Hello all, here is today's article posted on TheArmoryLife.com. It is titled “The Story of Gunpowder” and can be found at https://www.thearmorylife.com/story-of-gunpowder/.
The Story of Gunpowder
- Thread starter Mike H.
- Start date
Annihilator
Hellion
Good read Mike, thanks, enjoyed reading itHello all, here is today's article posted on TheArmoryLife.com. It is titled “The Story of Gunpowder” and can be found at https://www.thearmorylife.com/story-of-gunpowder/.
shanneba
Professional
Aware that huge quantities of military powders had been dumped at sea after WWI, Brewster E. Hodgdon had a better idea. After his U.S. Navy service in the ‘40s, he set about buying up surplus powder to supply handloaders. First step: borrowing against his life insurance to sock 25 tons of IMR 4895 away in a salvaged boxcar on a rented field. Customers who responded to his modest ad in American Rifleman got 150 pounds for $30!
5 pounds for a dollar!
5 pounds for a dollar!
halfmoonclip
Alpha
Have to make sure my 'heirs and assigns' know that, when it comes time to dispose of my powder stash.
What has happened to the price of powder? Between primers and powder, reloading doesn't have much price advantage, especially for 9mms.
I've cached enough Bullseye to last the rest of my life, as it seems to be disappearing.
At least enough Trailboss showed up lately to load .45 Colt. Wish it had been around when I was trying to tame some loads for a lightweight Ruger #3 in .45-70...and understand why the cavalry was issued .45-50s for their carbines.
The article does mention small charges being ignited all at once, aka 'detonation'. It might explain what took off half the cylinder, and the topstrap, of a buddy's M60.
He was shooting reloads that had been done on a Dillon 550, and he didn't notice that the primer magazine had run empty, so some cases came out without primers. Sooooo, he ran the cases back through the press, to prime them, but some powder leaked out in the meantime.
No one was hurt in the blast, and some parts went through the ceiling of a shooting booth. He contacted S&W, admitted to using reloads. Smith said a double (2.7 Bullseye) wouldn't blow up the gun, and a triple wouldn't fit. They gave him a little help replacing the gun.
My theory, there was too little powder, and it all went at once.
Moon
jumpinjoe
Hellcat
I know it's not what you were looking for but MidouthShooterSupply.com has a little Alliant on hand, or did a few days ago. Primarily 'Reloader 50", and 'Reloader7', and some 'Red Dot'. I watch them pretty closely and it seems they get some small amounts of "Alliant" on a fairly regular basis, and they're good people to deal with. You might also want to check with Shooters World Powder.com. They have some pretty good charts that cross reference various powders to theirs. I was over there a few days ago and IIRC, their "Auto Pistol" was pretty close to "Win 231" which again, IIRC was a close cousin to "Unique". I'm not sure about the cross references, but I'm an old time user of "Unique", and some years ago when "Unique" was hard to come by, the "Win 231" did a pretty good job of playing like "Unique" in the HP Silhouette games.