The 45-3.4 test

For fun....mostly.

I think I have beaten a flinch , and tendonitis, with reduced loads. I have a 45 with a slide mount that will run with 3.4 of BE with a h&g130 185 gr lead bullet and an occasional malfunction . It runs better with the 200 #68. So for a test, I ran other powders at 3.4 to see what I got.

The BE control loads ran about 630. Clays got me 550, titegroup, 500 both with 100% malfunctions.

WST had more of a whump with deeper seated 185s, kind of like 700x but l forgot my chrono. The 200s surprisingly had said some hiccups but they were tested last and l suspect wst may be temperature sensitive. Is it? It was about 27f outside.

So why was I testing these? I wanted less smoke for an indoor load. The be is bad, at least with nra 50-50 lube

Thoughts?

PS I had switched over to metallic last summer but didn't consider reducing loads, hence the injury. I did however take the state hardball championship title so something good came out of it. Fnished outdoor season with a 279 hardball CMP score.

Have you tried a coated bullet like buyou or brazo for your indoor loads.  They will be less smoky no mater what powder you use.

most of the smoke you see with lubed bullets is ..... the lube

Bruce, what is your recoil spring? From my experience, any spring below 10# is not strong enough to reliably feed the round from the magazine into the chamber.

jglenn21 wrote:most of the smoke you see with lubed bullets is ..... the lube

I would have thought that too but raising the charge cuts the smoke so I think it's the light be causing it.

Will retry wst and compare, will seat the 200s deeper and look for the whump from 185s and yes on the Brazos as well.

javaduke wrote:Bruce, what is your recoil spring? From my experience, any spring below 10# is not strong enough to reliably feed the round from the magazine into the chamber.

Say hey...it has a 10# in it and does nicely with be loads so the clays and titegroup have, per grain, less energy or slower burning than be or wst, or 700x even.

I am shooting metallic outdoors for now but optics indoors due to variable lighting l run across.

Thanks

Oh yes, anyone know is wst temperature sensitive?

Indeed, WST is reverse temperature sensitive.  You can find several references on various forums.  Here is the link to one - https://forums.brianenos.com/topic/173262-wst-is-temperature-sensitive/

AP