Stealthshooter wrote:Almost forgot the bullet was just barely lodged in the throat. It only took one good thump with the cleaning rod to dislodge it.
You may be correct in them having light primers. However, when you pulled the clumpers down, how hard was it to get the 200 bullets out? Did you use a collet puller or inertial puller? Properly crimped, it takes me anywhere from 5-7 whacks with an inertial puller to get out properly retained bullets and a stiff taper crimp on the forward cannelure should provide that degree of tension. I ask because a lot of folks claim that even with powerful primers, if you don't have enough neck tension the blast from the primer will be all it takes to launch the bullet out of the case before the powder has had a chance to ignite. That is especially true with slower burning powders and lighter bullets. I have seen that clumping before, posted by others who discovered they didn't have enough neck tension. I first started off using cool running BR4's because I had a brick of them form my other smaller calibers and I was quite pleased with them in that capacity. It didn't take long to realize they were holding me back with Lil Gun, though quite adequate for 2400. The BR4s would light off slower powders, they just didn't get them stoked up as far as they were capable of being stoked before the case released the bullet.
FWIW, there isn't too much difference in heat/power between the Rem 7 1/2, WSR and Fed GM205M, from my own experience. The velocity spread between the three was only like 10-15fps for the same charge of Lil Gun and same bullet. The BR4s ran behind that pack by something like 50fps. I did a post with graphs comparing the difference between the four. It's back a half dozen pages or so. I've had one clumper back last year when I was trying Berry's 230gr TCJ (thin copper foil over lead) bullets. The bullets were so soft and lacked springback enough that I could pull them with 2-3 whacks. Also, last year I had loaded some 225s over Lil Gun for some reason or other, using the taper crimp driven stiffly into the front cannelure as I've already alluded to. When the hammer fell on one of the loads, there was a barely perceivable snap sound. Certainly not a crack, nor the boom I had been getting. I waited about 20 seconds and hand cycled the round out and the bullet was still seated at the cannelure. Given the primer dent, I assumed I had a bad primer.When I got home and pulled the bullet (5-7 whacks), I discovered that the primer had indeed gone off but on an empty case.The point being that with the amount of neck tension I was using, the force of the primer alone was not enough to drive the bullet out of the case. Since that's the only time this ever happened to me, I can't say conclusively that with the proper crimp, a primer will not ever drive a bullet out. That's just the experience I had that one time. It certainly was an eye opener and a lesson in paying closer attention to your charged cases before dropping a bullet into them.
I'm pretty anal about case tension, to the point that before I prime my cases, I swab out the mouths to the depth of the bullet I will be using, one by one with q-tips dipped in brake cleaner to make sure I get any possible lubricant off the inside of the necks. Blammo Ammo folks probably laugh at that degree of case prep attention to detail. You've probably read this already, but try not to use the mouth expander before seating your bullets. You'll get more tension from the mouth than if you do and then crimp the brass back down. My experience has been that stretched case mouths with a bullet in them do not return to as tight as un-stretched. Obviously, if you stab crimp after a taper crimp, the expander is not as big a factor as the stab crimp usually holds the
lion's share of the tension when applied further back from the mouth. Lastly (thank god), the modified Lee FCD crimper, set to place a wide jawed crimp right at the mouth in place of the taper crimp can sometimes produce more tension than the taper crimp. If in doubt, taper crimp first and than apply the conventional Lee FCD crimp. Don't confuse that with using a modded Lee FCD die with the narrowed jaw bite and placed further down the case to catch a cannelure or driving band groove. They're two different approaches.
I look forward to reading about your results with the SSTs. So far, QL has yet to predict a velocity in any of my loads for this caliber that was not overestimated. I believe Hartmut chooses to factor in the 10% reduction with his calculation results to avoid getting anyone hurt because that about how much slower actual results turn out for me, depending upon the powder.
YMMV.
Hoot
