Mike Venturino and AA5744

jethunter

jethunter

CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Super GunNutz
Rating - 100%
357   0   0
Location
Central AB
I keep seeing references to Mike Venturino articles where he talks about loading reduced loads with Accurate 5744 in older bottleneck military cartridges. I haven't been able to find the articles, does anyone have them or a link? They were in Handloader Magazine I think.

Reason I ask is Canada Ammo has D5744 at a good price and if it works as well as people say for reduced loads in bottleneck rifles then maybe I need some. Supposed to be good in 300 Blackout too.
 
I have it somewhere, I believe he was using cast bullets in military cartridges.

Accuratepowder.com also has their reloading guide for download, it lists many 5744 loads.
 
I have something from 1962 Gun Digest for loading obsolete military BP cartridge's. I'll see if I can dig it out of boxes in my basement.
 
Last edited:
Accurate Shooting With Cast Bullets From 100 To 1000 Yards
January 04, 2011
By Mike Venturino

https://www.shootingtimes.com/editorial/ammunition_stcast_040306/99279

Powders

I will include only a few words about powders for all this shooting because the range of choices is just so great. There are well over 100 different smokeless powders now, and blackpowders are available from here, Germany, and Switzerland. My choice for modern, bottleneck smokeless powder cartridges is Accurate Arms XMP-5744. It burns very consistently without needing any sort of case filler and has a small enough granule size that it powder measures well.
 
Correction, what I was referring to was 1963 Gun Digest article
"Center fire Black Powder Military Cartridges and Weapons" by FRANK C. Barnes
 
Found a good story about 5477 powder, can't swear it's true:

Dupont developed a propellant called Dupont 7745 in the early 1960s, designed specifically for the 5.56x45 cartridge used in the US Army's new Armalite rifle. But later the clean-burning Dupont 7745 was replaced by a cheaper, dirtier, spherical powder that didn't work out too well on the ground in Viet Nam. Dupont sold their surplus 7745 powder to a guy who turned the name backwards, selling it as 5477 and this company was eventually purchased by Western Powders who started making 5477 themselves. And that's where 5477 powder came from.
 
Last edited:
jethunter said:
I keep seeing references to Mike Venturino articles where he talks about loading reduced loads with Accurate 5744 in older bottleneck military cartridges. I haven't been able to find the articles, does anyone have them or a link? They were in Handloader Magazine I think.

Reason I ask is Canada Ammo has D5744 at a good price and if it works as well as people say for reduced loads in bottleneck rifles then maybe I need some. Supposed to be good in 300 Blackout too.
Click to expand...


jethhunter,

There are a couple articles by MV in Handloader that reference 5744 powder.

April 2019 (No. 319) has an article on cast bullets and battle rifles with 30/40, 308 and 30/06. August 2020 (No. 327) has an article on the '03 Springfield and 5744.

I thought he had another article that had tests with a few other calibers but if so, that HL issue isn't close to hand.

I recently bought a 5lb of the D5744 to give it a whirl with cast in my rifles. Haven't made it to the range to try out the 30/40 and 303Br yet.

Pretty well most of what I reload is near the starting loads. Have had some reasonable results (at least for my abilities and recoil tolerance!) with the Accurate 5744 - but I really need to repeatedly cast good bullets, shoot more often, and concentrate on the better ones!

Give it a try!

Kermode
 
From handwritten notes in a grocery store:

Venturino/ Surplus Rifles with cast and AA5744* (would * mean recent production?)

6.5x50 Jap., 31.5": 136 RCBS 6.5-140-Silh, 14/16gr 1479/1619fps
6.5x55, 29" : 136 RCBS 6.5-140-Silh, 16/18 1590/1751
7x57, 29" : 139 Ly 287346 , 20/22 1844/2040
30-06, 24" : 195 Ly 311299 , 21/23/25 1594/1700/1808
303 Brit, 25" : 196 Ly 314299 , 18/20/22 1515/1626/1720
7.62x54, 27" : 196 Ly 314299 , 23/25 1754/1852
7.7x58 Jap, 26" : 196 Ly 314299 , 23/25 1612/1730
8x57, 24" : 187 Saeco 081 , 23/25/27 1660/1775/1896
 
jethunter said:
Found a good story about 5477 powder, can't swear it's true:

Dupont developed a propellant called Dupont 7745 in the early 1960s, designed specifically for the 5.56x45 cartridge used in the US Army's new Armalite rifle. But later the clean-burning Dupont 7745 was replaced by a cheaper, dirtier, spherical powder that didn't work out too well on the ground in Viet Nam. Dupont sold their surplus 7745 powder to a guy who turned the name backwards, selling it as 5477 and this company was eventually purchased by Western Powders who started making 5477 themselves. And that's where 5477 powder came from.
Click to expand...

I believe if you read this, the original powder for the 5.56 got changed in production, the Army didn't get what they had originally for it. Strikes me as BLC2 was involved, you can read that part here;

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112109164266&view=1up&seq=511
 
Anyway, I used aa5744 in my 450-400NE 3". There was no data available that I could find, so, I e-mailed Western Powders and asked. They came back with a load for me. I had 320gr cast bullets matching 400gr factory velocities, and 400gr cast running at 1800, as I didn't want the recoil of a factory round for practice. I was running 48gr loads with the 320gr in a case that will hold 80+ of IMR4831, no filler and zero issues. I may run it in a 7-08 I have one day next year and see how it fares with a 150gr cast bullet in that. It does burn a bit dirty, at least it did for me, but, that's easy enough to deal with.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom