230 grain HAP and Shooters World Range Reports

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230 grain HAP and Shooters World Range Reports

Postby Rklenke » Mon Jun 04, 2018 9:38 pm

I'll start out by saying this was more a quest of economy than of breaking barriers, and I've stuck close to book loads (Hornady and Lee, the former being more conservative). My original goal was to find the cheapest bullet that will hold about 2 MOA with a cheap and economical powder, that I can also use in my other reloading calibers. Also, high velocity is not preferred since I shoot a lot of steel. For some reason I want to convince myself that LilGun is not the end-all-be-all for the 450, so to date I have tried six different (albeit two of those are "equivalents") powders. When Midsouth Shooters Supply does their powder promo (Free HAZMAT w/4 lbs Shooters World) you can really score a good deal depending on what you like to load, so I'll finally get to it.

Shooters World Powders I've tried fast to slow:
Heavy Pistol: AA9 equivalent. Looks promising for the 230 HAP. Also works well in my 10mm, so +1 for compatibility. Meters great.
SBR SOCOM: Supposed to be for the .458 so figured I'd try it. I can't recommend it at all. I've had erratic SDs (in the 40s), high ES (100s) and poor accuracy 230-300 grain. "Book max" did not yield expected velocities. Not worth my resources to keep trying.
Blackout: Supposed to be a 1680 equivalent, but since I've shot 1680, I can say that its a tad faster. E.G. Book max of 1680 (41.7) for 300 grain XTP yielded 1866 avg fps. 40.4 grains Blackout yielded 1890. VERY low S.D. across all groups that I've shot, lowest being 4 FPS, which I shot in an interesting test that I'll likely get to later. Bottom line is I really like this powder for the 300 grain bullets, poor velocities, sooting, and unburned powder with the lighter bullets.

Now on to the HAPs. Since I played around with Blackout, 1680, and SOCOM with other 230 grain FMJ-FP to poor results, I didn't attempt with the HAPS. I stuck with only the fast powders of Heavy Pistol and LilGun.
Bullets were all seated to 2.1" and taper crimped to .474", a tighter crimp being required to hold it from seating itself deeper on feeding. In terms of feeding, I've yet to have a FTF, so the nose profile works well from the magazine.

Heavy Pistol (AA9) work ups:
33 grain - 1897
34 grain - 1905
35 grain - 2033
36 grain - 2083
36.5 grain - 2116* This is near the Lee book max load and is where I stopped. This provided a 1.6" 100yard group. S.D. weren't the best during work ups, but got smaller as the load increased. I have 10 more of these loaded waiting for a sunny day.

LilGun
I had already done workups on LG and settled on 39 grains. These also had a semi-high SD with averages around 2440 fps. My sample 4-shot group size was 2.3", three of them at 1.7". I have 10 more loaded up waiting to again to test.

Other important details to my personal criteria include impact shifts from my sighted in 300 grain XTP load. The Heavy Pistol loads showed most promising at 3" high, centered. The LG patterned 3" high, 3" right.
The Heavy Pistol group was aimed at the center bullseye, the LG group at the bottom left bullseye.
HAPs.jpg
HAPs.jpg (110.86 KiB) Viewed 12388 times

That's it for now until next time I can shoot the HAPs. Another interesting project I experimented on was resizing the 300 grain XTP to .451 with the Lee sizer. This actually yielded marginal, but good results. I loaded 10 identical bullets with 40.4 grains Blackout, same crimp and seat depth, however, 5 of them were control and 5 resized to .451.
.452 - Avg MV 1875, SD 10, group top left
.451 - Avg MV 1890, SD 4, group top right
Also, since you're looking at the picture, bottom right is the SOCOM powder...

XTPs.jpg
XTPs.jpg (111.13 KiB) Viewed 12388 times


I've got a handful of the 275 XPB and 300 grain FTX-ML, but I'll save those for another time.
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Re: 230 grain HAP and Shooters World Range Reports

Postby Hoot » Tue Jun 05, 2018 4:49 am

Great Range Report!

My yet to be published Range Report on those Nosler 230 FMJ-FP had same charge groups of 5 that looked like the sum of your A/B powder shot groups. IE All over the place. The takeaway was I was only crimping them to .476 IIRC. I pulled down the couple left over that were too stiff and even at .476 taper crimp, the bullets were severely "hour-glassed". IMHO, its amazing that they even make the target board.

I have an unopened container of CFE Black that I got for my 7.62x40WT. I assumed it was slower than AA1680 as well based upon Hodgdon's Burn Rate Chart.

You may have just created a project for this coming weekend, weather permitting.

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Re: 230 grain HAP and Shooters World Range Reports

Postby Rklenke » Tue Jun 05, 2018 8:23 am

Speaking of projects, I've gotten myself into way too many bullet powder combinations, but that's the fun of it. Two of the below are factory. HAP is second from the right.

bullets.jpg
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Re: 230 grain HAP and Shooters World Range Reports

Postby Bmt85 » Thu Jun 07, 2018 1:22 pm

Nice job testing. I'm surprised you got slightly higher velocity when downsizing the .452's.

Hoot, as to CFE BLK and Shooter's World Blackout, they are both very similar to 1680, if I remember correctly, just a touch slower. However, all the info I've seen on both powders is that you get much better velocity at the same pressures, and they don't seem to spike, like 1680 does. I actually ran a test using SWB and the 275 TSX, there was a ton of unburnt powder throughout the rifle. That was in my BHW, though. Perhaps people running the Ruger bolt guns, or even an AR barrel using a faster twist rate with standard Enfield rifling (Radical and Faxon), will have good results.
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Re: 230 grain HAP and Shooters World Range Reports

Postby Hoot » Thu Jun 07, 2018 5:48 pm

Bmt85 wrote:Nice job testing. I'm surprised you got slightly higher velocity when downsizing the .452's.

Hoot, as to CFE BLK and Shooter's World Blackout, they are both very similar to 1680, if I remember correctly, just a touch slower. However, all the info I've seen on both powders is that you get much better velocity at the same pressures, and they don't seem to spike, like 1680 does. I actually ran a test using SWB and the 275 TSX, there was a ton of unburnt powder throughout the rifle. That was in my BHW, though. Perhaps people running the Ruger bolt guns, or even an AR barrel using a faster twist rate with standard Enfield rifling (Radical and Faxon), will have good results.


We'll find out this weekend. For Saturday's experiment, I loaded those 300 SST's over equal charges of 1680 and CFE Black. Not surprisingly, they both weigh within .2gr of each other, for the same volume. The most I can fit into a case with the 300 SST seated to 2.27 is 42gr, Contrary to QuickLoad's prediction, that says 42gr is 104% of case capacity. I vibed every charge down before seating and didn't feel/hear any crunching while seating. So the experiment will track four shots each per relay of 39, 40, 41 and 42gr. Velocity is an afterthought. I'm still trying to crack the code on tight groups. I'm almost done with the range report from trying those 300 SSTs over IMR4227. Not bad groups but not exceptional either. If I'm feeling enthusiastic, I may retest a couple of charges using those 245gr Xtreme Penetrators with lighter throws given how fast even the lowest charge clocked last time. Could have been from the .474 taper crimps down into the driving band grooves. We'll see...

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Re: 230 grain HAP and Shooters World Range Reports

Postby Rklenke » Thu Jun 07, 2018 7:08 pm

Bmt85 wrote: I actually ran a test using SWB and the 275 TSX, there was a ton of unburnt powder throughout the rifle.


I had tons of unburnt powder when I tried SWB with the 230 grain HAPs.

Hopefully I can shoot my test loads this weekend with the HAPs. I also loaded up an identical load (32.2 LG under 300gn XTP) that gave me pressure signs and started me on this whole slower powder trail, except I used a downsized .451 XTP. I'm curious to see if I don't see flattened primers this time 'round.
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Re: 230 grain HAP and Shooters World Range Reports

Postby Hoot » Thu Jun 07, 2018 7:57 pm

Rklenke wrote:
Bmt85 wrote: I actually ran a test using SWB and the 275 TSX, there was a ton of unburnt powder throughout the rifle.


I had tons of unburnt powder when I tried SWB with the 230 grain HAPs.

Hopefully I can shoot my test loads this weekend with the HAPs. I also loaded up an identical load (32.2 LG under 300gn XTP) that gave me pressure signs and started me on this whole slower powder trail, except I used a downsized .451 XTP. I'm curious to see if I don't see flattened primers this time 'round.


I've gone down some hairy roads with my loads but I can't recall the last time I had a Rem 7 1/2 flattened in this caliber. Maybe had a slight leveling off but the corner radius hadn't changed. My 7.62x40WT sure likes to flatten and blow 7 1/2 primers just when its getting up to speeds I want it to be able to do. :| I did have one primer in this upcoming experiment, which is the 3rd firing of 32 of those Starlines, which was a little looser than I prefer. Not like you could poke it out with a toothpick, but I likes 'em tight. Image On some of the Starline cases, I definitely saw that line in the reflection of the cases, just above the web, where head growth had occurred. For the first time, when raking the inside of the Starline cases down just above the web with a right angle dental pick, I felt one where there was a slight thinning. It is now in the pile of cases I use for testing stab crimp setups, before applying them to the live rounds. Speaking of which. A few years back, I went through a phase of trying 300 grainers with slow powders. I tried single and double stab crimps in an effort to hold the bullet back longer, getting the powder cooking as much as possible before starting down the barrel. Even tried loading 300gr XTP Mag bullets into the lands to drive up the pressure, but that and the long ride down the barrel, still wasn't enough to get 1680 clocking, so I don't know what I'm hoping to achieve this time around. Some mistakes you just have to make twice. I do know those resized 325gr, .458 FTX bullets sure liked 1680! If money was of no consequence, I'd buy and try some of those 325gr Barnes Busters.

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Re: 230 grain HAP and Shooters World Range Reports

Postby Rklenke » Thu Jun 07, 2018 8:52 pm

Hoot, I had extractor issues the same time I had those flattened primers. I don't know if those things were related, but I haven't had flattened primers since I got a better extractor. I also haven't shot the loads that flattened primers since, so I may revisit that. Also, did you ever post your .458 325 grain FTX range report? I've got too much 1680 and not enough bullets to use it with. :D
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Re: 230 grain HAP and Shooters World Range Reports

Postby Bmt85 » Thu Jun 07, 2018 9:05 pm

Do either of you have 4198 to test with the 300gr bullets?
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Re: 230 grain HAP and Shooters World Range Reports

Postby Rklenke » Thu Jun 07, 2018 9:38 pm

I don't. Shooter's World puts their SOCOM powder at the same burn rate, which is why I had such high expectations for it, but I'm sure there's no way to infer all of its burn properties based on a similar burn rate. I may go back to trying the SOCOM powder later, but for now it's been shelved.
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