Ball vs Stick powders and throat erosion?

JerryinPA

New member
Is there any difference on barrel life by the type of powder used? Or is this another "old-wives' tale"?

I'm looking mostly toward the new 223 Rem and also at the old 243 Winchester.

Jerry.
 
I'm sure you are going to have "experts" tell you otherwise, but it has been my experience that it does make a difference. I don't know as you would "see" it on a .223 Remington but on some of the more "overbore" cases I think you will. I think the pressure that you drive that propellant down the throat has more to do with erosion but kernel size, I believe, also has an effect.
 
Ball powder is harder to ignite than stick powder...which is why Mag primers is recommended for the Ball powder....I guess I have never heard the wives tail you speak of, but I do know from my most recent shooting that Ball powder leaves more residue in the barrel. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused1.gif
 
"Dtech"------Just to let you know--I would have put you in that EXPERT catagory from my readings of your many fine previous comments----however that said--

I would agree with you as to the importance of pressure, but I'm unsure from your answer whether you feel ball or stick or single based or new multi-based powders (excuse me I can't remember the right name for this last "type") or whatever else, might determine "kernal size" and it's effect toward erosion.

In fact being new to this issue, I guess I had previously thought of erosion as being caused by abrasion stricly from hot pressurized gases rather than by a process of particle abrasion?
 
Bigdog2, The reason I said what I did was from my experience in my fathers gun shop. He built well over 100 of the wildcat cartridge .243 Super Rockchucker. It is a 30-06 case necked down to .243 and the shoulder sharpened to 33 degrees. He built these rifles over the period of 45 years and had several of his early customers come back for re-barreling. There were two customers that stood out: One used IMR 7828 and the other used H-450. The customer that used the large-kernel extruded IMR 7828 did not enjoy nearly the barrel life that the customer that used the spherical, H-450. Both barrels were of the same manufacturer, twist, length, chambering and composition. This, in and of itself, didn't prove anything but this trend was predictable throughout his 45 year career with this cartridge.

Obviously if you have an extreme, low-pressure load using large-kernel, extruded powder and compare it to a scorching, high-pressure load using spherical powder the outcome would be different. I do think that if you use the same barrels, with the same bullets and the same pressure, you will see more throat erosion with the large-kernel powders.
 
Dtech
Thanks for your reply. This topic gives me more to consider when I go to select powders. Do you think that is might be why Hodgdons now sells H4831sc rather than the older style long stick H4831, or do you think it would take more of a difference in size, pressure and burn rate to make a difference?
 
What Dtech said is what I had always heard. Basically, ball powders are easier on barrels. When I was shooting a 243 in competition and going through a barrel every 6-8 months I tried switching to a ball powder to extend barrel life. I saw no measurable increase in barrel life.
This was only the 243 and only 5 barrels so may not apply to other calibers, but ball or extruded made no difference in the life of those 5 barrels.

Jack
 
Jack, only five barrels? Man, you just aren't shooting enough! heheheheheheheh

Speaking of which, I'm trying out some the Ramshot ball, the Hunter powder to be exact. With a .270, .22-250 AI, and a .243, this roughly-4350 speed powder should work for all three, at least with light .270 bullets for varmints and practice. Anybody have any experience here? I currently use H414 for the .22-250 and it works fine, but not very well in the .270, and haven't tried it in the .243 yet.

Basically I want to be able to use a powder measure for loading lots and lots of varmint and practice ammo, and I don't like the way stick powders meter.
 
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I don't know about throat erosion but I have seen ball vs stick effect accuracy. It seems in our experience more rounds can be fired accurately with stick than ball without cleaning.
This is of course no problem for the average hunter but for the varminter I had rather be shooting than cleaning.
 
Well I clean bore regularly, so I wasn't paying attention to which powder left more crud behind. However I'll make a note of it next time. The difference to me has been in the measure & loading. Stick powder can get stuck in the funnel if you pour to fast. Ball powder seemed easier to measure. Btw; Im using standard WLR primers with both, never had a problem with ignition.
 
Ball powders actually are quite clean burning if you load them to 60,000 psi pressures, this is what they were designed for. also in large capacity small caliber cases the extruded powder can bridge in the neck causing dangerous pressure spikes.
If you load the big jugs with any extruded powder then switch off and shoot ball powder to the same pressures the barrel will be noticeably cooler, this has to help barrel life
RR
 
danurve,
I thought I would comment on the Winchester primers, though I am not disagreeing with anything that you wrote. Winchester primers are hotter than the others, the standard ones basically are magnums. This is because of the ball powders that they use in much of their factory ammunition.They know that the spherical powders are hard to light and adjusted accordingly many years ago. Therefore your positive results with ignition of ball powders aren't suprising. The hottest primer on the market is the WLR Mag, unless there is some recent release. All of this may account for the mixed reports that people give on Winchester primers.
Good Shootin',
Dogleg
 
DogLeg is 100% correct. Ball powders tend clump up somewhat and require a good primer blast to ignite completely. It's the same with compressed load with slow burning powders in large cases. The Speer reloading manual data suggests when to use a magnum primer. In addition, the friction of the neck holding the bullet is another important factor. If neck friction is small, the bullet begins to move out of the case down the barrel a trifle sooner. The pressure is lower as well as the M.V. some powder is left unburnt.
Frankie B.
 
This must be why some I've read a few comments that W748 needs a Mag primer, and a few comments that it doesn't?

Maybe the Winchester standard primers are sufficient for the W748 in a 223 and other brands of standard primers aren't?

Gosh, I just keep scratchin' my head!

Regards,

Jerry.
 
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