Excessive powder residue on cases.

jfred

jfred

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Hey all, took my Swede M38 out yesterday. I noticed a lot of excessive residue on the casings after firing and now my entire bolt is filthy. I was shooting 123gr bullets in front of 41 grains of Reloader 22, which is about 4.5 grains from the max listed in the hornady 8th edition. There were no other pressure signs. Im thinking it's just a poor sealing problem where the case isnt obturating enough to fill the chamber? I was using virgin Remington brass.


I also experienced two squib loads which kinda freaked me out as i've never had one before. Gun clicked when it should have boomed so I waited for about 40 seconds in case of a hangfire, then extracted the case and went wait a second... theres no bullet! Both cases were still charged with powder but the primer was enough to start the bullet slightly into the rifling. Good thing i paid attention when i extracted the cartridges. Kinda reinforces the need for eye protection eh?

What do you guys think? Should I up the powder charge to help obturate better or could it be something else. Thanks for helping a novice reloader!
 
Powder residue is due to low pressure loads, need to bring the pressure up to seal the chamber and burn clean.

That's really slow powder for such a light bullet, That powder would be suited for 140gr and heavier bullets.

If you want to use 123gr bullets look for a medium speed powder like Imr4320 or Varget, you will get much better results.
 
123gr was the heaviest they had:( I planned on 140gr to try and duplicate the military m41 loading but no dice. Guess I'll up the charge.
 
Another reloading novice here. I find this fascinating and want to find out everything I can about squibs and overly high/overly low pressure loads.

Both cases were still charged with powder but the primer was enough to start the bullet slightly into the rifling
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How does this work? The primer fired but the powder failed to ignite? And the exploding primer had enough force to push the bullet into the bore but not enough to push the powder out of the case?

I'm really curious if this is maybe a case of a light primer strike or damaged primer not detonating, a long COAL and not enough neck tension so that when the cartridge was extracted the bullet got stuck in the bore.

Were you able to verify that the primer actually detonated?

(And if it didn't, then what? I'm not sure I'd feed comfortable decapping a primer that's either (a) a dud, in which case I'm fine or (b) undetonated due to a light primer strike, which means it's still ready to blow up :) )
 
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That load is probably somewhere below 35,000 psi. Get it above 40-45K and it should start to seal off the case mouth when you shoot. You see the smokey necks a lot when shooting reduced loads.
 
HeavyTread said:
How does this work? The primer fired but the powder failed to ignite? And the exploding primer had enough force to push the bullet into the bore but not enough to push the powder out of the case? A primer will push a bullet in to the bore. I would imagine there would be some powder in the bore as well. Usually a Squib is a squib due to the absence of powder!

I'm really curious if this is maybe a case of a light primer strike or damaged primer not detonating, a long COAL and not enough neck tension so that when the cartridge was extracted the bullet got stuck in the bore. Could be!

Were you able to verify that the primer actually detonated? good call!

(And if it didn't, then what? I'm not sure I'd feed comfortable decapping a primer that's either (a) a dud, in which case I'm fine or (b) undetonated due to a light primer strike, which means it's still ready to blow up :) ) I have decapped many live primers, not saying to do it, just saying it can be done. I haven't had a issue yet, but believe you me, its one time I wear my safety glasses diligently
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Like HT said, I would decap em and see if the detonated!
 
hometownhero said:
I think this depends of the powder as well. I have loaded some hot loads for a few calibers and they still have this problem
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I agree with hometownhero. It might be a slight oversize in the neck area of the chamber. I have a .223 that leaves the neck a little black. I reload a relatively warm load with several different bullet choices from 40gr to 69gr over H335. The cases tend to show signs of overpressure without the black on the necks going away.
 
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