450BM pistol loads???

[Jmeier1981]

Any of you reloading gurus loading specifically for pistols or SBR's?
Ive got a buddy that loads a bunch of ammo for our rifles and he uses 250g or 275g Barnes XPB bullets and lilgun powder...

I was just wondering if there was a better powder for shorter barrels. Maybe something that might be a quicker burn and get a little more velocity in the shorties. Ive got a 9" and a 10.5" 450 pistol if that helps any

[plant_one]

honestly - i dont think there's any powder thats going to both cycle a pistol length barrel'ed AR and still not blow a huge fireball out of the end of the tube while maintaining a safe pressure curve.

its just the nature of trying to ignite roughly 37-42 grains of powder... you need barrel length to burn it up in a safe fashion.

being that lil-gun is the fastest burning powder on the list of common powders in the group commonly used for this caliber... its quite likely that going to something like h110, 4227 or 1680 isnt going to help, and is as likely to give you slower results with an even bigger fireball.






just out of curiousity - what kind of velocity are you getting with those barrels & lil gun?

[Jmeier1981]

I have no idea, havent ever chronoed any... I just built the 9" last year and only ran factory Hornady ammo through it. All the reloads have been used for rifle set ups.
But Im building a 10.5" side charge pistol now and was just wondering if anybody had played with any other combos in shorter barrels[*]

[Bmt85]

I haven't really done much reloading for my 12.5" BHW yet, except some 225 FTX plinking loads. I also have a 10.5" X-Caliber barrel that I haven't even built yet. The 10.5" is going to be for mainly subs, but I'll probably play with supers a bit, just to see.

You could try faster powders in the short barrel's, something like Enforcer/4100, maybe even Accurate No.9 or IMR 4227 with lighter bullets. I'd like to see a comparison to normal powders. In my opinion, there probably isn't much to gain. From what I have seen, Lil Gun usually gets better velocity for the same pressures as powders that are a little slower and a little faster than it. Now when talking about the 275 TSX or XPB, I feel that Lil Gun is right at the edge of being too fast. Members loading with it are getting great numbers, but I have a feeling you can pick up a little bit more going to a slower powder, especially loading long in the longer barrels. My guess, something like SBR Socom.

So, like I said, I don't think you will gain much, if anything. If you do decide to try it, let us know what you find out. I'm also curious what velocities you get with those barrel length's in general.

[LeaderOfThePack]

I know something about Vihtavuori powders, and think that N105 mentioned in Sierra manual review next to this topic is quite fast burning powder. (For 185-200gr bullets) Even N110 is used for example in 357 mag also.