260 Rem pressure signs

[DaveT]

I have used the same 'recipe' for at least two years 123g Scenar, Lapua Brass fully prepared, CCI BR primers, 42.0g of N550.... I am loaded within a thou or two of the lands and have .001" neck tension ..... I have NEVER seen pressure signs in Winter or Summer temperatures.

 

Just fired a batch made on new brass and a new can of N550 to exactly the same recipe and am getting Ejector marks on 2 out of 3 cases...... accuracy still fine.... no other signs.

 

I have checked Brass trim length, COAL to be what I usually set it to, Bullets are checked as 123g, the powder is the right weight , the primers are from the same batch that I have used before, the cartridges have no residual lube on them.

 

I never bother to weight sort Lapua brass but it COULD be heavier/thicker I suppose.... but unlikely as its from a batch that I have already got in use with no issues.

 

I am suspecting the burn rate of my new can of N550 (dated 15/12/2010)....IE quite significantly quicker!

 

Anyone out there experienced any issues with N550?

[sonic]

not sure with that powder but if you check VV load data it may show a change in max load. it did for N140 it maybe they've "improved" the powder. just looked at VV 6th ed and VV 9th ed and max has gone up.

what's the bore condition like?

[The Gun Pimp]

I have used the same 'recipe' for at least two years 123g Scenar, Lapua Brass fully prepared, CCI BR primers, 42.0g of N550.... I am loaded within a thou or two of the lands and have .001" neck tension ..... I have NEVER seen pressure signs in Winter or Summer temperatures.

 

Just fired a batch made on new brass and a new can of N550 to exactly the same recipe and am getting Ejector marks on 2 out of 3 cases...... accuracy still fine.... no other signs.

 

I have checked Brass trim length, COAL to be what I usually set it to, Bullets are checked as 123g, the powder is the right weight , the primers are from the same batch that I have used before, the cartridges have no residual lube on them.

 

I never bother to weight sort Lapua brass but it COULD be heavier/thicker I suppose.... but unlikely as its from a batch that I have already got in use with no issues.

 

I am suspecting the burn rate of my new can of N550 (dated 15/12/2010)....IE quite significantly quicker!

 

Anyone out there experienced any issues with N550?

Dave,

 

I can confirm that one of our club members, who is a very experienced shooter/handloader and competition shooter had exactly the same problem. He was using the 6.5x47 - the first round produced a very stiff bolt opening and that gave him two options - pack up and go home (he was abroad at a shoot) or try another round. He chose the latter - fortunately, the action held but the bolt was ruined.

 

I also heard another similar story from a club member involving Vit N550 but with less disastrous results.

[DaveT]

Thanks Vince

 

In a perverse way I'm glad its not just me......... a damned pain in the '*rse' to have to mess with loads all over again.

 

Hopefully VV powders are not going to display this behaviour very often as I use them almost exclusively!

[DaveT]

Vince

 

Your friends batch of 550 must have been MUCH faster burning than standard if it ruined the bolt!

 

I wonder if I am better off reporting the matter to Dealer & Viht and seeking to get the powder replaced?

[sonic]

Have you ruled out other possible causes. oiled bore? first rounds after deep clean? where is rifle in its expected barrel life low med high. was it raining.

what I mean is it definitely the powder have you ruled out everything but that.

[Hatzi]

I had it happen with carbon build up in a 22br years back but seeing its vit 550, well i have seen the surgeon bolt a bad tub of it split that vince mentioned and heard plenty of other 'stories' too

[sonic]

Better safe than sorry. making sure the rifle is not a factor gives you peace of mind. And a better agument when you take the powder back.

[kent]

There are a few possible variables there but its always best to quickly run a new tub of powder up before loading a batch proper, we all know that but sometimes ignore it. Sometimes it the bullets, sometimes the brass but my moneys on the powder

[DaveT]

Have you ruled out other possible causes. oiled bore? first rounds after deep clean? where is rifle in its expected barrel life low med high. was it raining.

what I mean is it definitely the powder have you ruled out everything but that.

Thoroughly ruled out all other causes..... I am a pretty experienced reloader and am certain that its the powder....... I guess I am so surprised because Viht has always been utterly consistent for me over the years.

[Laurie]

That was one of the great pluses of Viht powders - its consistency from lot to lot. However, as has been covered in other posts on the forum, Vihtavuori is no longer an independent operation. While it still cooperates in marketing with its former Finnish Nammo Oy partner, Lapua, it was bought at the time of the peak in military ammo orders by European multi-national Eurenco some years back

 

Military ammo orders and hence the demand for powders has dropped considerably as the US led partnership and NATO withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, and Eurenco now has too much capacity and is trying to sell the Vihtavuori plant, as it's the group's odd man out located up in northern Scandinavia, so far with no success. You start to wonder if Eurenco is already switching manufacture of some Viht powders to other 'core plants' to fill holes in their production schedules. A well placed source told me a while back that N140 had moved - hence the Commonside Firearms TR140 apparently being the same thing as recent lots of Viht N140, despite the former saying 'Swiss Made' on the label.

 

I know people who're already panicking over the possible (likely?) demise of Vihtavuori, but as I keep telling them Viht will still be here - Eurenco owns the name and will still make the powders, even if it can't find a buyer for the original operation and closes it down. But they won't come from that very modern high-tech plant 10 miles from the small Finnish town of Vihtavuori, and which took enormous pains over product quality. In this case, we may see more such reported lot to lot variations - or maybe not depending on how good Eurenco's production engineers and technicians are. In any event, I'd feel very sorry to hear of the Vihtavuori factory closure - another victim of gloabalisation leading to regional economic devastation. It also makes me wonder about the commonsense of the people in the Finnish government who're apparently willing to see a key defence industry die. Just like us in Britain in fact, but we don't share a border with Vladimir Putin's Russia and don't have the historic enmity with a land border neighbour that there is between Finland and Russia.

[kent]

That was one of the great pluses of Viht powders - its consistency from lot to lot. However, as has been covered in other posts on the forum, Vihtavuori is no longer an independent operation. While it still cooperates in marketing with its former Finnish Nammo Oy partner, Lapua, it was bought at the time of the peak in military ammo orders by European multi-national Eurenco some years back

 

Military ammo orders and hence the demand for powders has dropped considerably as the US led partnership and NATO withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, and Eurenco now has too much capacity and is trying to sell the Vihtavuori plant, as it's the group's odd man out located up in northern Scandinavia, so far with no success. You start to wonder if Eurenco is already switching manufacture of some Viht powders to other 'core plants' to fill holes in their production schedules. A well placed source told me a while back that N140 had moved - hence the Commonside Firearms TR140 apparently being the same thing as recent lots of Viht N140, despite the former saying 'Swiss Made' on the label.

 

I know people who're already panicking over the possible (likely?) demise of Vihtavuori, but as I keep telling them Viht will still be here - Eurenco owns the name and will still make the powders, even if it can't find a buyer for the original operation and closes it down. But they won't come from that very modern high-tech plant 10 miles from the small Finnish town of Vihtavuori, and which took enormous pains over product quality. In this case, we may see more such reported lot to lot variations - or maybe not depending on how good Eurenco's production engineers and technicians are. In any event, I'd feel very sorry to hear of the Vihtavuori factory closure - another victim of gloabalisation leading to regional economic devastation. It also makes me wonder about the commonsense of the people in the Finnish government who're apparently willing to see a key defence industry die. Just like us in Britain in fact, but we don't share a border with Vladimir Putin's Russia and don't have the historic enmity with a land border neighbour that there is between Finland and Russia.

After the Russian losses last time they tried similar I doubt there will be an issue LOL

[Gunsgobang88]

Hi,

 

Going off topic here but in reference to the last post, if anyone is interested in military history look up the Winter War and the Continuation War. A fascinating period of history when the Finnish 'David' took on the Soviet 'Goliath'. There is a massive amount of information on the internet on the battles, weapons and personalities. Marshal Mannerheim is an all-time hero of mine,

 

Alan

[Laurie]

Hi Alan,

 

yes, I've read up on this a bit and it is a very intersting subject. I also met Viht's then marketing manager maybe 5 years ago and got a lot of insight into this issue in today's world. For instance, Simon Hayha, farmer / reservist come ace sniper, is still a hero today and his story is taught to Finnish schoolchildren as part of their national history. (Can you imagine that in Britain - the uproar there would be about 'corrupting little ones' by glorifying violence and making a 'trained killer' into a hero?)

 

See:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4

 

The Viht guy, Esko Hakulinen a mervellous fellow, got visibly upset when I referred to Finnish 7.62X54R Mosin-Nagant type rifles as such. "Ve do not have Mosin-Nagants - they are Russian!"

 

He also said that Finland has bought into the 'peace dividend', militia / reservist activities have been scaled right back and scores of town and village rifle ranges closed. As well as winding down the citizen army to save money, he told me Finland has gone 'ultra-green' and nearly all the smaller older local ranges were classified as health hazards due to contamination by bullet metals and were fenced off pending clean-ups. It also meant that civilian shooters could no longer use them. I think all-copper bullets are mandatory now for big-game hunting in the country too.

[gbal]

That was one of the great pluses of Viht powders - its consistency from lot to lot. However, as has been covered in other posts on the forum, Vihtavuori is no longer an independent operation. While it still cooperates in marketing with its former Finnish Nammo Oy partner, Lapua, it was bought at the time of the peak in military ammo orders by European multi-national Eurenco some years back

 

Military ammo orders and hence the demand for powders has dropped considerably as the US led partnership and NATO withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, and Eurenco now has too much capacity and is trying to sell the Vihtavuori plant, as it's the group's odd man out located up in northern Scandinavia, so far with no success. You start to wonder if Eurenco is already switching manufacture of some Viht powders to other 'core plants' to fill holes in their production schedules. A well placed source told me a while back that N140 had moved - hence the Commonside Firearms TR140 apparently being the same thing as recent lots of Viht N140, despite the former saying 'Swiss Made' on the label.

 

I know people who're already panicking over the possible (likely?) demise of Vihtavuori, but as I keep telling them Viht will still be here - Eurenco owns the name and will still make the powders, even if it can't find a buyer for the original operation and closes it down. But they won't come from that very modern high-tech plant 10 miles from the small Finnish town of Vihtavuori, and which took enormous pains over product quality. In this case, we may see more such reported lot to lot variations - or maybe not depending on how good Eurenco's production engineers and technicians are. In any event, I'd feel very sorry to hear of the Vihtavuori factory closure - another victim of gloabalisation leading to regional economic devastation. It also makes me wonder about the commonsense of the people in the Finnish government who're apparently willing to see a key defence industry die. Just like us in Britain in fact, but we don't share a border with Vladimir Putin's Russia and don't have the historic enmity with a land border neighbour that there is between Finland and Russia.

 

Well Laurie,there are those North Britons whose parliamentary leader is posturing a bit,though they've no longer got Nobel on their patch.!!

 

McGbal

 

 

 

[Laurie]

McGeorge

 

I think you must be referring to Mr Salmond, one of my least favourite politicians (and that says a lot with my low view of the breed!). In earlier times he'd have been selling snake oil to gullible peasants off the the back of a horse-drawn wagon - and making a good living too at it too.

[The Gun Pimp]

Vince

 

Your friends batch of 550 must have been MUCH faster burning than standard if it ruined the bolt!

 

I wonder if I am better off reporting the matter to Dealer & Viht and seeking to get the powder replaced?

Yes - I agree - the problem is, we are often loading 'close to the edge' which leaves little room for error. No doubt Vihtavuori would merely point out that their recommended 'max' is a couple of grains lower!

 

I don't think there's much to be gained by attempting to take Vit to task. In theory, one should always expect variations in powder batches (Reloader 25 is another which springs to mind) and I doubt there would be any redress.

 

You could e-mail Vihtavuori and let them know - would be interesting to hear their comments - if any.

[onehole]

Yeah well ,,,,,,,there you go<<<< never loaded close to the edge always found a belter way before that,,,the advantages of a max must be very very small surely?

[DaveT]

'Close to the edge' is a relative term...... My favourite load is only just over book max at 42g BUT I am loading LONG so effectively increasing the safe cartridge capacity and have worked up to this load cautiously and with the relevant knowledge / experience.

 

On the previous batch of N550 I had a 'No pressures' load out to just over 43 grains with superb accuracy.

 

I don't advocate beginners loading to greater than book max but , given the right setup , it is not an absolute limit..... conversely book max is NOT safe in many guns hence the sage advice of 'working up' gradually.

[sonic]

Thoroughly ruled out all other causes..... I am a pretty experienced reloader and am certain that its the powder....... I guess I am so surprised because Viht has always been utterly consistent for me over the years.

 

I wasn't implying otherwise.

I'm slightly paranoid where firearms are involved, the extractor passing your ear at a few hundred fps has that effect.

 

I would think that you should reasonably expect consistency within a small percentage. I know that you're told to work a load back up. But how much variation do you allow before said powder is not fit for purpose. As that may be one recourse with your supplier. No different to anything else you buy in that sense.

[DaveT]

Agreed.... I will just download a little until I get no pressure signs and , hopefully , the same velocity / accuracy as previously.

[gbal]

Yeah well ,,,,,,,there you go<<<< never loaded close to the edge always found a belter way before that,,,the advantages of a max must be very very small surely?

 

The risk is that the advantages of above max are often only in the mind,but the disadvantages may end up inthe brain!