when did (9mm) load data change so dramatically?

Jayne

Jayne

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I'm digging through all my old boxes of reloads that I thought I wouldn't be using... but apparently ammo isn't going to be cheap for a while so it's time to put some of this stuff down range. Anyway.

Looking at 500 or so 9mm 115gr rounds and the load data is 5.4gr of Win231. According to the vintage manual that goes with this vintage ammo, that charge is middle of the road. According to the modern on-line manual from Hodgdon I'm over their max of 5.1gr with win231.

My 1991 Speer and 1993 Hornady manuals list charges that are 'crazy' by today's load manual. So... have powders become much more powerful and kept the same name (so my old reloads using old powders are fine) or have standards changed or what?

I'm going to try some of the loads over a chronograph and see if they've suddenly wandered in +p+ territory... somehow.
 
I suspect it's gradual changes in formulation, but I'm sure there are some old timers that are far more knowledgeable than I am.
 
Jayne said:
Looking at 500 or so 9mm 115gr rounds and the load data is 5.4gr of Win231. According to the vintage manual that goes with this vintage ammo, that charge is middle of the road. According to the modern on-line manual from Hodgdon I'm over their max of 5.1gr with win231.

My 1991 Speer and 1993 Hornady manuals list charges that are 'crazy' by today's load manual. So... have powders become much more powerful and kept the same name (so my old reloads using old powders are fine) or have standards changed or what?
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With society being more litigious than it has ever been, I would imagine attorneys play an even bigger role in the publishing of reloading data than they did in years past.

My guess is that published maximums are nowhere near what the max really is.
 
It's also a consolidated use of raw supplies in the manufacturer of powder.

As sources dry up, and new ones come on line. This is why in
2008 IMR was sold from Dupont to Hodgdon. Dupont quit making the powders and Hodgdon now blends them with SW Asia chemicals.
 
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Yeah, potentially changes in powder formulations as well as the conservative/legal perspective. Personally, I always take published loading data as guidelines rather than true hard formulas. Too many variables in too many components, bullets, cases, primers, chambers, rifling, seating depth, etc, etc. I usually work up a load below max and play with it until I'm happy while looking out for pressure signs. Accuracy/best groups being my #1 focus, then velocity. It all depends on what I'm loading for and that's the beauty of reloading, customization of your load. I've never reloaded to save money. I've reloaded to get what I want.
 
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They have to error on the side of caution......under certain conditions maybe the old maximum charges could be a safety issue.

Most all relaoding data is a touch on the weak or safe side. Maybe the +P section is intended for "as you dare" loads.
 
I doubt that powders have become more powerful. If they had, the names would have been changed to reduce risk to consumers and related litigation.

There was a switch from measuring cup to measuring psi, and the equipment has steadily improved, so maybe the old data was a little over max pressure and they didn’t know because of the limited tools available.
 
JimB said:
I doubt that powders have become more powerful. If they had, the names would have been changed to reduce risk to consumers and related litigation.

There was a switch from measuring cup to measuring psi, and the equipment has steadily improved, so maybe the old data was a little over max pressure and they didn’t know because of the limited tools available.
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I don't know about "more powerful" but burn rates can vary and just be "different". Some powders get a little twitchy at the higher end. I remember when bulk surplus power was available in big canisters, the standard procedure was to drop your load by 10% and work your way back up, every time you changed lot #'s because of variations. But, yeah, improvements in measuring methods are refining load data.
 
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JimB said:
I doubt that powders have become more powerful. If they had, the names would have been changed to reduce risk to consumers and related litigation.

There was a switch from measuring cup to measuring psi, and the equipment has steadily improved, so maybe the old data was a little over max pressure and they didn’t know because of the limited tools available.
Click to expand...

As an engineer, I suspect this is more likely the case.

As someone else pointed out, if formulations had changed over the years, they would have changed the name of the powder in some form in order to indicate it's different than the original. You can't make something like this differently under exactly the same name.
 
I had some interesting conversations with two industry guys regarding this. One was a tech guy at Hodgdon, and the other was an engineer at CCI. What I got was that there are a few factors involved. The Hodgdon guy assured me that the powders haven't changed, but that primers had. He said that standard primers now are roughly as hot as magnum primers were in the past. He also said that they discovered significant errors in the old copper crush method of pressure testing when they switched over to the piezoelectric measurement. The errors occurred most on the low and high ends of the pressure spectrum. He mentioned some 12 ga. shotgun loads at the low end, and some magnum rifle loads at the high end as having the most error. I am sure that the litigation side is a factor as well, though both of the experts mentioned claimed that wasn't a factor.

Another thing to look at for 9mm loads is to make certain that the bullet seating depths on the loads in the two manuals are the same. 9mm is famous for having wide pressure swings with relatively minor changes to OAL. I plugged one perfectly reasonable load into my Quickloads program and it showed 35,000 psi. If I seated the bullet .050 deeper, the theoretical pressure went up to 51,000, which is WAAAAAY outside the acceptable range for 9mm!
 
pistolshooter77 said:
Another thing to look at for 9mm loads is to make certain that the bullet seating depths on the loads in the two manuals are the same.
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Interesting. Both list the OAL as 1.169", but the 1993 manual calls out 1.050" and 1.105" for the JHP and FMJ 115s. The older one doesn't specify anything other than max.
 
The 1.169" is the max OAL as defined by SAAMI (or CIP - whomever). That doesn't mean you can seat all bullets to that OAL. I can just about guarantee that you won't be able to seat a JHP bullet to 1.169" and then be able to chamber the round. Different bullet profiles will require different seating depths. And this will change the max charge, obviously.

One problem I have with the Lee manual is that they often clump all data together for a given type bullet without mentioning the specific bullet used. For instance, the Alliant powders quite often were matched with Speer bullets. To find that information, go to the powder manufacturer's website to find out the specific bullet used (and barrel length, if comparing chrono results).
 
Toprudder said:
The 1.169" is the max OAL as defined by SAAMI (or CIP - whomever). That doesn't mean you can seat all bullets to that OAL. I can just about guarantee that you won't be able to seat a JHP bullet to 1.169" and then be able to chamber the round. Different bullet profiles will require different seating depths. And this will change the max charge, obviously.
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yep, which is why it's nice for the 1993 to at least mention an OAL with the specific bullets so you know where to seat them. apparently in 1991 it wasn't a thing yet. :)

We're going to solve this by running all my questionable loads through a solid sub gun, and then any new loads use modern data. easy fix.
 
I loaded 44mag with Hercules 2400 (now Alliant) using a 10+ year old manual ~1g below max. The cases had to be hammered out, about 1/2 of them split. I went on line for load data, I was way over max.
After comparing the numbers of different calibers, I dont trust the data in any of my old manuals.
 
Pink_Vapor said:
I dont trust the data in any of my old manuals.
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back in the pre-internet days that's why I had two manuals from two companies, if the data agreed then I figured it was legit. See where that got me... and why haven't I blown up in the last 20... er 28 years of reloading? 30 years? that can't be right, that would mean I'm really old now.
 
georgel said:
Yeah, potentially changes in powder formulations as well as the conservative/legal perspective. Personally, I always take published loading data as guidelines rather than true hard formulas. Too many variables in too many components, bullets, cases, primers, chambers, rifling, seating depth, etc, etc. I usually work up a load below max and play with it until I'm happy while looking out for pressure signs. Accuracy/best groups being my #1 focus, then velocity. It all depends on what I'm loading for and that's the beauty of reloading, customization of your load. I've never reloaded to save money. I've reloaded to get what I want.
Click to expand...

Nailed it right there!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Sent some of those old recipe 9mms over the chrono today. Out of my trusty G34, I was seeing an average of 1304 fps with a 115gr bullet. That's a touch spicy.

Fortunately I've got a friend with a little sub gun who can run these just fine, so I've traded him my hot reloads for some boring steel case wolf. That's something I know. :)
 
I have some Hogdon manuals from the 1970s - eye opening to say the least. Todays Hogdon 'annual' magazine databook has the hottest published data that I kmow of.

As for 9mm it's a very small case and seating depth is crucial. Very easy to overdo it pressure wise -and yes the lawyers rule.
 
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