contaminated powder from factory?

[Mtstalker]

hey guys i just got back from shooting some 243Win loads i had worked up with 95 gr berger classic hunters and h4831sc. loads were 41gr to 45gr. Heres the odd part, i fired one and it felt like a slow push and sounded like 2 shots really close to each other, i stopped and looked at all three bays at our range and i was the only one at the range. so i figured i must have bumped my ammo box or some thing. I fire a second shot and same thing. so i stopped and double checked everything. i dont know what was going on but i stopped and went home and checked everyting and everything checked out good. this is a new batch of powder and i have only loaded these 243win cases and a few 270 win. when i shot the 270 win they had a delayed fire and i contributed it to the new "primer friendly" case lube i was trying. the 243 were new brass that had no lube on them and the primers are working fine with my imr 4350. Did i get a bad bottle of powder? both rounds were loaded at min load and flattened both primers out. Has anybody ever gotten contaminated powder or anything like that? im calling Hodgon on monday to see what could be going on. And yes when i opened it the seal was on and there was a bit of "air" in the bottle pushing the seal up, i did smell the powder and it has a very light sweet smell to it. I opened up my other bottles of H4831sc from a diffrent lot and they have the classic ether smell.

 

[Rsadams]

What kind of primers? How much did you push the shoulder back?

It doesn't hurt to call. If people don't call , the company won't find out if there's a problem.

 

[Mtstalker]

winchester large rifle (243) and cci 200 (270). shoulder bump .001"

 

[MagnumManiac]

hey guys i just got back from shooting some 243Win loads i had worked up with 95 gr berger classic hunters and h4831sc. loads were 41gr to 45gr. Heres the odd part, i fired one and it felt like a slow push and sounded like 2 shots really close to each other, i stopped and looked at all three bays at our range and i was the only one at the range. so i figured i must have bumped my ammo box or some thing. I fire a second shot and same thing. so i stopped and double checked everything. i dont know what was going on but i stopped and went home and checked everyting and everything checked out good. this is a new batch of powder and i have only loaded these 243win cases and a few 270 win. when i shot the 270 win they had a delayed fire and i contributed it to the new "primer friendly" case lube i was trying. the 243 were new brass that had no lube on them and the primers are working fine with my imr 4350. Did i get a bad bottle of powder? both rounds were loaded at min load and flattened both primers out. Has anybody ever gotten contaminated powder or anything like that? im calling Hodgon on monday to see what could be going on. And yes when i opened it the seal was on and there was a bit of "air" in the bottle pushing the seal up, i did smell the powder and it has a very light sweet smell to it. I opened up my other bottles of H4831sc from a diffrent lot and they have the classic ether smell.

Sounds to me like the powder is a slower lot, not contaminated.
I never use start loads, I reduce the max load 5%, never found an issue doing this.
Interesting fact, with H4350, 150gr BT's in a 300WM and a 1gr reduction from the listed start load, I had 1 second hangfires, the hangfires continued until I got 2gr above the start load and the delay reduced a bit on every .5gr increase.
I could repeat that at will with that powder lot. The lot after that did not do that.
Even with the max charges being the same, as tested on a pressure trace.

Cheers.

 

[Mtstalker]

i just went back out and fired up to max load and they still do it. at 43.5 grs primers looked fine then at 44 grs you can hardly tell where the primer ends and case starts. what confuses me is the sweet smell the powder has when the other canisters have a ether smell to them.

 

[LHSmith]

Are your primers fully seated?

 

[Rsadams]

i just went back out and fired up to max load and they still do it. at 43.5 grs primers looked fine then at 44 grs you can hardly tell where the primer ends and case starts. what confuses me is the sweet smell the powder has when the other canisters have a ether smell to them.

Iam no expert, but all the powder I use doesn't smell sweet it has that bitter smell. Maybe, just reaching here , but maybe .001 is not enough? Unless there's some kind of carbon built up all of a sudden?

I know the cci SR primers flatten easy but if it just started when you opened this powder I would be looking at the powder also. I think I would stop useing it now. Its not worth it over a $25 bottle of powder.

 

[Mtstalker]

both rifles were cleaned with eliminator and JBs before shooting and the chambers mopped out with denatured alcohol. the winchester primers often give flat primers earlier in loading due to the body on the batch that i have only being .208" instead of the standard .210". i put the powder aside and will call hodgon on monday and see if there is a reason to it smelling diffrent and acting so weird. i tryed the same primers with IMR 4350 and no problem so i dont think its a primer or case lube issue because they all go in the ultrasonic after sizing and then dry by the wood stove for a few days.

 

[LHSmith]

I see in another thread you responded to that you are using a new priming tool. I suggest you make sure the primers are being fully seated. Your problems you are having are a classic symptom of primers not being bottomed out........snap- BANG syndrome.

 

[Mtstalker]

i will check that. that would make perfect sense. when i checked them they were .005" below flush. Ill run one in as far as it will go and measure that

 

[LHSmith]

Another possible culprit that would compound the problem is setting the shoulders back too far creating excessive headspace.

 

[Mtstalker]

how deep could i seat before i would have to start worrying about light primer strikes?

 

[Milo 2.0]

I'd focus on the smell you referred too, find a diff can of it, know.

 

[Mtstalker]

I stripped the bolt and resize a case with the die screwed out far enough that a case grows about .003" in headspace length then i turn the die in a 1/16th turn and then chamber it, i do this until the bolt closes half way on its own then go another .001" so the bolt closes with very little effort( checked with stoney point tool) been doing this bump on these cases and annealing every 3rd sizing and have not had any problems untill this batch of powder.

 

[LHSmith]

Seat until they bottom out. If you start to make indentions on the primer face you are pushing too hard. FWIW light primer strikes are caused by weak FP spring or excessive shoulder setback. If you have the shoulders pushed back too far, the primers on those fired cases will appear flatter than usual.

 

[LHSmith]

I stripped the bolt and resize a case with the die screwed out far enough that a case grows about .003" in headspace length then i turn the die in a 1/16th turn and then chamber it, i do this until the bolt closes half way on its own then go another .001" so the bolt closes with very little effort( checked with stoney point tool) been doing this bump on these cases and annealing every 3rd sizing and have not had any problems untill this batch of powder.

Sounds good to me. You should be good unless your ejector spring is super hard causing bias.

 

[Mtstalker]

seated one untill it hit bottom with my hornady hand primer and it is .012" below flush. these cases have about 7 loads on them with a 40.5gr charge of imr4350 before this so they might be trash. with them that deep i worry about light primer strikes.

 

[LHSmith]

seated one untill it hit bottom with my hornady hand primer and it is .012" below flush. these cases have about 7 loads on them with a 40.5gr charge of imr4350 before this so they might be trash.

So 0.007" deeper. That's substantial. Worth it to re-try. I never had luck differentiating powders by smell once they were opened. If nothing else this exercise warded off future accuracy problems.

 

[Mtstalker]

Is that too deep?

 

[dkhunt14]

A typical action has .062 protrusion. At .012 it has plenty to go bang. If you want to know how much headspace you have. Put a fired primer in a case and let it stick out a bunch. Close bolt and let bolt seat the primer. Now that will show your head space by how much it sticks out the case. Matt