doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Could you share your light load nitro formulas?

2-Piper, SOunds like you were lacking powder in that 7625 Duck Hunt load.
At the same velocities Duponts Charts indicate that 7625 has the same pressures that 2 F black does. CHeck out the Black vs Smokeless articles by Sherman Bell in the SUmmer 2002 page 25. As his tests below indicate for a 3 dr 1 1/8 oz load , 7625 and Black
have the same pressure curve.


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Regarding IMR 7625. It has never failed me. I have used it exclusively for 2.5" 12ga. loads for a long time. I have never found a reason to use anything else. There is plenty of load data for it on the site for 2.75" loads. There has been some discussion about higher pressure in 2.5" using 2.75" load data. If you believe this, then just drop your load down to 7000 psi. Most older 2.5" Brit guns are proved to about 8700 psi. The stuff works in temps down to about 50� very well. Below that I don't know. Jim

I do not recall the exact load now, but it was taken DIRECTLY from DuPont's handloaders guide, no component substitutes. I fired several of them after loading & they were fine & gave good patterns. While I normally did all me squirell hunting with .22LR's prior to the duck season I did take the shotgun out & shoot a few squirells. These loads were just like Ma Beel, they'd reach out & touch someone. Then came that day in the duck swamp, same batach of loads, all loaded just alike, They weren't lacking powder. Only difference I am aware of was I had shot those squirells in shirt sleeve weather, we had to break ice across some open water to get to the timber in the swamp. Even back in the woods the water was about a � from freezing. Under those conditionss the 7625 just didn't cut it. I do recall they were put up in REM SP hulls, Power Piston Wads & CCI primers. Perehaps other components would have made a difference, but these were from the Book. 1�oz shot @ about 1150fps & 7K psi.
It should be easy to understand Why I am leery of these types of slower powders @ 5K psi when it didn't work for me @ 7.
Take this all for whatever its worth to you, I was just throwing out for an apparent newbie to these types of low pressure loads to be aware of possible shortcomings. I see no reason to retract any of it.

Your warnings about low-pressure loads are quite on point. There's a certain break-point (for lack of a better name) below which all one will get is a blooper, gobs of plastic spaghetti in the bores, half-burned powder, lots of acrid smoke and a wad hanging out the choke. If you do it right, like I did when I started reloading, you'll even get to watch the shot charge as it flies out the barrel like a rainbow and hits the roof of the trap house, doing no damage to the shingles. And then you get to go, red-faced, to the scorer's chair to get the ramrod to remove the wad from your barrel.

Or worse, you don't notice the obstruction.

That break point is at some point where the pressure gets too low for the ambient temperature and the powder does not burn properly. Smokeless requires confinement to burn properly, and confinement means pressure. So, loading too light can be just as bad if not worse than loading too hot.

Thank You Dave;
It surely does seem there are a lot of folks around who don't understand this reasoning. The simple fact is the slower the powder the more deterrant it has, making it harder to ignite & burn. It can give great results at some temps but totally fail when a combination of low pressures & low tamps coincide.

I didn't get it at first, and had to learn the hard way. Thankfully, the only damage was to my ego.

Here is some great information from Hodgdon concerning powder burn rates. I'd always believed to get the lowest pressures you went for the slowest burning powders. But according to this chart some of the "hottest" powders are amoung the slowest burning. Example RETUMBO 138 out of 145 a slow burner but a powder for magnum rifles.

http://hodgdon.com/burn-rate.html

As has been stated above, there are lots of low pressure loads offered by the Alliant/Hodgden etc. I use Clay Dot in a 7/8 oz load at around 6,500 psi. Always stick to the published loads and you won't go wrong.

Skeettx
The pressure for the federal paper SO wadded &/8 oz with 17.5 grains of bullseye is less than 6000 at 1200 fps as I recall. This was a published load in the handloader some time back. I will go back through my files and see if I can find it. There were other loads in this article but this one was the best performing for core density and pattern as well as having one of the lower pressures. The biggest problem is getting the components especially once fired paper federal papers. The SO wads can be difficult to find. I always used federal primers but then they seem to be a challange also in the current market. No bloopers constant performer the real varible comes with using the hull after it starting to crap out,ie pin holes,poor crimp 3-5 seem to be max on the cycle.
regards john

To compensate for cold-weather issue, I keep enough 7625 loads in my jacket pockets.