Dirty brass???

[Texican Hairless]

Hey guys, I'm relatively new to the 450B and one thing I noticed right away when shooting Hornady factory rounds was the brass was coming out awfully dirty. It makes me think that the brass isn't making a nice seal against the chamber wall. Has anyone else had this occur?

[Hoot]

Hey guys, I'm relatively new to the 450B and one thing I noticed right away when shooting Hornady factory rounds was the brass was coming out awfully dirty. It makes me think that the brass isn't making a nice seal against the chamber wall. Has anyone else had this occur?

Sooting to one degree or another is a common characteristic of this cartridge. You are correct about it not sealing adequately. My experience reloading has been the there is a fine line between when they finally do seal and when they encounter too much pressure. I'd say some of that is attributable to how tight your chamber fit is also. No two of them turn out precisely the same, though within tolerances. I'd guess that about 75% or more of my successful loads don't seal real well and 25% do. I have not seen a tie in to their performance though. I've had some awful shooters seal beautifully and vice versa. Don't let it trouble you as long as the functionality is otherwise what you are looking for. To pass the time while my barrel cools on warmer days, I'll sometimes keep a paper towel with me and wipe off the empties before returning them to my cartridge box. I figure that's less crud to get into my tumbling media.

Hoot

[Texican Hairless]

The gun groups great and it's definitely not hindering accuracy. I'm grouping right at one inch at a 100 yards. I guess it's the nature of the beast like you said, Hoot. It will be interesting to see if my first batch of reloads turn out the same way.

[wildcatter]

Hoot, again, is exactly correct, this "IS" the nature of the beast. The good-news is, there is a trade off, low pressure sooting vs wonderfully exquisite accuracy. Accuracy is a good thing, right? I made a two hundred yard neck shot, on a deer, last fall, (the exposed target was a sub, three inch circle) and when I did it I had perfect confidence, with absolutely no hesitance or reservations at all, that the shot was in the bag, even well before I pulled the trigger.

The higher end loads of lil-gun will greatly reduce the sooting and give some more down range punch, but hey, how much is enough kill-ability, this ain't no wimpy 300 or 338 magnum, .."if it's brown it's down", has never had more meaning to the hunter than the 450b provides. To quote our own, now famous Bushmeister.."I no-longer need tracking skills"!!..

..t