Powder Shootout. CFE Black vs A1680

[dellet]

alamo5000 I won't go into powers or practices as other, better men than I have already spoken however if you, or anyone here for that matter, need to order on line might I suggest Graf & Sons. At this time their shipping/HAZMAT charge is $7.95/$10.00 a price I haven't been able to beat or even come close to elsewhere on line.

I will give them a look. The last time I checked the price of their powder(s) per pound was higher than Powder Valley by a few bucks per pound but I will have to compare again and see. I guess it just depends on your order.

Their prices compared to what I paid retail in a somewhat local shop to me, plus sales tax, is a whole lot more. I probably could have saved a bundle or at least came out ahead if I had shopped around some more.

I will definitely keep them in mind for future purchases though.

If you have a good local shop, try to add to their order, I have two locals I can do that with. Even if I have to wait a week or three, I would rather support the little guy.

[alamo5000]

If you have a good local shop, try to add to their order, I have two locals I can do that with. Even if I have to wait a week or three, I would rather support the little guy.

I will have to hunt around some but many of the shops are far away (30-40 minutes) or they don't do reloading supplies. We have one shop here that is local to me that has a sizeable online presence but it is owned by the biggest price gouging jerk you can think up. I mean really not good people to deal with. NO ONE that knows them goes there, not anyone from 100 miles around at least.

I like to support local shops too, but that guy is an exception. I don't go there unless absolutely forced.

Once you figure up their prices plus taxes and all that it's way cheaper to buy online. In the shop in question any powder will be marked up accordingly. If they have anything it will be around $35 per pound plus 8.25% tax. The guy is a known price gouger and is definitely not a nice guy at all.

On that note I am not sure if you saw my questions about Accurate #9. I am thinking about starting there. Any tips for a 217 grain cast sub out of a 9" barrel would be helpful. I am guessing right around 8gr might be a starting point.

[dellet]

Fast powders can be a bit tricky the first time. They can have a narrow range where they work. They also require undivided attention when there is a potential for a double charge. I can say without a doubt, that about 15 grains of #9 under a 190 grain bullet will split a barrel at the extension.

Hornady 9th has the most complete data for #9, if you can get a copy it’s worth it. 10th edition I’m not so sure of. Most of the loads for 190 grain bullets and up are 8.5-9 grains for 1200 fps in a 16” barrel. 9 would probably be a good place to start.

If you’re looking data, pay attention to seated depth. There is a good bullet length table on JBM, that helps when exchanging bullets.
http://www.jbmballistics.com/ballistics ... gths.shtml

Cast is different. Generally you can use data for the next bullet down in weight, so you could use data for like a 190-195. Then the problem is the bullet will be short for weight, or needs to loaded shorter to get the same fill ratio. Sometimes also due to profile even shorter.

I Load the 190 grain Nosler with 8.4 grains @2.145” for an 8” barrel.

Getting full function can be frustrating the first time. Small changes in seating depth will make a big difference in powder burn rate and cycling or lock back. Once you have worked up a couple loads and see how it works it gets pretty easy.

Knowing your port size will be helpful, measure it and write it down. At some point you’ll be glad you did.

This might be of interest if you haven’t seen it.
viewtopic.php?t=98869

[alamo5000]

Thank you dellet. That's an excellent post. As usual.

[41Bear]

alamo5000 I won't go into powers or practices as other, better men than I have already spoken however if you, or anyone here for that matter, need to order on line might I suggest Graf & Sons. At this time their shipping/HAZMAT charge is $7.95/$10.00 a price I haven't been able to beat or even come close to elsewhere on line.

I will give them a look. The last time I checked the price of their powder(s) per pound was higher than Powder Valley by a few bucks per pound but I will have to compare again and see. I guess it just depends on your order.

Their prices compared to what I paid retail in a somewhat local shop to me, plus sales tax, is a whole lot more. I probably could have saved a bundle or at least came out ahead if I had shopped around some more.

I will definitely keep them in mind for future purchases though.

If you have a good local shop, try to add to their order, I have two locals I can do that with. Even if I have to wait a week or three, I would rather support the little guy.

Both of you are luckier than I, my only local place to buy is BPS, compared to them Graf's is a whole lot cheaper. To buy from a shop I'd have to drive at least 100 plus miles so the net makes things much simpler and less costly for me.

[alamo5000]

Both of you are luckier than I, my only local place to buy is BPS, compared to them Graf's is a whole lot cheaper. To buy from a shop I'd have to drive at least 100 plus miles so the net makes things much simpler and less costly for me.

I am in Texas so 100 miles is just a medium drive here. LOL! Aside from sheer distance there are gun shops on every corner here pretty much. Houston has something like 1,500++ stores that sell firearms just inside the city limits. We have gun shows all over the place at least once a month too.

Most of the gun stores though do not carry any significant amount of reloading supplies. Also most of the local companies get priced out of the game because of several things, one of which is our state sales tax. We don't have an income tax at all, but in many cases you find local stores prices higher BEFORE tax than online stuff.

At the end of the day I have to do a lot of math to see how much more buying local will be. Price+tax vs Price+shipping+possible fees or handling or whatever (FFL/HAZMAT etc). A lot of the time the local small shops come out on the wrong side of that formula. A lot of the time though I find AWESOME deals online... only to find out they are in Texas and hence I have to pay tax and shipping both. It makes those great deals not as great.

[dellet]

Both of you are luckier than I, my only local place to buy is BPS, compared to them Graf's is a whole lot cheaper. To buy from a shop I'd have to drive at least 100 plus miles so the net makes things much simpler and less costly for me.

I am in Texas so 100 miles is just a medium drive here. LOL! Aside from sheer distance there are gun shops on every corner here pretty much. Houston has something like 1,500++ stores that sell firearms just inside the city limits. We have gun shows all over the place at least once a month too.

Most of the gun stores though do not carry any significant amount of reloading supplies. Also most of the local companies get priced out of the game because of several things, one of which is our state sales tax. We don't have an income tax at all, but in many cases you find local stores prices higher BEFORE tax than online stuff.

At the end of the day I have to do a lot of math to see how much more buying local will be. Price+tax vs Price+shipping+possible fees or handling or whatever (FFL/HAZMAT etc). A lot of the time the local small shops come out on the wrong side of that formula. A lot of the time though I find AWESOME deals online... only to find out they are in Texas and hence I have to pay tax and shipping both. It makes those great deals not as great.

Sometimes you just don’t how lucky you are. I have a regional emplyeee owned store and a couple owner operator stores, that still believe in customer service. Generally their prices are within $2-3 a pound compared to Powder Valley or Grafs. I generally need to buy about 10 pounds before I save anything buying online. A Cabelas came in a few years ago and I would happily drive 100 miles to the next town before I spent a dime there.

I know sooner rather than later that will change, but I spend a bit more, as often as I can, to slow down the rolling tide.

[alamo5000]

Sometimes you just don’t how lucky you are. I have a regional emplyeee owned store and a couple owner operator stores, that still believe in customer service. Generally their prices are within $2-3 a pound compared to Powder Valley or Grafs. I generally need to buy about 10 pounds before I save anything buying online. A Cabelas came in a few years ago and I would happily drive 100 miles to the next town before I spent a dime there.

I know sooner rather than later that will change, but I spend a bit more, as often as I can, to slow down the rolling tide.

The big box stores like that... Cabelas, Gander Mountain, etc are all equally worthless in my eyes. I only bought one thing from any of them and that was during a going out of business clearance sale. I have never been in any of those stores where prices were anywhere near decent. It got to the point where we wouldn't even bother going in to 'just look'.

The only big box we have near me is Academy Sports. From time to time you can pick up things there... little things usually.

As you said though, if you just need a little bit of this or that you will over pay a bit. That whole thing there that you discussed is a big reason why I tend to buy in bulk. Once I find what I like I tend to try and buy in bulk.

[alamo5000]

It also goes without saying that the gun industry has been in boom and bust mode for a really really long time already. I remember going to a ammo dealer back the day after Obama was elected. We had to park 1/2 mile down the street and cars were lining both sides of the road. One guy backed his truck up there and left with 4 or 5 brand new ARs and literally a pallet of 5.56 ammo. It was absolutely the most insane sight you've ever seen.

We don't even need to talk about .22LR shortages and all those stupid prices. That whole thing was absolutely insane. Now though it's a different ball game yet again. We are clearly not out of the woods yet though. That whole situation taught me a big lesson. I'm almost like those old Great Depression folks. I can tell you this much though, if or when I come into money I'm going to build a supply that will last me a long time.

I dream of having some serious reloading equipment around so there is that too. There is no such thing as having too much ammo.

[alamo5000]

Puff-Lon arrived today.

After I got home I got cleaned up and did some quick tests using H110. This is the same powder I used before I had chrono data on. It is also the powder I had powder shift problems with.

The first time around at 8.2 grains I had very consistent velocity, but they were way over my target velocity.

At 8.1 grains I was getting shift. At 8.0 and 7.9 it showed promise but the the velocity was all over the map.

---

Today with Puff-Lon I started at 8.0 grains. Unfortunately this was the only one I got good velocity readings on. After that the light was getting bad.

At 8.0 grains with Puff-Lon I got all shots between 1090 and 1099. A total of 9 fps total spread. Not too shabby. Still a little on the hot side but this is just a test. I shot that unsuppressed and the gun functioned but no lock back. Just partial lock back.

Next rounds I figured I would try 7.9 grains and some puff-lon. This time I put my suppressor on. I did not get any velocity readings, but it was STUPID quiet. I also got full function and full lock back. Basically this tells me that I might have to adjust my gas settings (adjustable block) depending on what I am doing.

Last try was 7.8 grains with puff-lon. Some of these rounds went supersonic still.

The main variable here was the amount of puff-lon I put in the case each time. Basically I started out measuring carefully, but the more I progressed I didn't even measure it. I just eyeballed it. All cases were easily good for pressure btw. The amount of puff-lon you use apparently matters. That last load was easily a 'compressed' load but a lot of it was inert non gunpowder stuff.

All in all I will probably be ordering some more puff-lon. I have enough to do a few thousand rounds probably but I will do more testing with various powders. So far it shows a lot of promise. VERY MUCH SO.

---

I might need some assistance getting some technical side of things done...mainly the average case volume of a 300 BLK case as well as how much a bullet (say a 220 SMK) will offset that volume. I am using the numbers from Lee to determine the volume of my charge. All that stuff might help me more effectively test this puff-lon stuff.

Side note, my initial very bad math says after the bullet is seated I have roughly 1 cubic cm of case volume left over. ROUGHLY. That would be on an EMPTY case. So 1 cubic cm, minus my charge volume, equals what is left over.

After I get that hammered out more I need to figure out how to measure more effectively the puff-lon. I should have some more lee dippers around but who knows.

So far two thumbs up for puff lon.