Hornady Factory Primed Brass

[Avenger10]

ARCONNECT-

While I can understand your thinking with respect to waste I still have to say you may find it very much worth your while to go ahead and shoot those remaining 74 rounds down range. The Bushmasters are notorious for needing to break in and that can take as many as 200 rounds. Hopefully you have one that doesn't require all that but if you do begin to have problems you would have confidence that it isn't the ammo. Also, the Hornady 250 gr FTX is good copper for barrel break in. We shoot lots of XPB's and we love em but we prefer to do our barrel break in with the FTX's and we are getting fantastic groups.

Another word about barrel break in. The Hornady factory ammo has a proven track record of being particularly accurate. You want to know it isn't your ammo if you start shooting big groups. You have stated that you only shot 6 rounds through your new upper. You may learn a lot by shooting more through it. I have a 16" bushy brand 450 in the safe that will not shoot better than 5" groups. If you run into an issue like that you will want to be able to tell the factory that you are testing with factory loaded ammo.

Anyway, just my .02 welcome to the 450b family.

-Bartt

[ARconnect]

Bartt, that is a good point, and one I hadn't considered. I ordered two more boxes late last week. Since I can't find any Lil Gun (or other appropriate powder) available at the moment, I was thinking pulling the 250s and replacing with the 200 XPBs might be my only option though - to get copper rounds I can hunt with. So, now that I have a few more on the way, I may sling a little more factory fodder to see how she is doing before I usher in the "Replacements".

Thanks for the thought.

[ARconnect]

So, I loaded up 10 test rounds Sunday night over the factory brass, primers and powder. Hope to get to the range this weekend.

My observations:

Factory powder is very fine granular. I weighed the charges for each round I pulled and they ranged from 40.5 to 40.75 grains, with all but 3 of them being between 40.6 and 40.65 grains. I put the factory charges back in each case they came from and didn't try to normalize them, but probably should have with a .25 grn. weight spread.

There has been a lot written on here about crimps, and I understand the issues. I was hoping to have less of an issue (or none at all) given that my brass hasn't been fired - just the bullets pulled. However, getting a good crimp - even one that would hold the bullet from slipping back into the case - has been a challenge. I didn't try to resize the brass since it has never been fired. I simply seated the bullets and then used the taper crimp (new Hornady dies on an old Rock Chucker).

I used two different bullets (5 of each): Barnes XPB 200 grn. and General Bullet C.O.P. 225 grn. (the Generals are the ones for the 454C, not the 460 S&W). Before I seated the bullets I mic'd them at their heel and mid points. The Barnes were 1 to just under 2 thousandths larger at the heel than at the midpoint, but the Generals were fairly consistent from ogive to heel. Even though the Barnes are indicated on the box to be .451 dia. I only had about 6 that were that small, with most hovering between .452 and .4525 at the midpoint (between the two drive grooves). The Generals weren't bad either with most hovering around .452 (their stated diameter).

I seated the bullets to the drive groove (upper drive groove for the Barnes) and taper crimped them to .474 inch at the case mouth. I tried to get the edge of the case mouth roughly centered in the drive groove before crimping. Some feel fairly firm, but some still can be fairly easily pushed in or pulled out slightly. However, I cannot push them in further than the upper edge of the drive groove and cannot pull them out far enough to reveal the lower edge of the drive groove - not with bare hands, anyway. So, the COL is able to vary slightly. Just closing the caliper on them will move the bullets as indicated on the looser ones. COL for those loaded with Barnes is 2.195 and the Generals measure 2.07 - just .01 inch longer than my Hornady manual (9th Edition) lists for their 240 grn. XTP Mag.

I'll see how these shoot - if I get pressure signs or sooting. I'll load them one at a time and probably use the forward assist to be sure the bolt is locked rather than letting the action fly. I guess I'll have to do the FCD mod if I get soot. Thought I had one (unmodified), but guess I don't - or can't find it if I do.

[Hoot]

If you mic a resized case before and after seating a bullet, regardless of whether they're ,451 or .452, the case will be wider where the bullet is down inside and that's normal. Once you pull down a load, the case will shrink back a little but not all the way to where it was before it had a bullet pushed into it. Normally resizing takes care of any expansion, but as you pointed out, the donor cases were not resized and we're at fault for not remembering to mention that to you. The taper crimp should have bought back most of that expansion as that die acts upon the case further down than just the mouth. Apparently it is not a substitute for a resizing die.

Regarding the bullet diameters. I've seen stuff from COP that was as small as .448. That was a year or two back so perhaps they've improved upon their QC. Both .451 and .452 diameter bullets obturate when entering the rifling so the difference is for the most part, a minor concern. I'd be remiss if I didn't say that I am concerned about the bullets being able to push down into the case. Most folks suffer from when the bolt stops moving forward and the bullets pull out a little bit.

The fact that Hornady charges their factory 250's with 40gr of powder tells me that they are not using Lil Gun if they only get 2200fps average velocity. The canister powder they are using is probably not from the same family and your description of the granules kind of supports that as well. Not a problem, but I'd venture its probably not as good a match for 200's as Lil Gun is.

Seating and crimping bullets has a lasting impact upon their diameter since copper doesn't exhibit a lot of "memory", so the next advice will come at a cost. I advise pulling the bullets and giving the cases a pass through the resizing die. Mic the pulled bullets and see if they came back to their original diameter, but I'm not hopeful that they will. Now they're just trinkets to give people. If you apply your resizing lube by hand like I do, you should be able to prevent it from getting down into the case around the mouth. You don't want to lubricate the case mouths, let alone contaminate the powder when the bullet pushes that lube ahead of it during seating. I actually take an added step when reloading the 450b of degreasing the case mouths just before priming them. The point there is to make every case's neck tension as uniform as the next. It does come back in smaller velocity SDs sometimes, depending upon other factors.

Sorry about the bad advice. Didn't think it through as its not something I normally do with factory loads.

Hoot

[BW460]

WC said a while back that the factory powder is ww-297 which is ww-296 with an anti flash additive.

[ARconnect]

Sorry about the bad advice. Didn't think it through as its not something I normally do with factory loads.

Hoot

Not a problem, Hoot. Thanks for all the info. I have never reloaded factory primed and charged cases before, so didn't stop to think about the effect seating and pulling the original bullet would have on the case - should have. As mentioned, I only loaded 10 rounds, so not a big deal to pull them, even if I have to trash the bullets. I'll check their diameters though.

As I was adjusting the crimp die to achieve the desired .474", I did notice that the die was acting upon the case just a little less than half way down it - sort of polishing it - as well as a smooth burnishing right at the case mouth. However, the polishing in the middle of the case was not in the area of the heel of the bullet when seated.

[Hoot]

WC said a while back that the factory powder is ww-297 which is ww-296 with an anti flash additive.

That would be consistent with ARconnect's observation of the powder granules. I have 296 but have never tried it with the 250gr FTX bullet since Lil Gun always worked well. I do like filling up the dead space in a case more and 296 may just fit that bill. Grounds for an A/B Range test using the two powders and the 250gr FTX bullet.

Hoot

[ARconnect]

I just checked Hornady's load tables for the 250 grn. FTX in the 9th edition. They show two powders hitting the 2200 FPS mark: Lil Gun and Win 296. The max charge they show for 296 is 40.4 grains - fairly consistent with what I measured. I don't know if the flash suppressant they add might change the performance slightly so that they add another tenth or two to get the same muzzle speed.

Interestingly, in the blurb they write about the cartridge, they indicate that they had excellent accuracy results with Lil Gun - yet it appears they are using 296 (or 297).

[Hoot]

I just checked Hornady's load tables for the 250 grn. FTX in the 9th edition. They show two powders hitting the 2200 FPS mark: Lil Gun and Win 296. The max charge they show for 296 is 40.4 grains - fairly consistent with what I measured. I don't know if the flash suppressant they add might change the performance slightly so that they add another tenth or two to get the same muzzle speed.

Interestingly, in the blurb they write about the cartridge, they indicate that they had excellent accuracy results with Lil Gun - yet it appears they are using 296 (or 297).

W296 is a slower pressure curve and actually uses more of the barrel length than Lil Gun. It's great with 300 grainers. Another good powder for 300gr loads is Alliant Power Pro 300 Magnum Pistol or simply 300MP. Some folks refer to it as MP300.

Hoot

[ARconnect]

Good to know that there are choices, but not sure I'll ever want to go to 300 grain bullets. 300 grn. is well more than necessary for mule deer and hogs. The muleys where I hunt don't get real large like they do in Colorado and Montana and other notable states. Even though the area where I hunt is relatively thick timber, and long shots are rare, I am more concerned with bullet speed than maximum range from a trajectory standpoint.

Hoot, the water jug tests you did with the Barnes XPBs (can't remember which bullet weight you used now) showed a lack of meaningful expansion below an impact velocity of about 1700 FPS. Since I must use solid copper bullets, I need to keep the speed up above that, out to 200 yards in order to make it effective to that range. I don't know what kind of muzzle velocity one can expect from a 300 grn. load, but would guess it is shy of 2000 fps. Plugging 1900 FPS MV into a ballistics calculator shows the speed dropping below 1700 fps at 100 yards. I need a little more range than that to be comfortable.

I know you weren't suggesting that I go to 300 grain rounds - just identifying the options, which I appreciate. I think I am going to try to live in the 200 to 225 grn. range of bullets.