herkyguy
Member
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2009
- Messages
- 1,409
So, years ago I bought a pound of 700X for pistol loading. New to reloading at the time and in the middle of the supply crunch in 2013, I was just buying any components I could find. Last week, i finally loaded up my last batch of .38 special and retired the last few grains. A few thoughts on the experience:
1: Until i got the RCBS Chargemaster, I was ready to put my head through a wall when trying to weigh out individual pistol loads to the tenth of a grain. Not only does it meter horrifically, but it somehow manages to clump together at times. Not very friendly, thankfully the chargemaster solved that problem for the most part (and is a huge timesaver loading anything else as well).
2: I've loaded up 9mm, .380, and primarily .38 special loads. With 158 grain lead bullets, my go-to load became 3.5 grains. Per Hornady, I went up to 3.7 grains and got about 50 more fps, but recoil was more stout and my GP100 showed some leading. 3.5 grains gave me a fairly consistent ~800+ fps average velocity.
3: Over the course of 1000+ rounds, I played around with various levels of roll crimping and never really got 700X to burn cleanly. No matter how heavy the crimp, there was always some unburned powder when i got my GP100 home for cleaning. I found it to be sooty to say the least. It was also putting off a good amount of smoke, which I came to kind of enjoy, since it was cool to see a big puff of smoke get carried off by the wind. But it made my GP100 filthy, even with round counts after a shooting session sometimes as low as 50 rounds. At 100+ rounds, the cylinders were getting dirty to the point that new rounds didn't load so smooth.
4: It seemed to be a relatively fast burning powder. From my 6" GP100, there was no muzzle flash and recoil with the 3.5 grain load was commensurate with factory Federal 158 grain lead bullets. Accuracy was just fine. I also fired some loads from my Winchester 1873 in .357 with FMJ 158 grain bullets and found minimal velocity increases with the loads over my GP100.
All in all it was a good learning experience, but I highly doubt I'll pick up another pound unless we go into another powder crunch and it's all i can find.
1: Until i got the RCBS Chargemaster, I was ready to put my head through a wall when trying to weigh out individual pistol loads to the tenth of a grain. Not only does it meter horrifically, but it somehow manages to clump together at times. Not very friendly, thankfully the chargemaster solved that problem for the most part (and is a huge timesaver loading anything else as well).
2: I've loaded up 9mm, .380, and primarily .38 special loads. With 158 grain lead bullets, my go-to load became 3.5 grains. Per Hornady, I went up to 3.7 grains and got about 50 more fps, but recoil was more stout and my GP100 showed some leading. 3.5 grains gave me a fairly consistent ~800+ fps average velocity.
3: Over the course of 1000+ rounds, I played around with various levels of roll crimping and never really got 700X to burn cleanly. No matter how heavy the crimp, there was always some unburned powder when i got my GP100 home for cleaning. I found it to be sooty to say the least. It was also putting off a good amount of smoke, which I came to kind of enjoy, since it was cool to see a big puff of smoke get carried off by the wind. But it made my GP100 filthy, even with round counts after a shooting session sometimes as low as 50 rounds. At 100+ rounds, the cylinders were getting dirty to the point that new rounds didn't load so smooth.
4: It seemed to be a relatively fast burning powder. From my 6" GP100, there was no muzzle flash and recoil with the 3.5 grain load was commensurate with factory Federal 158 grain lead bullets. Accuracy was just fine. I also fired some loads from my Winchester 1873 in .357 with FMJ 158 grain bullets and found minimal velocity increases with the loads over my GP100.
All in all it was a good learning experience, but I highly doubt I'll pick up another pound unless we go into another powder crunch and it's all i can find.