How to give yourself a headache

[Harrylee]

Well here I go again with my curiosity, most of the time my mind won’t shut down. So anyway I was thinking about gun powders and burn rate. Now we will all look at the burn rate charts and they list fast to slow but that’s it, no other info is given. So I decided to do a test of my own, doing the tests was the easy part. Doing all the video editing was another story, slow computer and self taught for the software and mistakes in editing made this take what seems like ever like voice-over track, adding text layers, putting in a stop watch and synchronize to frames, and oh yeah hit the button and SH!T where did it all go moments. So being the smart and hard-headed guy I am and many hours later I finally got it done. Now I never saw anyone do this the way I did , so looks like I may be the first one on the block to do it this way



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mco0mvxW2gA

[Ed M]

Fascinating - nice work!

I reload 9mm, and this backs up my observation that 231 (actually HP38) is the cleanest powder I've used....

[Bawanna]

Nice effort as usual Harry. I can appreciate the time and effort and Advil expended to put that together.

EdM's post is interesting to me as I use 231 in 45 and 45 Colt and I've thought of trying something different as it runs pretty dirty for me. Maybe I need to up the load a bit or something.........

I actually haven't been shooting enough lately and haven't reloaded in a long time. I made a pretty good pile last time I did.
I need to sort out a good 45 Colt load though, getting way low on that.

[Harrylee]

Bawanna are you getting any black carbon around the cases? If you are then the charge is to low to seal the case and you’ll get blow back from the carbon back into the gun. Which will make clean up more work. Got me a 8lb. Jug of CFE Pistol that I haven’t opened yet, may have to pop it open and do a burn test on. I’ll put up the results when I do, maybe this weekend.

[Bawanna]

That's exactly what I'm getting, black carbon on the cases. I had planned to up the load on both 45 and 45 Colt next time I load.

Thanks for the confirmation.

[wyntrout]

Very interesting, Harrylee! Thanks for your work and posting this. This reminds me of my lifelong obsession with gunpowder... from age 8, at least, in 1954. Back then my initial "testing" was with dud firecracker powder... hated to see it wasted! There were a lot of duds and I collected the powder for all kinds of experiments, including my own firecrackers and "crackerballs".

[gb6491]

Harrylee,
Thank you for another excellent video presenting very useful info. As before, I'd like express my appreciation for the time and effort involved in making this happen.

I do like knowing which powders do leave the least amount of residue and (from your previous video) which bullets/powder work best to keep the smoke down, but of late I've been thinking about just the opposite in regards to smoke. I happened to stumble upon a couple of videos in regards to using black powder in 45 ACP loads for the 1911.
I find myself liking the idea of keeping some of those in my range bag for those days when you need a "walk off home run" type of ending.
First of those vids

Regards,
Greg

[gb6491]

The second video:

[wyntrout]

I just watched a couple of these, but this one shows some burn rate differences with smokeless vs. black powder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTAKr3Y2EV0

[Harrylee]

Now another interesting thing here, I have all the after burn photos and you see the left over residue on the glass. And you can’t hardly scrap it off with you finger nail, you may think the stuff is etched into the glass. And really the glass barely got warm, I tested that before I started.
But the left over residue is some tough stuff and would take work with a razor to clean it off. So there is a product I use a lot called Dirtex and is called a multi surface cleaner (best glass cleaner you’ll ever find) so for the residue I sprayed that on gave it maybe 5 seconds and 90% of it would come of then hit it with a razor for the rest. Now I wouldn’t trust it to be safe on the polymer parts of a gun but it maybe be a great barrel and slide cleaner. Most Home Depot or Lowes have it in the paint section or paint stores, it’s commercial grade cleaner.