ball powders and barrel wear

[tightneck]

I'm curious as to you're experiences with ball powders as it relates to barrel wear.
Let me first say that I have very limited experience with ball powders. I've always used extruded powders for the most part, not for any particular reason. I've been using VV133 exclusivley in 6ppc and VV135 in 6br. I have barrels in both calibers that have in excess of 3000 rds. in each,and I run em hot) that still shoot very well. Not as good as when they were new but still very respectable. In fact in one ppc barrel I haven't changed the seating depth .005 since it was new. Extremely good barrel life if you ask me. So the reason for my post is that I've come across a surplus ball powder that shoots very well in the ppc and I can get it for less than half the price of the VV's but have heard that ball powders can be like running an abrasive down the bore. I have 20 lbs of the stuff now but am thinking about a large purchase. One thing I have noticed is that this powder hardly fouls at all. Don't know if that's a good thing though as I've heard that when VV first came up with 133 they had problems with no fouling and hence added graphite to the recipe. Don't know if thats true but wondering if adding moly or graphite might help? Has anyone tried this instead of coating bullets? By the way, I dont even know what this powder is. A guy I met at the range has a boatload of it but doesn't remember what it is. It has a very similar burn rate to 133,just a tad slower) as I'm running it about a half grain higher with similar velocities. Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

 

[EdAtts]

I put over 5000 rounds through a 40X 22-250 before I changed barrels. I exclusively shot 38 grains of H 380. I never got my barrel hot and I cleaned it religiously. It was my woodchuck rifle but it would shoot .25 to .3 when new and .6 when I changed barrels. The barrel was a chrome moly Remington factory tube. I thought h 380 gave great barrel life.

 

[Clarence]

I have NO data supporting ball powder vs Extruded, however if I found some ball that shot very well I would use it. I shoot the Palma Game and palma shooters are much used to replacing barrels. I shoot the 308 for about 2K rounds and set it back and replace it at about 4K, I have shot the barrels out at 900 rounds from the 6/284 Venturied shoulder wildcat in the late 60's.
I have been told that the Ball powders are hotter in the burn than extruded???

Clarence

 

[sewwhat89]

IIRC, if you believe in the barrel wear table and its predictions, Varget would be harder on a barrel than would be H380. I was shooting 38 gr of both of them in my .22-250 with 52 and 53 gr bullets. I would agree with that. It matches my experience with my .22-250. I shot three pounds of H380 up. Then I switched to Varget because I was getting same accuracy and better velocity. I did not get through the first pound before I had to adjust my seating depth out. I still have not finished off the pound of Varget, and now I cannot reach the lands with any bullet my rifle will stabilize.

 

[Forum Boss]

FWIW, Varget has one of the highest Heat of Explosion ratings of any powders,4040 kj/kg).

H380, by contrast, has a Heat of Explosion of 3970 kj/kg. H1000 is on the cool end of the scale at 3630 kj/kg.

I won't venture an official opinion, but there are those who speculate Heat of Explosion has a significant effect on throat erosion. This may, in fact, be more important than ball vs. stick geometry--but I don't know anybody who has done the long-term testing to confirm that theory.

 

[sewwhat89]

My only question about heat expansion ratio, etc. would be it has to have a variable revolving around pressure included. I am shooting Varget exclusively in two 300 RSAUMs. I am getting 0" of throat erosion over several hundred rounds in each rifle. I am not running max loads in either rifle though. My cases are only expanding to release the bullet. I have cases fired 8 times that measure the exact same OAL as when I first sized them. Of course, the shoulder angle has a lot to do with that too, but with max loads in my .22-250,38 gr Varget with 52 gr AMAX at 4127 fps) I was getting massive brass growths compared to other loads. I would get 0.015" of OAL growth per firing if I FL sized the brass. I was forced to NS all the brass to save my hands from relentless trimmings.

Maybe in the .308 bore, I do not have enough rounds fired to see the terminal effects of the Varget. FWIW, I am using 53.5 gr Varget with 175 SMKs,2950 fps), 54 gr Varget with 178 gr AMAX,2978 fps) and 58 gr Varget with 140 gr Barnes X,3221 fps)and 150 gr NAB,3110 fps).

I find this very interesting! Especially when, as the Moderator mentioned, H1000 has such a low HER. That may come into play with smaller bore wildcats off the 6.5 Lapua get rolling.

 

[tenring]

Moderator: Where can I find the HOE table? Thanks.

ANSWER: My data is from Vers. 3.1.1 of QuickLOAD. I'm a little reluctant to publish a table of all popular powders because that starts to run into copyright issues. But if you have 3 or 4 powders you're interested in, I can release that info.

 

[JER]

there are those who speculate Heat of Explosion has a significant effect on throat erosion. This may, in fact, be more important than ball vs. stick geometry--but I don't know anybody who has done the long-term testing to confirm that theory.

Joesr comes to mind. He seems to be getting at least double the usually claimed life on 243 Winchester barrels by using H1000 and keeping the throat smooth with polishing compounds.