I've been trying to come up with a new recipe for reproducing M193 ball for practice. Following advice I've received from several people, I started testing 748.
I'm finding the 748 loads seem to be awfully dirty. I've got a good bit of soot around the necks and shoulders. The maximum load I tested was a Hornady 55 gr. FMJBT, a Winchester small rifle primer, and 26.2 grains of 748 (the max. listed on the Hodgdon web site).
I experienced something similar back when I was using BLC-2, which is why I'm looking for a new recipe in the first place.
Has anybody else experienced this? I'm wondering if 748 is just on the dirty side, or if the WSR primers aren't quite hot enough to give complete combustion and a magnum primer from a different manufacturer might burn cleaner.
I'm also open to suggestions for substitute powders. I'm looking for either a ball or flake powder that meters smoothly, so the extruded powders I've used in the past (like Varget) are out. Maybe 10X?
Thanks in advance.
I'm finding the 748 loads seem to be awfully dirty. I've got a good bit of soot around the necks and shoulders. The maximum load I tested was a Hornady 55 gr. FMJBT, a Winchester small rifle primer, and 26.2 grains of 748 (the max. listed on the Hodgdon web site).
I experienced something similar back when I was using BLC-2, which is why I'm looking for a new recipe in the first place.
Has anybody else experienced this? I'm wondering if 748 is just on the dirty side, or if the WSR primers aren't quite hot enough to give complete combustion and a magnum primer from a different manufacturer might burn cleaner.
I'm also open to suggestions for substitute powders. I'm looking for either a ball or flake powder that meters smoothly, so the extruded powders I've used in the past (like Varget) are out. Maybe 10X?
Thanks in advance.