Painless lesson; best practices ignored.

[Jäger]

Been a member and lurking here for three years, just lurking and reading for longer yet.

Thought about putting this in the reloading sub-forum as it is mostly about reloading, but there's a larger reminder here that brings me to share a first post.

I live pretty much in the heart of bear attack country.  Draw a circle with 500 miles radius of my home, and you'll find a large majority of most of the bear attacks that happen, both here in the US and BC/AB to our north where the Continental Divide forms their provincial border.  Bears and cougars wandering through the back yard are pretty common where we live half an hour from the West Gate to Glacier National Park.  So I've been carrying a handgun for a bear wrench when out and about for quite a while now.  Some time ago I made the switch from big bore revolver to pistol, accepting the loss of power that went with instead carrying a very handy Dan Wesson CBOB.  It joined the rest of the Browning herd:



Anyways, Dan Wesson offered to do some work on the feed ramps for both the 40 S&W and 10mm barrels, so back to Keith at Dan Wesson it went.  Great service; didn't cost me a penny for the upgrade.

When the pistol returned, I wanted to confirm all was still good and reliable, but didn't want to shoot my remaining Underwood bear loads until they have more in stock, and had no training reloads prepared and good to go.  So my elk hunting partner gave me a box of his reloads that he uses in his Glock 10mm.  Said they were heavy, but tamer than the Underwood that we use.  In 40+ years of reloading, the only reloads done by somebody else that I've ever used are my Dad's or my brothers - because my brother and I both learned from my father, and we all have the same attitude towards ragged edge reloading for anything.  For once, however, I used somebody else's reloads - my partner is a benchrest competitor who I have never seen reload for maximum velocity ever in the 30 years I have been hunting and shooting with him.  So should be good, just for a magazine or two to confirm before heading out on a three day overnighter.

Out to the range, load a magazine, and set up the chronograph as his died a while ago and he is saving shekels for one of those new radar chronograph.  Loaded the magazine and shot; perfect function, POI right on POA at 25 yards.  Picked up the brass at the bottom of the catcher-curtain I hang when shooting the 10mm - everything looked pretty normal, although he mixes his pistol brass and I don't.

Then I walked out to the chronograph when cease fire was called and did a double take.  For the magazine, average of 1305 fps, Lo of 1302, Hi of 1309, ES of 7.  That's with a 200 grain cast bullet...  Which is faster than anything Underwood, Buffalo Bore, Double Tap, etc offers in a 200 grain bullet.  I don't know what the pressures of that load are in my Dan Wesson, but that chrono readout was enough for me and shooting ceased for that load.

The load, for the curious reloaders out there, was Missouri Bullet Company's 200 grain Steeler that is advertised with a Brinell hardness of 18.  7.8 grains of Longshot, CCI mag pistol primer.  Brass pass through resized, trimmed to .985" prior to loading, and COAL of 1.250".  Recoil spring in the CBOB, BTW, is a brand new 24 lb spring from Dan Wesson.

Anyways, I don't know what the pressures of that load are, and I don't much care because it won't get shot in my gun again.  From my cast bullet in rifles world, a Brinell hardness of 18 means it is good for a max chamber pressure of around 34,500 PSI.  After that I'd expect leading and all the usual ills - all else like bullet fit being equal.

Had an after action session with my hunting partner.  Confirmed his scale is correct, the Longshot is Longshot, etc.  Didn't find any errors in weights or components, but he's now pulling a couple of hundred reloads.

So the old lesson (for me anyways) remains true: never use anybody else's reloads, because you just don't know if they weren't worked up in your gun, even if everything else was done properly.  And never head out doing load development without that modern luxury called a "chronograph".  I should know better and he knows better too... but we both broke the best practices rule over matters of convenience.  He, because he didn't have his fancy new radar chronograph yet and relied on visual signs, and me using his reloads because I wanted to check the pistol out before grabbing my pack and heading for the alpine.

Some pictures of the fired cases for the curious.

[The_Shadow]

Jäger, Welcome to the forum!  Thanks for your report but I have seen more than that much powder being used in the 10mm
7.8 grains of Longshot.  Your load was not a bad load, even though I saw some primer wipe and other marks that lead me to believe the slide was unlocking a tad early.  Another thing you may want to check is actual bore size, I have read that some were 0.3990" and that could explain higher pressures and velocities with a better seal...

Below are examples of pull downs of the ammo as loaded...
Underwood 220 grain cast load was over LongShot  8.4 and 8.6 grains
Underwood 220 grain reduced was over LongShot  8.0 grains
Double Tap 200gr Wide Flat Nose Hard Cast Gas Checked LongShot 8.2 grains
Double Tap 230gr Hard Cast LongShot 7.2 grains

The 200 grain JHP's were also loaded over these numbers as well.

best regards

[Jäger]

Jäger, Welcome to the forum!  Thanks for your report but I have seen more than that much powder being used in the 10mm
7.8 grains of Longshot.

Well thanks, although as I mentioned I've been hanging around here practically since the beginning, and eventually actually took the time to register.  Just didn't have any questions up to this point that a site search wouldn't answer, nor did I have anything to add.

I knew the load when I went to the range, and I did cross reference it with another search of the site here to see where 7.8 grains of Longshot fell.  Looked heavy, but comfortably inside what I purchase for use when the pistol is in service as a bear wrench.  The trigger rarely gets pulled on those loads as I don't feel the need to fire rhino rollers to poke a hole in paper, nor do I need to stay familiarized with heavy loads using practice ammunition that is equally as full throttle as the Underwood stuff.

Anyways, knowing my buddy's reloading practices and having done some searching and reading on here, I felt pretty comfortable with using his reloads even though it isn't the same bullet when comparing his charge of Longshot to what I saw here from the boutique manufacturers.  But 1300+ FPS in a Commander length barrel, well over what Double Tap gets with the same weight bullet and .6 more grains of powder brought me to a screeching halt.  I'm not concerned I harmed the pistol in any way, but I'm not looking for a practice load that beats on the pistol.  Or leaves me dealing with leading... (I think I saw a few little lead hairs down the bore, but I forgot about that before running the wire brush down the bore to do the standard cleaning after firing)

The moral of the story is using loads you didn't develop yourself in your own gun is not best practice.  Even if you trust the practices of the other reloader, they weren't developed in your gun.  All this more true when you're running heavier reloads.

Your load was not a bad load, even though I saw some primer wipe and other marks that lead me to believe the slide was unlocking a tad early.

I'm relatively new to the 1911 platform, so if you want to expand on causes and dealing with slide unlocking early, feel free.  I went up to the 24# spring for the Underwood loads on the advice of Keith from Dan Wesson, perhaps I should be trying a 26# spring?

Another thing you may want to check is actual bore size, I have read that some were 0.3990" and that could explain higher pressures and velocities with a better seal...

I hadn't thought that far along the line yet.  I have lots of Cerrosafe that gets used for slugging leads, ball seats, and bores for cast bullet use in rifles, so I can certainly do that for the 10mm bore first chance I get.

Below are examples of pull downs of the ammo as loaded...
Underwood 220 grain cast load was over LongShot  8.4 and 8.6 grains
Underwood 220 grain reduced was over LongShot  8.0 grains
Double Tap 200gr Wide Flat Nose Hard Cast Gas Checked LongShot 8.2 grains
Double Tap 230gr Hard Cast LongShot 7.2 grains

Thanks, I have looked at those in the past when thinking of what I wanted to develop for a practice load.  Has anybody done any testing to determine the hardness of Underwood and Double Tap's offerings?  Out of curiosity to compare to this BHN of these Steeler bullets that are advertised as being BHN 18.

[sqlbullet]

In a 1911 a flat bottom firing pin stop would be the first upgrade I would apply.  A 26# recoil spring can cause issues the other way, slamming the slide into battery and causing issues with the link, link pin and slide stop pin.