I was out shooting one of my 44's yesterday. I keep a 50 caliber ammo can with bags of different loads in it. One of the loads is cast bullets that a scrap yard had, they are semi-wadcutters at 245gr. The tag in the bag says 15.5gr of Blue Dot rifle rounds. ( I have a model 94 in 44 mag). I fired one cylinder of them in a Super Blackhawk, the blast was sharp, as well as the recoil. I thought to myself that I didn't remember ever loading those bullets hot, they were loaded for the rifle because they are shorter than my other bullet that I like better. I had gotten them cheap so I thought I had just loaded a plinker round. I start ejecting them and they are rather tight, not so bad I needed a tool, but definitely not going to drop out on their own.
That revolver was pretty dirty, so I fully cleaned the cylinder and barrel. Another cylinder of those rounds and they were just as sticky on ejection. I loaded them in 2012 according to my notes. I looked up the load today thinking maybe it was a hot load, but according to my lyman manual it is not a hot load with a bullet of any weight near these. Come to think of it, I was shooting some 45 win mag loads from that era as well, also loaded with blue dot, that seemed hotter than I remembered.
My thoughts are that the powder has changed and now the load is too hot, or perhaps my scale was incorrectly calibrated all those years ago, or that my memory of never loading them hot is faulty. I am going to pull one or two and check the amount of powder, I sure hope I don't have to pull all 250 of them.
That revolver was pretty dirty, so I fully cleaned the cylinder and barrel. Another cylinder of those rounds and they were just as sticky on ejection. I loaded them in 2012 according to my notes. I looked up the load today thinking maybe it was a hot load, but according to my lyman manual it is not a hot load with a bullet of any weight near these. Come to think of it, I was shooting some 45 win mag loads from that era as well, also loaded with blue dot, that seemed hotter than I remembered.
My thoughts are that the powder has changed and now the load is too hot, or perhaps my scale was incorrectly calibrated all those years ago, or that my memory of never loading them hot is faulty. I am going to pull one or two and check the amount of powder, I sure hope I don't have to pull all 250 of them.
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