doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Anyone know the story behind this?

Mike,
I have no direct knowledge of stainless steel barrels, I don't own any. John Krieger is my barrel maker of choice, he has made the last three I have purchased, including a M70 Featherweight. That is probably where I got the idea. I spent quite a bit of time talking with him at an NRA convention in Texas a few years ago. Here is what he says (bottom of page):

http://www.kriegerbarrels.com/RapidCat/c...;CompanyId=1246

It is noteworthy that Lilja disagrees:

http://www.riflebarrels.com/faq_lilj...ls.htm#subzero

However, other qualified people think stainless and cold weather is an issue, here are some threads:

http://yarchive.net/gun/barrel/barrel_steel.html

https://24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/3142153/1

For me, this is just another one of those safety margin things.

So it boils down to a double charge?

Hmmm.

Guess it can catch up with anyone!

Way back when I bought my first 44 mag, I was at the loading bench stuffing some cast bullet loads. Looked into a charged case and realized there was a lot of extra room. Made me think about how easy it would be to double charge.

About 40 years ago when I first started reloading, I did just the opposite. I was loading a batch of 44 Russian and failed to check the charge on at least one.
Long story short, I put a nice bulge about three inches from the muzzle in a New Model #3 Smith with documented Texas Ranger provenance complete with the original leather. Broke my heart and it still does.

Since then I've been anal about checking my charges sometimes 2-3 times before seating the bullet...and a few times I've caught myself throwing a double charge. I'm just glad nobody was seriously hurt in the above incident....but for the grace of God...

Today I let the old Smith reside at the Texas Rangers museum in Waco.


Art

When I was a freshman in college I talked myself into a job helping a central CA sporting goods store reload .38 Spl. ctgs on contract for the county sheriff's dept to practice and qualify on. To save money the contract required that we use Bullseye only. Knowing that there was a possibility of a double charge from our primordial automatic loading machine (in those days about every gunshop and smith had a blown-up K-Smith of one model or another on display), we tried to develop a sampling and weighing method to detect and avoid any double charges. I kept submitting these "Cro-Magnon SPC" programs to my Biometry prof (who was after all "just" a statistician who worked on plants and animals) and he kept shooting them down. We never did get it right and finally told the dept. that either they started using a bulkier powder or we would not bid on the next contract. They refused and sure enough, the next year a K-38 blew its topstrap into the ceiling. Officer was only speckled with powder grains. Determined later that it WASN'T a double charge but a regular charge fired on top of a stuck bullet caused by a no-charge (primer just blew the bullet into the barrel throat). Too little plus just right equaled too much....

I guess the moral is double check each load with a scale and sit the bullet in the checked ctg. case neck so that no more powder CAN be put in. Very slow way to load; fortunately us retired guys have all the time in the world to go along with our dangerous short term memory losses!

Fortunately I was loading light and nothing let go....just backed up one behind it but nevertheless...
Art

Found this on the Beartooth Forum:

For H108 Powder:

The following are the printed Hodgdon recommend max. loads which indicates, "Starting loads should be used when developing a load. We recommend beginning 10% below maximums show above."

The text will be bullet description, powder weight, fps


32-40
*202gr. POPE, 12.6gr., 1368 fps
*204gr. Miller, 12.5gr., 1353 fps
*196gr. Hoch, 11.0gr. 1301 fps
* Bullets breech seated


Wow!

31 GRAINS????????????

Holy Toledo!!!! More than a double charge!!!!! Maybe set the scale to 31 instead of 13?

If Altamaha is correct, that may have been a COMPRESSED more-than-double charge! (Don't have any H108 to check how it fills a .32-40 case; anybody tried this?). Small bomb....

It should fit OK, as many other loads of slower powders for the 32-40 on the data I saw were around 29 or so grains. H108 is either small flakes or spheres, so it goes in the case like water. I used H110 years ago for pistol loads, it metered nicely through the measure.

When I was into pistol loading, my procedure was to charge the case, look into the case mouth for an overcharge, then put the case in the press and seat the bullet. The case never left my hand once it was charged, it went right to the press for the bullet. Can't do this with a progressive, but I never got into that.

Loading at the range may have been involved here. I never did this, as it is far too easy to become distracted. I know some gents like to use the same cases for consistency, but IMHO loading at the range is another disaster setup.

I built a high wall with a Ron Smith gain-twist bbl in 32-40, it was a heckuva shooter but I was turned off by the large capacity and the stainless steel (10 yrs ago). A friend gave me a 30-357 Maximum reamer and that will be my next Schuetzen.

Lots of fine old rifles are chambered in 32-40; one possibility for safely shooting these old rifles might be to use an 'Everlasting' case with reduced internal capacity to prevent double-charging. For breech-seating using a single case this would be about perfect, the case could even be made out of steel if wanted. IMO a bronze or copper Everlasting case would be a very worthy accessory for any Schuetzen shooting box!
Regards, Joe