Dakbroadbent
01-30-2009, 09:43 PM
Hi Guys
I had decided to use 231 instead of Unique, mostly because of the smoke in indoor shooting. I got out the "One Book/One Caliber" but the data looked strange,so I made a plot of powder weight vs velocity and it looks like two different powders. For example; Hornaday max is 6.5 gr but Winchester max is 5.5gr. for about the same velocity. I dug up some really old data, Ken Waters Pet Loads/ Handloader Magazine (1978) where he tried 5.0 and 6.0 gr and reported that 5.0 gr would not function reliably in his test gun. I tried a load listed on the Hodgdon Website of 4.4 gr and it functioned fine in my 1911's. That makes me think that there really are two set of loading data, one for an "old" powder and one for a "new" powder. Maybe Hodgdon changed the powder formulation when they took over making 231.
The data from the current Hodgdon Website should be the newest (4.4 gr/771 fps and 5.6 gr/914 fps). But the Third Edition of the Lyman P&R Handbook (2004) still has what I think is "old" data.
This is all data for 200 gr LSWC. What do you guys think ?
I had decided to use 231 instead of Unique, mostly because of the smoke in indoor shooting. I got out the "One Book/One Caliber" but the data looked strange,so I made a plot of powder weight vs velocity and it looks like two different powders. For example; Hornaday max is 6.5 gr but Winchester max is 5.5gr. for about the same velocity. I dug up some really old data, Ken Waters Pet Loads/ Handloader Magazine (1978) where he tried 5.0 and 6.0 gr and reported that 5.0 gr would not function reliably in his test gun. I tried a load listed on the Hodgdon Website of 4.4 gr and it functioned fine in my 1911's. That makes me think that there really are two set of loading data, one for an "old" powder and one for a "new" powder. Maybe Hodgdon changed the powder formulation when they took over making 231.
The data from the current Hodgdon Website should be the newest (4.4 gr/771 fps and 5.6 gr/914 fps). But the Third Edition of the Lyman P&R Handbook (2004) still has what I think is "old" data.
This is all data for 200 gr LSWC. What do you guys think ?