Has anyone ever seen this before?

D_w_A

D_w_A

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Hey everyone. So I just started reloading. I've done about 500 rounds of 9mm without incident and I just got my 303 dies a few days ago. So I loaded up 20 rounds with 174gr HDY round-nose using 43gr of BL-C(2) and decided to head to the range today....

So I shot a couple rounds with incident... Accuracy was crappy I thought.... Oh well. I went to shoot another round and.. *click*... "dammit, a squib". I eject the case and POWDER flies everywhere...????. In fact all the powder was still intact.... I checked the primer and it had a solid strike. I knock the bullet out of the barrel and I then realize that there is something still in the shell.... I knock it out of the shell and this is what I find...
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The powder has clumped and gone this weird green colour... I shot 3 more cartridges that did the exact same thing. AT this time I stopped shooting. 4 out of 10 cartridges did this.... I took a photo of the clump next to a pile of BL-C(2) that came right out of the can:

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So does anyone know whats going on?:confused:
Any advice would be great!
 
YES, I have seen that before. In my 44 mag. It didn't clump together like that, but the granuals looked EXACTLY the same. Now I'm really hoping somebody has the answer. Thanks for taking the pics. I didn't have a camera with me the day it hapened to me. The primer would go off. The bullet would pop about an inch into the barrel, and those little granuals would be everywhere, jamming things up. I had 1 out of 3 shots doing it though and entire batch. I gave up after a while and just pulled the rest...about 200 of em.
 
Well, I applied LEE case lubricant to the body of the case (very small amount) and scraped the excess on the inside of the case mouth (according the the instructional video's directions).
 
For me, there was no lube at all - 44 mag handgun rounds - Lee carbide dies.
I no doubt tumbled them with crushed walnut with a very small amount of NuFinish car wax. Nowhere near enough in the media to cause a problem. I've been tumbling my brass with that same setup ever since without this ever hapening again. The only other substance involved would have been Lee liquid alox bullet lube. Again, I've used it on all of my cast loads, and haven't had this problem since. I agree that it just screams contaminated powder, but how ??? I don't leave my powder out, other than in a covered dispenser. No problems with doing that before or since. Still baffled.
 
Pop fizzal Pop

I have experienced exactly the same phenomenon right down to the clumps of fused green powder, using BL(C)2 in 7.62x54R cases. Once I really lodged a bullet solid in the barrel, had a major issue getting it out, course did it wrong the first try.

I researched BL(C)2 a bit and came to the conclusion that I should have been using a mag primer in a case with that volume, but haven't gotten up the courage to try again. I use BL(C)2 in my 30-30 all the time with out any problem, but I understand that it is a powder that needs a bit more to get it off smoothly.

If your brave, try it with a mag primer.
 
looks like moisture to me, i had something similar happen to me once with varget in my 308, found a few unburnt chunks of granules that where green, i retraced all my steps and also opened up a few shells and found the powder was sticking.
i used to much case lube that got into the cartridge.
 
I had five pounds of powder that did that in a box of bulk powder I bought from Higginson years ago. The powder is deteriorated and breaking down chemically. Check out the rest of the powder in that lot. When it gets to that condition, it is also highly corrosive and gives off corrosive gasses. The metal, if any on the container will show rust. It will also play hell with the bore if used to any extent.
I ruined a bore on a Win Mod 70 in 257 Roberts with some powder that wasn't showing deterioration signs. I put the rifle away without cleaning it as I was planning on taking it apart to check/clean the bedding. It had been shooting very erratic groups. I didn't get around to it for at least a month and when I did, the bore was a sewer pipe of rust. That's when I noticed the metal shelving had little piles of rust on it and there was a faint acidic smell. When I opened the box of deteriorated powder, the smell became overwhelming. I burned what was left. I don't blame Higginson by the way, the powder was surplus N160 (OEM4350). I've also had some Win760 do the same thing.
If it were me, Iwouldn't hesitate to throw that powder away. If it's from a new container, I would take it back, if for no other reason than to warn the seller.
 
Hmmm. I also tried burning one of the clumps... It burned very slow like paper or something similar. I tried buring some "good" powder and it did the same. I bought it from Elwood Epps so if it's bad powder I'm sure they'll take it back. But before I call them I'm trying an experiment where I've put some case lube in an old case head and filled it with powder. I'll check it tonight.....
 
What about taking a few cases, putting a bit of powder in each of them and purposely putting water or anything else into each case and taping over it then waiting a week to see what third party substance causes the change.

Take the first case, put a few grains of powder in it and drop a drop of water in it. Take the second case with a few grains and drop some of the cleaning chems you may use in your tumbler into it. Third case use case lube and so on and so forth. Put a piece of electrical tape over each one and let it sit for a week or two. After that open them up and see what has happened.

cd.
 
I guess that I had discounted the idea of bad powder as I had been using that tub of BL(c)2 for 30-30 loads prior to the problem and am using it still, with out incident. In fact a very clean burn in the 30-30 and an accurate load.

I pulled the rest of the 7.62x54R loads I had made and found no problems in the case, no contaminates, oil or moisture etc. Reused that powder in the 30-30. I set off the primers in the pulled cases just to see if they also had a problem but all seem to crack just fine.

I would like to know what happened though.
 
The colour you see, yellow, is the colour of powder before the final step of tumbling it with graphite. the graphite has been blown off.

Suggest you try a hotter primer. ball powder is more difficult to ignite, especially in a larger case.

Does not look like a powder problem but an ignition problem.

When powder goes bad it is more of an orange color and a smell you cannot miss.
 
I think the vedict is in.. I checked that case head I put lube in and all the powder was fine... I pulled the bullets from the rounds remaining in the batch (10 of them) and all the powder was perfectly fine... So it's an ignition problem, I think the primer is heating with the powder enough to clump and stick together but not ignite... But now the question: What to do now? Are magnum primers the answer? As far as I know it's dangerous to use magnum primers in non-magnum cases....
 
D_w_A said:
I think the vedict is in.. I checked that case head I put lube in and all the powder was fine... I pulled the bullets from the rounds remaining in the batch (10 of them) and all the powder was perfectly fine... So it's an ignition problem, I think the primer is heating with the powder enough to clump and stick together but not ignite... But now the question: What to do now? Are magnum primers the answer? As far as I know it's dangerous to use magnum primers in non-magnum cases....
Click to expand...

No, it's not. You may have to adjust your loads though.
 
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