Quickload vs VV N150 w/ Berger 200.20x

[Brian Sadler]

I am having a hard time matching QL's parameters for VV N150 with my measured velocities and others experience. Attached is a summary of QL for the setup I tested (I am using the demo verison with manual changes to match the VV N150 and Berger 200.20x bullet - have verified from other sources while I am waiting on my QL program to get here in the mail).

QL is estimating a velocity of 2528 fps. I am getting a velocity of 2642 fps as measured with a Labradar unit. This is being shot out of a 30" Krieger barrel - 4 groove, REM 700 action, Lapua standard rifle brass, and CCI BR2 primers w/ 44.1 gr of VV N150 powder. The COAL is 3.116, measured Ogive of 2.332, and about .009 off the lands.

With help from another forum member, both of us are confused. I have just reached out to VV and QL to see if there is errors in the parameters.

From investigating on powder burn rates and other powders, I have some concern with the QL burn rate of "0.5450". Per burn rate charts, N150 is suppose to burn slower than N140, and even slower than N135. However the respective burn rates are as follows: N150-0.540, N140-0.6230, and N135-0.5750. Comparing to other manufacturers of powders, Varget is suppose to be between N135 and N140 for its burn rate. Varget has a burn rate of "0.6150". Using H4350 with a burn rate of "0.5130". The numbers for burn rate are all over the board.

So therefore playing with the burn rate in order to get the measured velocity to match, the pressures are going through the roof at around 69k. That is NOT GOOD! So if pressure is through the roof, I would expect to see the signs of this on the brass. No so. Attached are pictures of the brass as well. Even shooting up to 44.6 gr of N150 the week previously (about 20 degrees cooler), I didnt see primer or pressure indications.

Therefore, the only thing that I am certain of now is that I am lost. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[dewey7271]

Calibrating QL,I come up with the same numbers you have.

 

[Ned Ludd]

BTT - Anyone else know anything about the VV N150 powder file in QL?

 

[dewey7271]

Send an email to Ed at NECO. He would be the one to ask.
Only other way is to load the powder in some other cases and see if the burn rate is similar to what you have found. If it is close then modify the Ba.
Or....go up to vv160.

 

[Brian Sadler]

Send an email to Ed at NECO. He would be the one to ask.
Only other way is to load the powder in some other cases and see if the burn rate is similar to what you have found. If it is close then modify the Ba.
Or....go up to vv160.

Already ahead of you. Here is the repsonse from Kevin at Nammo (VV's parent company):
Hate to tell you this, but this isn't something that I have on hand here in the office. I'll need to pass this one along to the VV crew in Finland, and see if we can't fill in the blanks for you here. Good information to know, and I'm hoping they'll have a complete sheet of specs with this information for all of our powders, across the board. I'll get the email off to them immediately, but if you'd be good enough to check back in a couple days I should have an answer for you.

I need to get over to Ed as well for confirmation on what his info/numbers is for this. I will update everyone once I hear back. I was just hoping the accurateshooter family would have had some experience on this setup.

Thanks

 

[Ned Ludd]

QL's preset Ba for N150 doesn't give a predicted velocity value anywhere near what Brian actually measured for a known charge weight, hence the issue. Some difference in "calibrated" Ba versus preset Ba due to cartridge case volume, Lot-to-Lot powder variation, etc., is always expected, but not a difference as large as it took to make QL return his actual measured MV. I strongly suspect it is because the powder file values are off for some reason; largely because there are no pressure signs that would correspond to predicted pressure over 69K psi. At pressure that high (if real), it would be very noticeable. Unfortunately, such a result can leave a lot of uncertainty regarding actual pressure and safety, so I totally understand his wanting to know the answer.

Some of the QL N150 powder file values also do not match very closely those values given on the VV website. However, it is unclear exactly how representative and accurate the values posted at the VV site were meant to be. Direct contact with VV and Ed at Neco as Brian suggested are probably the most expedient approaches to getting a definitive answer.

 

[savagedasher]

I have see 70 fps change in lot of varget
You numbers can be powder or case volume
.009 off can add 2000 psi or more a little carbon ring it could be the results . What was the temperature of the powder .
I know N 550 jumped 70 fps with just temp change. Larry

 

[sharp.shooter.ser]

Same problem here, but with N140 and 4 different bullets I tested today (two from PPU, Accubond and Sierra Mathc King, with PPU brass, trimmed to length, and water weighted and averaged on 50 cases). Safe margin should be 3900 bar (56K psi) for my M48 8x57 Mauser. In order to match speed readings from two different Chrony units, I had to adjust Ba for every load (12 loads in total - from 0.60 to 0.69) and for each one the Ba would be different. Once matched, all the pressures were way higher than the safe margin, the hottest being 5200 bar (76k psi !!!) with Accubonds, according to QL info I got. No excessive pressure signs on cases or primers (Federal Gold match) that I could see (and the cases were used 3 or 4 times before, necksized only). Bolt opening wasn't harder than usual (my headspace is really tight from the beginning). I worked my way up for this loads, looking for excessive pressure, but I wouldnt recommend anyone trying this, especially if you have an older rifle (my action is old and never used, but barrel is brand new).
I would really like to see the answer on this.

 

[Laurie]

I've always found QuickLOAD pretty good with 308 and N150 with bullets up to 185gn. Given the loads we used to use in the UK with the 185gn Juggernaut and standard large primer Lapua brass in FTR, 44.2gn doesn't look untowardly high.

However, the individual barrel issue looms large in this as with any cartridge. Back when we used this combination a lot in the UK (nobody does now - small primer 'Palma' brass use is universal and another 1 to 1.5gn N150 used in it), one of our top FTR shooters who is also a gunsmith used this combination (46 point something N150) with great success. He supplied it to a customer who had a rifle built using the same make / spec barrel chambered with the same reamer and freebore. It wouldn't work anywhere near rifle #1's load - blew primers at up to a grain less powder. So go figure.

I trust QL with N140 and N150, well at least as much as I trust it with anything which is to throw in considerable reservations, but not at all for N160 which appears to be considerably faster burning in real life in several 6.5 and 7mm cartridges than QL predicts. So for initial loads now with any N160 combination, I set my top charge weight for an initial range session at whatever sees QL compute 52-53,000 psi and the real life MVs invariably run at levels that need another 1-2gn in the program and are predicted to produce another 5,000 psi or so. (This is not a matter of high MV without pressure either - the first time I relied on QL with a 6.5mm - the Creedmoor IIRC - I had to abandon tests when still short of my top charge weight when hard bolt lift and leaking primers appeared.)

 

[Highpower-FClass]

I had to adjust the Ba for VV N540 from 0.5980 to 0.6780 in order to make the QL velocities match my measured velocities for the 215 hybrids in 308. So the default power factor for N540 seems to be way off too, at least when used with heavy projectiles.

 

[memilanuk]

@Laurie I used to use Viht N150 a *lot* with the Berger 155.5 Fullbore bullet and the 82gn BT (after the 2008 elections, Hodgdon powders became unobtanium in the USA for a while. People griped about the cost of Viht powders, but at least you could get a steady supply).

The utter lack of anything resembling accurate data for N150 (or any data at all for several other powders) were part of the reason I let my license lapse for several years. The time I spent mucking about trying to coerce QL into giving half-ways accurate predictions for N150... well, I could empirically get the results I needed quicker.

FWIW, in the .223 Rem and .308 Win, with the bullets mentioned above, I always found Viht N150 to be almost kernel for kernel the same charge as Varget at the time (2008-2011) - certainly within +/- 0.1 gn. Definitely *not* closer to H4350, which is where most burn rate charts show it, year after year.

As far as I know, Ed @ Neco isn't the guy you need to talk to about the powder data. He's just the US distributor. There's another guy (German?) who actually writes the software, and from what I understood he is constrained by the data that is available to him. It doesn't matter what you see in your barrel(s), if the burn data he gets from a laboratory says its at a certain point, thats what he's going to put in the program.

 

[Laurie]

Yes, that's the way it works Monte. The owner / author of the software is a German guy whose surname is Broemel IIRC. Obviously some of the data provided to him by powder manufacturers is way out in some way or other. In addition to N160, there is a Nitrochemie manufactured Reload Swiss powder in the Re15 / H. VarGet class that you guys don't see in the USA where QL's computations are IME well out the wrong way - they understate pressures / MVs dramatically.

Re N150 in 223 and 308, I've always liked it in the 223 with heavy bullets and also used it a bit with 155s in 308 for FTR short and mid-range club shoots - great precision but modest MVs. People would be really surprised by this. (Surely N140 / VarGet / H4895 etc etc is better .... far too slow for this bullet weight surely? ... and so on.) I always felt I was wasting my breath talking to others on this one. However, even I was surprised recently when I discovered an old GB FTR teammate and friend loading it in Palma small primer brass with the 155.5gn Berger for his wife's rifle - this is a couple who want precision, but won't sacrifice speed usually. In this case, it was a heavily compressed load of ~50gn (long freebore chamber) that produces around 3,100 fps MV which I'd never have reckoned you could get even from a 31-inch barrel. It only works in his good lady's rifle though - no good at all in his, he told me.

To me, this is all part of the fun in handloading and long-range precision shooting - there are just so many things that work when they shouldn't (or vice versa). QL is just a guide / starting point to me and I simply can't be bothered in fine-tuning settings. I had a forum member once retort tartly to a suggestion that a getting on for 30 fps QL 'error' in a near 3,000 fps MV was pretty good given it was a ~1% error from a relatively simple model and that powder lot, particular barrel dimensions, state of the moon etc can account for >30 fps 'errors' in real life. I was told in no uncertain terms that he was an engineer who used such models in his working life and they were made to be 100.000% accurate or were 'no good' to him. That was me in my place alright - Ha! Ha! I'm all for such armchair physicists in F-Class - the more time spent on a screen and keyboard, the less real shooting they do and the less chance of learning a bit about reading wind and hence beating me!

On a related note, I'm currently dipping in and out of Bryan Litz's two latest books, the 'Modern Advancements' ones volumes 1 and 2. There is some fascinating stuff there in advanced handloading experiments as well as ballistics experimentation gleaned from extensive (hundreds of rounds) range tests some of which involved five or six different cartridges from 223 rem to 338LM and .50BMG. Tying down correlations is (as we know from hard experience) like trying to herd cats - three cartridges say 'yes, do X to get a Y reduction or result, the other two 'prove' the opposite, and one sits on the fence saying nothing either way .... but some really good stuff coming out. I was also 'delighted' to see the odd mention that X had to be discounted because they got something wrong, or a line omitted in a results table saying 'wrong charge used' or suchlike. Been there, done those things so often myself!

 

[memilanuk]

@Brian Sadler did you ever get an accurate Ba number for Viht N150... or at least something that made sense?

 

[Brian Sadler]

@Brian Sadler did you ever get an accurate Ba number for Viht N150... or at least something that made sense?

I did. I have to find the values and post back on this thread. Give me a little.

 

[Cadtek]

I have the same problem with the N-150 and Lapua Scenes L 120gr in 6.5x55 SE. Charges and crono speed fits well with n-140, could the wrong label be the error?

Cadtek