Reloading Help

[Mud]

I'm concerned about high pressure and low velocity. I'm new to reloading and I feel that something may be off. My primer appear to be some what flat and are starting mushroom on the top. See the pictures below.

I have a 300 Weatherby Mark V Accumark with a muzzle break. The brass in the pictures is on its 3rd reload. I loaded:

Powder: RL 22 79 grains
Primer: Federal 215 match grade
Bullet: AccuBond 180 grain
Brass: Norma

During the case prep I did used a Redding primer pocket uniformer and flash hole de-burring tool. I noticed that when I cleaning the flash hole the Redding tool increased the diameter of the flash hole by a thousandth. Also, seated the bullet out as far as the magazine would allow AOL 3.710. I used a Hornady lock n load length gauge and the bullet is nowhere near the lands. Weatherby's have a very long throat.

When I was at the range the bolt lift was smooth with no sign of the case getting stuck. Also, when I chronograph the my load it measured 2,987 fps. Well below what my Nosler book has listed 3,100 fps. I believe my velocity should be higher.

My question is it safe to continue to work up my load or should I stop? I want to work up the load to 3,200 fps.

Any feed back would be greatly appreciated.

Larry

 

[Guest]

I don't see any obvious signs of pressure, knowing what I know about your case prep. I suspect your primer pockets are deep enough that the either the anvils are being pushed in a bit and the cups "tophatting" as pressure pushes them out. It's fairly common on the Norma/Weatherby brass, in my experience. You can keep working up if you have no other signs (cratering, stiff bolt lift, gas seepage) but keep a careful eye on it and use a chronograph. Notice how smooth and round your primer strikes and even the mildly tophatted edges are still rounded, not at all sharp or angular. I wouldn't worry as long as I was using a chronograph and current published data.

Also, if you don't get the results you're after with RL22, you might try H1000, as I've had excellent results in my 300Wby with H1k and 180gr bullets.

 

[FOTIS]

Tilt the can man. No worries.

 

[Ridge_Runner]

fed primers have a soft cup, a ballistician at sierra told me if slightly flattened fed primers are your only sign, disreguard it till you see another sign of pressure.
load it up till you see either 3200 fps or heavy bolt lift, your still 3.5 gr. under hodgdons published max load.
RR

 

[DrMike]

Your primers show no obvious signs of pressure. You can increase charge judiciously. Your velocity is not that much below what is commonly seen. What was your standard deviation?

 

[Polaris]

I agree with above. Your primers look quite normal. With overpressure loads you will typically see some deformation of the case head on the bolt face either into the extractor groove or a slight shineyness radially across the stamping.

As for the lower than expected velocity, this is probably due to your test conditions IE powder lot, temperature, chamber dimensions, throat specs, etc etc being different than those the data was worked up in.

 

[Mud]

Thanks for the feed back!

I'm still very green when comes to reloading. I have only done about 50 of my own hand loads. I'm taking every sign seriously. The last thing I want to do is be at range and have an accident.

I think I will pick up a different powder and start experimenting. This reloading stuff is addictive.

DrMike: I have only measured 3 shots. They were:

2987
2962
2987

I believe you need a sample size of 10 shots to get an accurate standard deviation.

Thanks again for the feed back.

Larry

 

[DrMike]

If an SD is massive, it will often be evident from as few as three shots. Ten is a minimum to speak with any authority, but three is indicative. Those three represent relatively tight groupings, which would give me reason to focus on them as the base from which to work. You are displaying good bench technique, I daresay.