How do you all judge a compressed load? If I shake a cartridge and hear powder moving am I in the clear? Or is that not a reliable method?
- Thread starter thepatchcable
- Start date
Not sure what you mean by "in the clear"- because a compressed load can be safe, and a load that you can hear moving in the case can be over pressure. But as stated you can hear/feel it. Or you can tell if after you charge the case and the powder is all the way up to the neck where the bullet needs to be that it's going to have to compress.
If you can hear the powder moving then it is not a compressed load-
If you can hear the powder moving then it is not a compressed load-
My AR TMK load is compressed but no pressure signs, etc. been shooting it for a few years.
If you can hear powder moving, it's not remotely compressed. And yes I can also hear crunch a few tenths after compression starts in a Creedmoor case (size included for reference, smaller cases have a smaller margin between no compression and crunch).
Because I shoot extruded powders in bottleneck rifle cartridges, my personal "red flag" on compression is when my COAL starts to grow with increased powder charge, and no change on my seater die setting. This basically means the powder column is resisting the bullet seating sufficiently that the bullet doesn't get as far down into the case. I'll always back off from this point, and break down those rounds.
I would NOT use this method on ball powders, or on any handgun charges with flake powder. Ball powder is highly sensitive to compression, you'll get a large pressure spike as soon as compression begins, and I can't really imagine getting enough flake powder into a handgun case to get compression without blowing the whole gun apart, but of course there's a cartridge and an action out there somewhere designed to do just that. People are people, and bigger is always attractive, even if it's not better...
Because I shoot extruded powders in bottleneck rifle cartridges, my personal "red flag" on compression is when my COAL starts to grow with increased powder charge, and no change on my seater die setting. This basically means the powder column is resisting the bullet seating sufficiently that the bullet doesn't get as far down into the case. I'll always back off from this point, and break down those rounds.
I would NOT use this method on ball powders, or on any handgun charges with flake powder. Ball powder is highly sensitive to compression, you'll get a large pressure spike as soon as compression begins, and I can't really imagine getting enough flake powder into a handgun case to get compression without blowing the whole gun apart, but of course there's a cartridge and an action out there somewhere designed to do just that. People are people, and bigger is always attractive, even if it's not better...
Me too, compression doesnt really bother me in a rifle as far as pressure goes *if the powder burn rate and bullet weight are in agreement with each other* until the bullet no longer can go where I want it to be.
