Lee Loader

Todays range trip wasn't a complete bust.
Too many people for me so left rather quickly.
Any way here is the results of my day.
As the paper says had unburnt powder in barrel and after reading a lot about it on the net ( for what it's worth)
Came to the conclusion I have no idea what to do about it!
Would a roll crimp versus a Lee factory crimp be of any help?
Upping powder charge maybe 1 grain?

An inquiring mind wants to know beekeeper

A higher starting pressure might help igniting the powder, so a stronger crimp could help on that.

But:
Do you experience any problems with your load APART from the crumbs of unburnt powder? Is the accuracy OK for you? Velocity consistency is good? Then don't change anything.

You will always have some flakes of unburnt powder, no matter what you do. You can reduce it to a minimum, but that will change some other parameters as well, and you might end up with less powder on the ground, but low accuracy. That's something you need to test, if it is important for you.

I used to go to an indoor range for a while, and there we had to clean the floor with a special explosion safe vacuum cleaner every day, and you would be surprised how much powder you could retrieve from there even after a slow day.

That's not a bad group. 4895 should be hitting the clean burn ........but then I thought "better check first"...... IMR load data says 38.0 as a start load for a 130 jacketed bullet at only 40,600 cup . At 28gr I doubt your getting out of the high 20s . I haven't worked enough with 4895 but I'm going to guess that like many of its sister powders it will clean up in the mid 30s . 4350 needs a minimum of 35 kpsi to clean up consistently. I think I would move the load up some more unless this point is your accuracy point. It is my guess that you are simply not building enough pressure to get clean burning.

RB Harter
There is no data in any of my books for IMR4895 for the 130 grain cast bullets so I used data for 139 grain jacketed bullets less 10% therefore the starting grains would be 31.0 and high limit would be 34.8.
Using that data I am well within the range for a 130 grain bullet.

I know that is mostly trial and error but I would not like to push the envelope too far so staying at 28 grains and trying to solve the unburnt powder some other way seems like a good idea to me.


beekeeper

I hope the picture works .
Hornady lists a 130 SP IMR 4895 at 38-42.0
Lyman 49th......139 SP IMR 4895 at 34-38.0
Lyman 48th 287405 150gr. 4895 at 25.6-32.0 @18,300 -31,300 CUP
Speer 4th shows a 130 38-42.0

All of these jacketed loads are under 46,000 CUP in deference to 93,95 etc. Oddly enough the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook shows nothing for 4895. I hope this helps.

Well another week has come and gone.
Another range trip with 20 rounds.
These rounds were cast 7MM rounds and the bullets weighed 126.0-126.9 grains.
28 grains of IMR 4895 and no filler.
Temperatures were in the 70's and a 3 MPH wind

Was able to hold a 1 1/2 X 2 inch group at 100 meters for 10 rounds.
AT 200 meters a 6 shot group opened up to about 3 1/2 inches but a little tweeking of the powder charge should close it up to at least 2 1/2 inches!

beekeeper