StaBall 6.5 SD's better when dropped (volume) vs weighed WTF..?

[CK1.0]

Just as the title says: seems that, for me at least, I get better (lower) SD's using StaBall 6.5 when I just drop it straight into cases with a volumetric powder measure (relatively cheap Lyman Brass Smith) than when I weigh/trickle every single charge to within .001g/.02gr...

Chrono'd some leftover rounds that I had loaded, meticulously, for a match, and found that the SD's I was getting weren't great... even though I had weighed/trickled every single charge to within +/- .02 grains. My charge weight was 41gr, and every single charge was either 41.00 or 41.02 before it went into a case.

I got an average SD of 15 over 10 rounds. Shot another 10rds over the chrono... and got an average SD of 18.

Seemed wonky... I had seen better SD's than that when just testing 5-10 rounds here and there, but realized that this was probably the first time I had bothered to properly chrono the precisely-weighed loaded rounds.

So I had 20 "practice only" rounds left over that I had loaded before the others, that I just dropped straight into cases (dropping powder like this for 100 rounds only takes about 10-15 minutes, and that's going slow). Shot 10 over the chrono: average SD 6fps. Shot the last 10: SD 8.

I have noticed that when weighing every charge: the drops straight from the measure are almost freaky accurate. I'm using 41 grains, and once I'm up and running, maybe 6-7 out of every 10 drops are dead nuts on, and the rest are pretty much always within .05gr... every once in a while one will be off by +/- 0.1gr, but 99.9% of the time I don't see any more variation than that.

An example of what I might see on the scale after the drops over 20rds usually looks something like:
41.00, 41.00, 41.00, 41.02, 41.00, 41.04, 41.00, 40.08, 41.06, 41.00, 41.02, 41.02, 41.08, 41.00, 41.06, 41.10, 41.02, 41.00, 41.04, 41.00

Thinking I might just go back to just dropping the stuff...

Anyone notice anything like this with StaBall? Is this a "ball powder thing" I'm not aware of? Found this: http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2015/04/weight-vs-volume-the-great-debate/. ...but seems there's not a lot of info out there...

TIA

 

[Mike Casselton]

Maybe your scale is inaccurate...

Dropping ball powders is very consistent so that's why your SD dropped

 

[CK1.0]

Maybe your scale is inaccurate...

Dropping ball powders is very consistent so that's why your SD dropped

I don't think it's the scale, I'm using a 0.001g resolution scale (Ohaus SPX123) on filtered power, sitting on a 40lb granite surface plate. I helped my buddy load some Dasher/Varget rounds on it within days of the other stuff and they yielded an SD of 4 on 1x fired brass.

I've been reading a few articles on "volume vs mass" now (mostly having to do with cooking and baking, not reloading), and it's starting to seem like there might actually be something to it (with cooking/baking at least hahaha).

There seems to be a phenomenon where some chefs believe, depending on the ingredient, even though mass should always be more precise, with certain recipes the precision you want will differ from the precision you get with mass, with repeatable results remaining more consistent when using volume.

That said, in one of the cooking articles, I found this: "Using mass for baking is also more precise. Depending on how it's packed, a cup of flour can weigh anywhere from around four ounces (113 grams) to six ounces (170 grams), a difference of 50%! This can have a real effect on the food. Weighing your flour and other dry ingredients eliminates this variation." (https://www.seriouseats.com/why-mass-weight-is-not-better-than-volume-cooking-recipes)...

I asked my wife about that ^ (she's literally a professional award-winning baker) and she says: "Yes and no... different brands of flour act differently, which is why I have to use special flour for certain things, and with some brands we always weigh it, while with others', the stuff doesn't turn out right unless we use the measuring cups"...

IDK. Weird... Yes, I know this cooking stuff might have nothing to do with smokeless powder, but does seem like things can get murky when it comes to measuring "ingredients".

 

[Jscb1b]

What cartridge and bullet are you using?

 

[acudaowner]

try it again if you get the same results you found a winner run with it , I liked how the 6.5 stabal shot , but I always ended up with slower speeds at least till I got to the 43.6 area then the speeds picked up to get me in the 2700 with a 140 gr pill which was and is more powder than I wanted to use to get to that speed and beyond .

 

[CK1.0]

What bullet are you using?

Barnes Match Burners .243 112gr

...but holy shit, you just made it even more wonky... it just clicked that with the precisely-weighed "match" rounds, those bullets were all measured to within 0.02gr of each other, not so with the "practice" rounds, which were just however they came out of the box (so within ~1-2 whole grains or so).

 

[Jscb1b]

Speed?

 

[CK1.0]

try it again if you get the same results you found a winner run with it , I liked how the 6.5 stabal shot , but I always ended up with slower speeds at least till I got to the 43.6 area then the speeds picked up to get me in the 2700 with a 140 gr pill which was and is more powder than I wanted to use to get to that speed and beyond .

Yeah, I'm going to have to run a mini experiment to know if it's a coincidence or for real... just wondering if anyone else besides me had noticed anything wonky as well...

I've always found StaBall slow also, but for what I'm doing (a "slow" 6 creed ~2900fps with a healthy jump), slow is ok. I find that 41gr of StaBall roughly equals maybe ~38-39gr of H4350.

 

[CK1.0]

Speed?

2833fps@79degF

 

[atepointer]

When I used to check my StaBall drops I'd get within .02 on a digital or a needle width on my Redding #2. Honestly I have no idea what my SDs are right now that was 1800 rounds ago at load dev and sitting around a chrono doing testing is about as enticing to me as pulling fingernails so I won't know until I swap out barrels. So, when I used to weigh they were in agreement with each other. My elevation spreads were less than half an IPSC target height at 1 mile Wednesday fire forming a new batch of Lapua. I don't even do test throw measures any longer I just fill, tap the powder over the baffle and chunka. 43.8 straybalz, Fed 210, Lapoo and hamBerger Hybrid 140s are magic in the Proof 6.5 pre-fit. So as far as I can tell or as much as it matters to me my SDs are likely still single digit which is what they were on load dev day....which amounted to about 10 shots using the same load I used on my RPR and Bergara....want to say it was 7 or 8 SD. I recall being told early on if I see single digit consistent SDs it's good enough go shoot.....so that's what I dun did. I loves me some StaBall. I've either had 3 unicorn barrels in a row or StaBall makes up for my lack of reloading talent....whatever the case I ani't changin!

 

[Mike Casselton]

Re: baking vs reloading,
I totally get what you're saying about recipes but there is a difference in technique and the medium being used.

In baking, the measuring device is packed/pressed full and then leveled off.
You can get large variations due to the way it's packed and even the speed that is leveled off.

Dropping powders from a measure, especially ball powders is almost fool proof.
Almost.
The powder flows into the metering drum via gravity and its own weight above. We can't control gravity, but by using a baffle, the weight pressing down on to the powder remains very constant.

The metering drum will fill the same way unless the person operating the measure changes speed or does the three taps on top thingy.
Even doing different tempo/tapping, ball powder flows quickly and consistently.
(Honestly, it flows a lot like water in a measure)
Most times the scale will still show a consistent weight regardless of technique.

If you're using flake or stick type powders, all bets are off on consistency.
That's why lab grade scales and trickling up are being used.

I've actually started to despise powder charging using H-4350 simply because it's agonizingly slow with the Chargemaster.
Recently, I used some StaBall in my 6-BR with fantastic results. I dropped the powder using my Harrell's BR measure and realized how simple and happy I could be if I went to using ball powder in my 6.5.
Got more StaBall and now I need to remember to make a call and order a larger Harrell's and get my sanity back.


Back to baking. Some times the recipe calls for weighing, some times it's by volume. Regardless, your wife will use the technique that her personal experience has shown works the best. It may go against conventional wisdom. It might just go against CURRENT favor.

But, she trusts the results because they speak for themselves.

Now, if 0900 will hurry up, I can make that phone call to order my new Harrell's.

Thanks for the reminder.


One last thing, remember that minute (my noot ) variations in powder weight will make a noticeable difference in velocity.
Moisture content within the powder can and will have an effect on its actual weight.

What do I mean?

Let's use H-4350 as an example.

41.5gr is 41.5 grains, right?

By weight, the answer is yes.
By volume, probably not.

You'll end up with more powder by volume if the moisture content is low.

If the moisture content is high, you'll have less volume of powder.

What will the actual variation be? It's not a lot, but it can be measured on the chronograph and the pressure test barrel. It can be enough to see variations in performance.

Look at it this way: volume is volume and it doesn't change regardless of its weight.

Considering that 4350 doesn't drop worth a rat's ass from a measure, we'll now switch to our lovely ball powder.
If 41.5 grains of StaBall by volume contains 6855 actual granuals of powder, (no, I didn't count them, I just pulled the number out of my back side) then for the sake of argument it will always have the same number +/- just a few.


If measuring by weight, then moisture content comes into the equation and can easily change the 6855 granuals up or down a measurable amount, since the granuals are very small.

When you raise the moisture content, you get less powder in the case because of its weight. Velocity goes down.

Less moisture = more powder. Velocity goes up.


Volume is the one constant here because it controls the number of powder granuals that are dispensed regardless of its actual weight.

Again, using stick
powders, volume dropping just sucks.



If you really want to go down a useless rabbit hole, read up on "powder drying."

 

[Aftermath]

I don't think it's the scale, I'm using a 0.001g resolution scale (Ohaus SPX123) on filtered power, sitting on a 40lb granite surface plate. I helped my buddy load some Dasher/Varget rounds on it within days of the other stuff and they yielded an SD of 4 on 1x fired brass.

I've been reading a few articles on "volume vs mass" now (mostly having to do with cooking and baking, not reloading), and it's starting to seem like there might actually be something to it (with cooking/baking at least hahaha).

There seems to be a phenomenon where some chefs believe, depending on the ingredient, even though mass should always be more precise, with certain recipes the precision you want will differ from the precision you get with mass, with repeatable results remaining more consistent when using volume.

That said, in one of the cooking articles, I found this: "Using mass for baking is also more precise. Depending on how it's packed, a cup of flour can weigh anywhere from around four ounces (113 grams) to six ounces (170 grams), a difference of 50%! This can have a real effect on the food. Weighing your flour and other dry ingredients eliminates this variation." (https://www.seriouseats.com/why-mass-weight-is-not-better-than-volume-cooking-recipes)...

I asked my wife about that ^ (she's literally a professional award-winning baker) and she says: "Yes and no... different brands of flour act differently, which is why I have to use special flour for certain things, and with some brands we always weigh it, while with others', the stuff doesn't turn out right unless we use the measuring cups"...

IDK. Weird... Yes, I know this cooking stuff might have nothing to do with smokeless powder, but does seem like things can get murky when it comes to measuring "ingredients".

What flavor of icing are you using on your freshly cooked up rounds? Do you change it to the flavor of the month or is this a tried and true favorite that you just go with?

 

[CK1.0]

I’m going to try loading up 50 rounds split 25/25 dropping vs weighing/trickling using cases and bullets as uniform as I can and see what I get…

I’ve been using StaBall for a while now, but was only dropping it for the longest… guess I figured it’d only be better putting in the time to weigh/trickle, but surprisingly that hasn’t been the case, so it might not be worth bothering with.

I don’t know if it has made any difference, but I did clean my dies just before loading the weighed/trickled stuff and think I accidentally added ~.002” more shoulder bump than my usual 0.0015-.002” bump (had a couple light strikes that went off on the second try), so I need to eliminate that variable and rule that out before I’ll trust what I’m seeing going forward.

 

[Mike Casselton]

Staball gets better the closer you run to 62ksi.

Most data for the 6.5 Manbun shows max at 44.0

Not sure what it is with the 6mm version.

My personal experience is that ball powders shine best when driven to max safe pressure for the cartridge it's being used in.

I'll be doing two experiments with it in the 7-08/162 ELDM and a 250 Savage. Plans are to use 100-120gr projectiles in the 250. Hopefully it'll wake the old girl up.

 

[Snaz]

Staball gets better the closer you run to 62ksi.

This has been my experience with it in 260. I'm getting lower single digit SDs with staball than H4340 behind 147 ELDM & 153.5 LRHT bullets. Hopefully I'll have some 150gr SMKs to try next week.

I haven't tried it in my 6 Creedmoor.

 

[918v]

I love this powder

 

[CK1.0]

Staball gets better the closer you run to 62ksi.

Most data for the 6.5 Manbun shows max at 44.0

Not sure what it is with the 6mm version.

My personal experience is that ball powders shine best when driven to max safe pressure for the cartridge it's being used in.

I'll be doing two experiments with it in the 7-08/162 ELDM and a 250 Savage. Plans are to use 100-120gr projectiles in the 250. Hopefully it'll wake the old girl up.

This has been my experience with it in 260. I'm getting lower single digit SDs with staball than H4340 behind 147 ELDM & 153.5 LRHT bullets. Hopefully I'll have some 150gr SMKs to try next week.

I haven't tried it in my 6 Creedmoor.

I think you guys are onto something, I agree that it gets really good loaded close to max. I went up to 45.5 grains in 6 creed, and from 43 grains on up it becomes boringly predictable (and I mean that in the best possible way). I just found that I didn't need all the speed for what I'm doing.

Thing is though, on the lower end, ball-powders are also less sensitive to case fill than stick-powders, so while better case fill is usually better as a rule, StaBall seems to work a lot better when trying to run a slower load than what I got when running something like a ~38-39gr H4350 load...

FWIW, I shot 50 rounds yesterday of my "meticulously loaded & weighed" stuff and it shot great... so I
am starting to think it is a real possibility that the wonky SD numbers I saw were more a product of my shoulder bump being fucked up than the powder being more consistent by volume vs weight...

BUT, regardless, from what I've read on my scale when weighing out my last ~500rds or so, combined with what I've seen down range at distances out to 1250 yards: all things being equal, if one chooses and has a consistent powder-drop technique going, one can totally just drop this stuff straight into cases and expect 99% of their rounds to be as good as weighed/trickled stuff.

I have a Dillon I use for high-volume pistol stuff a few feet away from the single-stage on my bench... and I'm starting to think messing with the conversion nonsense to pump out a bunch of rifle stuff might be worth it again, IDK...

 

[brianf]

Accuracy of volumetric measuring is directly related to blend uniformity and standard deviations of particle/ball size.

think if it as fines and granular and the percentage of each per blend and then per lot number.

depending on internal processes there are most likely several batches of powder (1000 pounds each for example) that are combined to make a lot number of 3000 pounds for consumers. Numbers are just for example.

internally they most likely screen the product and choose different batches depending on particle size, then putting those together for the finished product. super fine and super fat may get reprocessed for example.

the better the process control the better the uniformity the better / more consistent the final product.

There’s a lot more to it like surface area etc but that the basics on compounding “mixing” solids.

With that being said if the rounds your loading really count…use a scale because you don’t know when you get a “different” blend.