I left a note in the book which indicated the exact weight of powders/type I blended. I still have a fair bit of the 70+ year old 4831 and it's still every bit as good as it ever was. I don't have any #44 (IMR3031) left. Now I have other powders that are as good or better than that blend. There is also a notation of a small batch of this blend I put together before mixing up the larger batch. I was nervous as to what might happen so used the experimental batch in some 6.5x50 Arisaka Carbine that had a shot out bore, ground mum and looked like it may have been a DP rifle by all of the dings and zero finish. I had a tire mounted on a 16in split rim with a cradle welded to it just to check rifles I wasn't sure of. After loading up 5 different loads of ten each up to as much as I could compress in the case under 140gr flat base bullets and shooting them, there weren't any failures and no signs to indicate extreme pressures.

THAT's the reason for the notation on the cover to start load with suggested IMR3031 loads in the manuals. I don't remember if that was just a safety concern on my part of if it had come from one of the reps I used to call at Hodgdon and of course old Tom Higginson who was a treasure trove of knowledge when it came to powder burning.
 
A buddy of mine needed to load some rounds to go deer hunting. He had a bit of H4350 and a bit of H4831, but not enough of either to make the number of cartridges he needed. He mixed them and used his 4350 load data and since 4831 is a slower powder he figured he was on the safe side. Worked good. We shot the remaining ones at the range and they grouped ok for hunting. He had about twice the amount of 4350 as the the 4831 IIRC. In a 30-06 if that matters.
 
Couple months ago, I accidently dumped a very small amount of W231 in a container of N320. I'd say ratio wise we're talking 50:1, and having roughly the same burn rate I wasn't expecting a single issue.

I hit the range with 200 or so 45's loaded with this mix, and boom within the first 5-10 shots I knew something was weird. It felt like I was feeling two distinct differences in recoil and noise on certain rounds; almost like there was two rounds being fired when it was actually only one. This was probably due to not mixing it well enough, but none the less I learned quickly that I should have dumped it.

I would never and will never use mixed powders again.
 
I would never mix 2 different powders but have mixed the last of a bottle with an 8 lb bottle of the same powder. Never noticed any more diff than just going to a different lot of powder.
 
I shot 1lbs of H110 mixed with 15% A2400
Not bad a combination in 357mag but nothing spectacular to be worth further experimenting.
 
Fact One: I got issued one pair of hands and one set of eyes. Fact Two: Powder is cheap. Even when it's scarce, powder is cheaper than a new rifle.

Some people have got away with mixing dissimilar powders, in the same way that some people have got away with major overcharges. (I remember one guy on this forum saying he was having problems forcing the bolt open when firing his supersized loads and wanted advice... He didn't like what he got.)
 
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