Loading over max
- Thread starter ReloaderRick
- Start date
Not all guns, or brass for that matter, will react the same to a given charge. Your best bet is to start well below max and work your way up, watching for pressure signs as you go. One thing you will likely find, though, is that as your loads get hotter and hotter, accuracy will fall off. I'm not an authority by any means, but in all my guns, including black powder, my most accurate loads tend to be around the mid-point of suggested loads. With modern bullets being what they are, you're better off getting a bullet that will perform well at your optimum velocity, rather than trying to squeeze every last fps out of a bullet.
Another thing is not all reloading manuals have the same data, a problem I recently ran into. Loading 10mm with a 180gr XTP and Longshot, Hornady manual list the max at 8.5gr, whereas Hodgdon's website list the max at 9.5
been there done that while knowing the potential consequences.
Measure the case head of some factory rds and record them. Measure the case head's of your hot rds and see if there's much of an increase.
If your gun can handle hotter rds, make sure you don't mix them up with other rds for other rifle's.
If your gun can handle hotter rds, make sure you don't mix them up with other rds for other rifle's.
Good advice zuke "BUT" no manufacture makes the same hardness brass in the base, example American military Lake City cases are the hardest in the base with Lapua in second place with Federal and Remington being the softest and at the bottom of the list.
What zuke said is good advice BUT the make of case determines how much the base will expand and at what pressure.
Bottom line, if your cases look like below then back off a half a can of powder.
eaglesnester
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Well yes U can if U are very careful. I would only do this if my rifle and bullet liked the slight increase in MV which resulted in increased accuracy. pay attention to all the other posts on this subject, most have good input. I load 5 grains over max indicated book load with 190 grain Burger VLD in my 300 Weatherby. My groups are 1/2 inch on a good day and .75 of an inch most days. The MV does not increase appreciably which is one of the mysteries of internal ballistics. Work up slow, look for pressure signs on your brass and primers. When U start to see signs of pressure STOP. Then back off your load until U have no pressure signs. Be safe, read all U can, buy reloading manuals such as , Hornady, Burger, Barns, etc and read em all most carefully. Speer and Hornady have lots of reloading info, instructions, and safety notes in the preamble to their reloading data. These two books will tell U just about everything U need to know to keep safe.
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Hopefully we all have at least one reloading manual, hopefully we have all read at least one. In every manual I have read it has clearly stated that there is no reason for any two barrels to react exactly the same to any particular charge, including all the other variables. The max load in any manual is the max load for the barrel used. That is not to suggest that there is a great deal of room to exceed this, but every barrel being different, yours may be a bit larger, or have a throat a bit longer than theirs, so yours may handle a bit hotter load. I find a chronograph very useful, as there seems to be a point in most loads where adding powder gets almost no velocity increase. The very max load for any firearm is an individual thing.
Quickload data is nothing more than computer generated guesstimates, the only way to get accurate data from Quickload is to use a chronograph to get your actual velocity. Once you have your chronograph data you have to modify the powder burn rate in Quickload until the two velocities match. Meaning Quickload must be calibrated for each rifle and caliber and without a chronograph the reading are just ball park figures.
Second, my Savage .223 has a factory throat that is longer than any of my AR15 rifles, the longer throat raises what your max load will be in comparison to the loading manuals. If you take a .223 with a 1 in 14 or 1 in 12 twist and a shorter throat the max load will be lower.
Third, as an example the Lyman manual will use a universal receiver with either a copper crusher or transducer to record chamber pressure along with a pressure test barrel with minimum chamber and bore dimensions for the highest possible pressures. In another manual a specific firearm will be used and a strain gauge will be glued to the barrel and then calibrated with a cartridge of a known pressure to measure chamber pressure.
Bottom line, Quickload and the reloading manuals are ball park figures because each firearm will be different, the pressure measuring methods can be different, bullets, cases internal capacity's, etc and they will produce a wide verity of chamber pressures and velocity's. When YOU make a work up load from the "ball park" starting load you will work up until YOU find the max pressure for your firearm.
So yes you can increase your powder charge, "BUT" you need to know what all the pressure signs are and when to stop. At AccurateShooter.com many of the competitive shooters increase their load until brass flows into the ejector in the bolt face.
From right to left you can see how the brass flow into the ejector increases as the load increased until the base of the case expanded to the point the primer falls out. The shooters at Accurate Shooter keep loading unitl they see brass flow into the ejector and then back off 1 or 2 grains of powder as a safety margin and also not over stress the brass.
As an example I was shooting my AR15 carbine a few days ago with factory Federal 5.56 ammunition and I had the faintest of marks on the rear of the case from the ejector. To play it safe you can always shoot some factory loads and use them as you baseline for how your primers and brass should look when fired.
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Funny, my rifles tend to shoot best at maximum or very near. If a load only shoots at the bottom end I'll scrap it and start over looking for a max/near max load that shoots. High pressure tends to give tighter spreads, and at distance starts making a big difference. Also hotter loads are less prone to going to crap everytime the sun goes behind a cloud.
Quickload data is nothing more than computer generated guesstimates, the only way to get accurate data from Quickload is to use a chronograph to get your actual velocity. Once you have your chronograph data you have to modify the powder burn rate in Quickload until the two velocities match. Meaning Quickload must be calibrated for each rifle and caliber and without a chronograph the reading are just ball park figures.
Second, my Savage .223 has a factory throat that is longer than any of my AR15 rifles, the longer throat raises what your max load will be in comparison to the loading manuals. If you take a .223 with a 1 in 14 or 1 in 12 twist and a shorter throat the max load will be lower.
Third, as an example the Lyman manual will use a universal receiver with either a copper crusher or transducer to record chamber pressure along with a pressure test barrel with minimum chamber and bore dimensions for the highest possible pressures. In another manual a specific firearm will be used and a strain gauge will be glued to the barrel and then calibrated with a cartridge of a known pressure to measure chamber pressure.
Bottom line, Quickload and the reloading manuals are ball park figures because each firearm will be different, the pressure measuring methods can be different, bullets, cases internal capacity's, etc and they will produce a wide verity of chamber pressures and velocity's. When YOU make a work up load from the "ball park" starting load you will work up until YOU find the max pressure for your firearm.
So yes you can increase your powder charge, "BUT" you need to know what all the pressure signs are and when to stop. At AccurateShooter.com many of the competitive shooters increase their load until brass flows into the ejector in the bolt face.
From right to left you can see how the brass flow into the ejector increases as the load increased until the base of the case expanded to the point the primer falls out. The shooters at Accurate Shooter keep loading unitl they see brass flow into the ejector and then back off 1 or 2 grains of powder as a safety margin and also not over stress the brass.
As an example I was shooting my AR15 carbine a few days ago with factory Federal 5.56 ammunition and I had the faintest of marks on the rear of the case from the ejector. To play it safe you can always shoot some factory loads and use them as you baseline for how your primers and brass should look when fired.
good post
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Be very careful when using Quickload to ensure the data you plug into the program realistically represents the dimensions of your chamber and loaded cartridge. In my opinion, QL doesn't do well with heavily compressed loads. If you work up loads with a chronograph, once you approach the maximum load velocity listed in your loading manual, understand, that pressure must also be close to maximum, regardless of what your scale tells you. Pay attention to what your brass is telling you. Provided you consider the data provided by QL a SWAG, rather than an absolute, you shouldn't get into trouble.
