Suicide Run: 200-grain FTXs at 3000 fps

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Suicide Run: 200-grain FTXs at 3000 fps

Postby pitted bore » Sun Oct 13, 2013 10:44 pm


* * * * Warning * * * * Warning * * * * Warning * * * * Warning * * * *

In this thread are descrrbed some handloads for the 450 Bushmaster cartridge that produce pressures well above SAAMI maximum pressures for the cartridge. Use of handloads based on the data below in your own rifle may be dangerous. Attempting to shoot similar loads in your own rifle may result in damage or destruction of your rifle, and in severe bodily injury or death to the shooter or bystanders.


Please consider the description of events in this thread as being intended for entertainment purposes only.
--Bob
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Re: Suicide Run: 200-grain FTXs at 3000 fps

Postby pitted bore » Sun Oct 13, 2013 10:45 pm

NOTE: See Warning on first post of this thread

Part One - Intro: Powders and Procedures

First, a quote from 28 January 2012 on a thread titled Another Bolt Rifle under Construction.
Hoot wrote:[It might be interesting to load up some "suicide runs" that would not safely go in an AR, but just to see what you can wring out of the caliber with a 24" bull barrel. ...

Hoot's challenge about possible work with a bolt action rifle as quoted above was not a direct cause of the following work, but it may have played some subconscious role.

Be forewarned that the ratio of verbiage to actual fact is pretty large in this report.

Over the last few weeks I carried out some shooting projects that required regular trips to the local range. Since I had a couple hundred extra Hornady 200-grain FTX .452 bullets (SKU #45215) on hand, I decided to coordinate a "suicide run" with the other projects, to find what maximum velocities I could obtain with these bullets. I used the Winchester Model 70 bolt-action rifle that's been described previously on this site. The barrel is 26 inches long with a 1-turn-in-24 inch rate of twist. (For more about the rifle, see A Second Bolt Rifle.)

Because this rifle is not constrained by the pressure limits of AR-type rifles using this cartridge, it can safely be loaded to pressures somewhat over the SAAMI 450B limits. Readers are free to judge whether the pressures that produced the velocities reported below were foolishly high.

This effort was not directed toward a serious practical endpoint, so I did not attempt collecting replicate data. I generally shot a series of increasing powder weights using only one trial cartridge for each powder weight, trying to find an estimate of maximum velocity for several powders for this particular bullet. Neither was it quite a hold-my-beer-and-watch-this type of endeavor. I stopped tests whenever excess pressure signs appeared.

I checked Hornady and Ramshot manuals for powders that seemed to me to be candidates for higher velocities with lighter bullets and settled on five powders:

  • Hodgdon Lil'Gun
  • Winchester 296
  • Accurate No. 9
  • Ramshot Enforcer
  • Vihtavouri N110
I also consulted a dozen different lists of burning rate posted on various web sites. As usual, the rank order varied greatly among these lists for powders having reliably tested 450B data. I may have overlooked one or two candidate powders. However, at this point I doubt they would contain sufficient pixie-dust to exceed safely the velocities I found. (If you have actual experience with similar light-bullet applications using powders other than my five, feel free to suggest these other powders.)

I used Rem 7½ primers, and maintained a overall length of 2.200". Cartridges were resized with the Hornady FL resizing die for each loading. The pressures in these trials did cause the cases to increase in length after firing and resizing, so cases were trimmed then length exceeded 1.700 inches. I always used a taper crimp to 0.474" diameter at the mouth, and when necessary added a side crimp with the Lee 45-70 factory crimp die modified as described in early threads in this forum.

I measured velocities with the midpoint of the chronograph screens about 10-12 feet in front of the muzzle.

I started powder charges at about maximum manual amounts that produced pressure maximums for ARs, and increased powder charges by full- or half-grain increments. I generally worked with sets of five cases for each trial. After loading five, I'd try them at the range, watching for the traditional signs of excessive pressure, stopping trials short of real problems.

In this rifle, the first sign of excessive pressure is is pierced primers, but this phenomenon is inconsistent and did not always occur at elevated pressures. With more pressure, the bolt becomes difficult to operate near the end of the handle upstroke, indicating that the cartridge has expanded permanently in the chamber and is resisting the camming-extracting action of the bolt. With a further increase in pressure in this rifle, there is an extrusion of the case head into the ejector slot in the bolt face, resulting in the usual "shiny spot" on on the case head.

When you examine the resulting velocities and compare them to your own or to manual data, keep in mind that this rifle has a 26-inch barrel, and that the action and barrel are constructed for safety with pressures up to the SAAMI max for any sporting cartridge. Also keep in mind that I don't know what the pressures actually may have been. I do know that pressures in these trials were not sufficiently high to expand primer pockets, but that's neither a reliable nor realistic measure of pressures. Measuring case head expansion as a pressure indicator wasn't possible because the cartridge cases used in these trials had been fired multiple times previously with various loads, If I were to think seriously that these 200-grain bullets at velocities near 3000 fps were really useful, I'd use new factory brass and make replicate measures of expansion after firing. I'd also do a lot of replication.

edited to repair ratio
Last edited by pitted bore on Mon Oct 14, 2013 4:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Suicide Run: 200-grain FTXs at 3000 fps

Postby pitted bore » Sun Oct 13, 2013 10:45 pm

See WARNING note above in first post of this thread.

Part Two - Internal Ballistics: Pressures and Velocities

The velocities recorded were for single cartridges at each powder weight. Velocities did increase as powder amount increased, which lends some credibility to results, with two specific exceptions noted.

Here are results of the trials for the first three powders:
Code: Select all
   296        Enforcer     VV N110   
----------   ----------   ----------
gr    fps    gr    fps    gr    fps 
----------   ----------   ----------
46  - 2561   45  - 2696   41  - 2659
47  - 2642   46  - 2766   42  -  nr
48  - 2650   47  - 2826   43  - 2743
49  - 2749   48  -  nr    44  - 2792
50  - 2824   49  - 2955

nr indicates no chronograph reading           


For 296, 50 grains of my lot is all the case can hold without heavily compacting the powder when seating these 200-grain bullets. There were no signs of excess pressure with the 50 grain load. The case runs out of capacity at the listed velocity.

For Enforcer, a similar situation occurred. Case capacity is 47 grains without compacting. I pushed a bit on the press lever, and managed 49 grains, with a pretty high velocity of 2955 fps, which as things turned out is the second highest velocity from these powders.

Vitavouri N110 similarly ran out of case capacity. The case can hold up to 39 grains with powder trickling and settling techniques, but without compacting. Since this is a tubular powder, I leaned on the press lever a bit and managed 44 grains with heavy compacting. Even so, velocity topped out at about 2800 fps.

The useful Lil'Gun powder has a case capacity of about 49.5 grains with this bullet, using powder trickling and settling techniques. It produced the following velocities:

Code: Select all
              Lil'Gun               
------------------------------------
gr    fps    gr    fps     gr    fps
----------   -----------   ----------
42  - 2585   47  - 2715*   48  - 2805
43  - 2607   48  - 2796*   48½ - 2827
44  - 2672   48½ - 2670*   49  - 2862
45  -  nr    49  - 2732*   49½ - 2896
46  -  nr    49½ - 2764*   50  - 2937

*See text for comments
nr indicates no reading from the chronograph


The first series started with 42 grains of Lil'Gun, and there were no indications of high pressures up to and including 46 grains, although the chronograph suffered a case of "sundownitis" with the 45- and 46-grain loads. I started the next series at 47 grains with ½-grain increments. The velocities decreased with increasing powder charge, something I had noted with light bullets four years ago. So, I applied a side crimp and tried again, starting at 48 grains with ½-grain increments. The highest velocity was 2937, which looked pretty good but case capacity prohibited any further increase.

Next I tried Accurate No. 9. In Hornady's manuals, with their 240-grain bullet it apparently reached high pressures with a relatively low charge, indicating it had a slightly faster burn rate. The Western powder manual for Accurate and Ramshot powder shows some data for the 200-grain FTX bullet. No. 9 again shows a relatively faster burn rate than Enforcer, for example. I started with their maximum charge of 40 grains and increased by 1-grain increments.

Code: Select all
                Accurate No.9             
---------------------------------------------------
gr    fps    gr    fps    gr    fps     gr    fps 
----------   ----------   ----------    -----------
40  - 2417   44½ - 2784   47  - 2879*   48  - 2945
41  - 2670   45  - 2809   47½ - 2932*   48½ - 2953
42  - 2725   45½ - 2850   48  - 2853*   49  - 2994
43  - 2783   46  - 2860   48½ - 2843*   49½ - 3009*
44  - 2820   46½ - 2893   49  - 2979*   50  - 3049*

*See text for comments
nr indicates no reading from the chronograph

No signs of excessive pressure appeared, so I continued with another series at cautious ½-grain increments. There were still no signs of excessive pressure, so I attempted still another series of 47 to 49 grains. The same problem appeared as with Lil'Gun, with increasing powder resulting in decreased velocities. Applying a side crimp to the next set produced the expected increase in velocities with charge, up to 3049 fps at 50 grains.

The top two charges, 49½ and 50 grains, resulted in heavy bolt lift at the top of the bolt upstroke. The bolt opened easily, indicating pressures on the locking lugs were not excessive, but the effort required to initiate extraction indicated pressures were too high.

In the end for these five powders, I was able to obtain about 3000 fps with No. 9. Settling on 48½ for further work, I decided that correcting the chronograph reading of 2953 to a muzzle velocity of 3000 fps was about right, and all those zeros looked nice.
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Re: Suicide Run: 200-grain FTXs at 3000 fps

Postby pitted bore » Sun Oct 13, 2013 10:47 pm

See WARNING note above in first post of this thread.

Part Three - External Ballistics: Accuracy and Trajectory

A 200-grain bullet at a muzzle velocity has 4000 ft-lbs of energy. Some silly comparisons for 200-grain bullets: 3000 fps is faster than the 300 Weatherby Magnum, and just as fast as the 338 Win Mag. I'm happy that my rifle weighs as much as it does.

I checked accuracy briefly at 100 yards. My first shot was low, and after adjustment, the next four shots went into 1.2 inches. Here's a photo:
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Next, I checked for bullet drop out to 400 yards. Winds were moderate gusty at about 5-10 mph from 6 o'clock. The scope was adjusted for zero at about 200 yards, and three shots were fired at 100 yards. Four shots each at targets of 200, 300, and 400 yards followed. The target Drop was evaluated using the median position of the shots; using the median tends to decrease the result of shots straying too far from group. Results were:

100 yards: 2½ inches above point of aim, group size 2¼ inches,

200 yards: ¼ inch above point of aim, group size 2 inches

300 yards: 12¼ inches below point of aim, group size 1½ inches (3 shots)

400 yards: 49 inches below point of aim, group size 9 inches

The wind &/or scope misalignment caused goups to move to the right with distance: 2" at 200, 4" at 300, and 9" at 400 yards. I'm not sure what happened to the 4th shot at 300 yards. The target was near the right edge of the target board, so the wind may have shove it a couple more inches to the right, off the board.

I was disappointed with the group size at 100 yards, but at 200 and 300 it was fine. Given the way the wind was behaving, and that I was working without wind flags, the 400 yard group is also pretty good.

Hornady says the 200-grain FTX bullet has a ballistic coefficient of 0.145. Using the Hornady ballistic calculator with values inserted for my muzzle velocity of 3000 fps and 200-yard zero and a scope 1.5 inches above the bore line, along with the range temperature of 75°F and elevation of about 1000 ft above sea level, here are Hornady's predictions along with what I measured:

Code: Select all
Distance-yards          0      100     200     300    400
Observed drop-inches   -1.5   +2.2    +0.2   -12.2  -39.0
Predicted drop-inches  -1.5   +2.3    +0.0   -12.1  -40.5

This correspondence between observed and predicted seems to me remarkably good, and better than any other similar comparison I've done.
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Re: Suicide Run: 200-grain FTXs at 3000 fps

Postby pitted bore » Sun Oct 13, 2013 10:53 pm

See WARNING note above in first post of this thread.

Part Four - Terminal Ballistics: Jugs=SPLAT!

Forum members have had educational fun evaluating the performance of various projectiles in various media. Following the usual forum protocol, I tested these bullets with in-line one-gallon poly water jugs. As at Hoot's range, the local range overseers have banned jug shooting on the rifle range. However, with a relative lack of supervision and observers, I can use the "pistol pit" with its high berms. The target rails in the pit are pretty handy for arranging the jugs in line.

I lined up eight water jugs in the usual way, duct taping them to the rail around each jug's circumference vertically, and then running tape lengthwise around the whole array. I shot into the lineup from about 20 feed away. The water burst was pretty spectacular compared to tests I reported to the forum from a couple of years ago.

After the shower, I found only the front two jugs of the eight were damaged. In past trials, I've inspected the jugs down the line and have find the mushroomed bullet in the last jug. Not this time. The only evidence of a bullet was a bit of jacket about the size of a pin head imbedded in a remnant of duct tape wrapped around the second jug. There were no bright pieces of metal jacket to be found on the ground, either. Hmmm!

Before I tried a second shot, I visited the rifle range and I found my friend Mike there. We determined that his phone-camera could do videos. So I asked him to visit the pistol pit and photograph the jug impact. He stood back a cautiously respectful distance, and I shot again while he operated the camera. Mike thought the flying water was pretty much fun, and emailed me the video then and there; It was waiting for me when I returned home to my computer. In this trial the bullet had disappeared also, apparently completely disintegrating.

I gathered up the remains of the jugs for a post-mortem exam. I was curious whether the second jug might have burst as a result of hyraulic action from the first jug creating enough pressure to rupture the second; 4000 ft-lbs being expended in liquid in the distance of one foot made that seem possible, sort of like liquid dominoes.

From the jug remains of both shots,I found the entrance hole of the bullet in the first jug, and the exit of some bullet pieces on the back side. I matched the exit holes with holes on the entrance side of the second jug. No pieces exited jug number two. Jug three was untouched with both shots. Some images follow.

First is the entrance hole for jug #1:
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frontA.jpg
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.
Here is a photo of exit holes made in jug #1 by bullet fratments.
.
backA.jpg
backA.jpg (73.14 KiB) Viewed 31871 times

.
Here is a photo showing entrance holes made by bullet fragments as they exited jug#1 and entered jug #2.
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secondA.jpg
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I could find no exit holes in jug #2, and also could find no bullet fragments. I suppose the fragments just scattered about the landscape along with the water from both jugs as they burst.

I played Mike's movie on my computer. About two seconds elapsed between the shot and the end of the movie when the spray was settling. The movie only shows a big spray of water at normal speed. I tried stoping the movie at various times to look at the images as the jugs burst. I don't have software that does this efficiently, so I found different images each time I tried a stop. I saved several images and assembled them in sequence. Here's the assemblage, running left to right and top to bottom. I shot the jugs from a position just to the left of the frame image.
.
jugs-mov.jpg
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Note the water in the first jug becoming an opaque white just as the bullet hits it, The jet spray of water back toward the rifle in the third frame is sort of interesting. If you look closely at frames 7 through 9 you can see a piece of jug being blown up and to the right. Frames 8 through 12 show a jug either falling to the ground from the level of the rail.
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Re: Suicide Run: 200-grain FTXs at 3000 fps

Postby pitted bore » Sun Oct 13, 2013 10:55 pm

See WARNING note above in first post of this thread.

Part Five - Terminal Ballistics: Dry Newsprint=SPLAT TOO!

The other test of terminal effect involved three shots into dry newsprint. Various gunwriters have described this as a good test of bullet integrity, approximating the effect on a bullet of hitting dense material like heavy bone in an animal.

I packed a lot of old newspapers really tightly into some paper grocery bags, put them into a box, and fired three shots into them from about eight feet away.

Inspection of the shot-up papers showed the bullets had almost completely disintegrated. There was considerable evidence of lead dust along the bullet path. It seemed as though the bullets did not penetrate the paper as much as they simply blew a cavity through it for about eight inches. I found some bullet jacket material at the end of the cavities,

(I recently tested some 8mm bullets cast from heat-treated lead alloy and from linotype on the same sort of set up. At about 1850 fps, the linotype penetrated two full grocery sacks of packed newspapers; the others penetrated one-and-a-half sacks.)

Here's a photo of the recovered fragments. The jackets were simply turned inside-out,
.
fragmentsA.jpg
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Here's a photo of a cavity that one of the bullets blew through the packed newspapers, showing the maximum size of the cavity.
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bigholeA.jpg
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Some concluding notes: At 3000 fps, the bullets were obviously being driven about 700-800 fps above their design limits. At 2300 fps and below, they perform pretty well, as Hoot has shown, Certainly these bullets should not be used at 3000 fps MV for a close shot on any game animal.

The Hornady calculator shows that velocity has dropped to about 2400 fps at 100 yards, and 2300 fps at 125 yards. If you take them deer hunting and see a shootable animal closer than 100 yards, you'll have to wait until they wander further away. Otherwise you will have to take off running away from the deer to put some distance between you and it. When you get to 125 yards distance, you can turn and shoot the deer, which may well be still standing, watching your performance in amazement.

I've probably omitted something from the narrative. Constructive comments and suggestions are appreciated.

--Bob
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Re: Suicide Run: 200-grain FTXs at 3000 fps

Postby tbirdman74 » Sun Oct 13, 2013 11:08 pm

PB, that is a helluva good read. Nicely done and documented.
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Re: Suicide Run: 200-grain FTXs at 3000 fps

Postby Colohunter » Mon Oct 14, 2013 6:55 am

Great information, thanks for sharing. Looks like you created a 450 varmint load.
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Re: Suicide Run: 200-grain FTXs at 3000 fps

Postby commander faschisto » Mon Oct 14, 2013 11:32 am

PB, that is a great write-up....thanks.
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Re: Suicide Run: 200-grain FTXs at 3000 fps

Postby Ghost Dog » Mon Oct 14, 2013 6:02 pm

Nice!!!
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