Low Power in fully loaded cartridge

[Grapeshot]

Here's one for you.  Last year I loaded a bunch of .45 Schofield rounds with different weight bullets I had laying around.  I was using a charge of 1.9cc's of Pinacle and using a Winchester Large Pistol Primer to light them off with.

I did not have any problem with the three hundred 185 grain .452 WC's or the 250 grain .454 RNFP bullets.  But when I got around to shooting the 230 grain .454 RNHB bullets, that when things got weird.

I had a 10 percent low performance rate with this particular bullet / powder combination.  Most went off with authority but the rest barely made the gun jump when fired.

To top it all off there was a large ammount of fouling left in the case, and after I washed the cases out I noticed that the inside of the case, below the bullet line, where the powder charge was. had turned copper colored.  Like the zink in the allow was leached out and left the cop[per behind.

Any chemists out there know what happened here? 

[Dick Dastardly]

Howdy Grapeshot,

Sounds like another classic case of "powder failure".  Since you were using a kiss your sister heathen fad replica powder, I can only assume that for some reason or other the pressure curve fell off enuf that the powder burn was far less than complete.

My only remedy is for you to forsake that heathen stuff and go back to the Genuine Powder, the One True Powder, Holy Black.  At least that's my take on it.  I've never had bp behave like what you describe.  It's simply more civilized. . .

DD-DLoS

[Grapeshot]

I hear you DD.  But here in MD you can not find the real thing and the fire dept frowns on keeping more than a few pounds on premisses, and I go through more than 5 pounds in a season, not to mention the off weekends when I'm practissing or shooting my big bore rifles.  Still think there's a chemical reaction going on here.

[Haggis MacGurk]

Howdy Grapeshot,
                          I'm not real experienced when it comes to the BP subs, but I did a little Google-ing, and found that Pinnacle is an ascorbic acid-based propellant. This lead me to think of a possible answer:
You mentioned that the low power, and heavy fouling/discoloration was present only in cases loaded with the hollow-based bullets, is it possible that excess lube or some other foreign substance in the base of the bullet came in contact with the powder?

This is the only thing I could think of, assuming all other variables were constant, IE loading method, powder quantity, etc.

Not really a complete answer, but it might help towards solving this mystery. I'm not a chemist either, just an Army E-7 with a bit of time on his hands today.

[Grapeshot]

One thing I forgot to mention.  When firing, there were burning embers following the bullets out the barrel.  On one stage, a clump of compressed powder flew over the pistol targets and continued to burn as it sat on the ground for at lease ten seconds.

Looked like a comet going thru the air.

[Noz]

Your last post sounds like a moisture problem. Could the hollow based bullets have allowed moisture to creep in.
Could this bullet style allowed an airspace between top of the hollow and base of the skirt. APP, in storage, does tend to react unfavorably to high humidity.

I loaded some 12 ga shells in a big hurry with damp Pyrodex. The results were unsatisfactory on the targets but spectacular when fired. Large balls of flaming debris. The wads were completely melted. The plastic shells were badly burned with many small to very large holes. The crimp was burned off of all three shells fired. I borrowed some shells to finish the day.

[Dick Dastardly]

Howdy Grapeshot,

I didn't mean to sound snobbish in  my reply, but I came off that way.  I understand the local restrictions on possession and storage of black powder and what that means to us shooters who use it.  Please pardon my rant.

I agree that it sounds like some kind of contamination of the powder.  I "inherited" a bottle of Black Canyon powder some time back.  It had turned into one solid lump.  When I tried to burn it to get rid of it it smoked like Hades and took forever to burn.  Seems that the sugar based stuff loves to get water from the air or anywhere else it can find it and when it does, it changes it's burn rate, usually slower.

I'd suggest some kind of atmospheric dehydration in your powder storage area to "keep yer powder dry". .

Sorry about that,

DD-DLoS

[Grapeshot]

Howdy Grapeshot,

I didn't mean to sound snobbish in  my reply, but I came off that way.  I understand the local restrictions on possession and storage of black powder and what that means to us shooters who use it.  Please pardon my rant.

I agree that it sounds like some kind of contamination of the powder.  I "inherited" a bottle of Black Canyon powder some time back.  It had turned into one solid lump.  When I tried to burn it to get rid of it it smoked like Hades and took forever to burn.  Seems that the sugar based stuff loves to get water from the air or anywhere else it can find it and when it does, it changes it's burn rate, usually slower.

I'd suggest some kind of atmospheric dehydration in your powder storage area to "keep yer powder dry". .

Sorry about that,

DD-DLoS

Don't worry DD, I've got a thick skin.  Your guess that it might be aborbing mosture from the air has some merrit in it as the humidity here in MD is horrendous during the summer.  Even keeping the ammo indoors and in a dry and cool space did not seem to work with this lot of ammo.  I was aways under the impression that once you seated a prime and crimped in a bullet, barring submersion in water, the ammo was relatively moisture proof.

[Montana Slim]

FYI, Someone gave me a can of Black Canyon 10+ years ago.....I had similar results....noticed the powder had "clumped up" a bit and was an uneven color (black/gray). Figured it had absorbed moisture from the air...I took what was left of the powder, spread it out on a cookie sheet and placed in my electric kitchen oven, preheated to warm" and removed after about an hour. Loaded it all up & I must say it worked pretty well after drying it out. It all turned to a consistent gray color.....one of my few adventures with substitute powders.

Many plastic containers absorb moisture. 

Real BP fouling is hygroscopic...not-so-much before you burn it 

Regards,
Slim