Q re ADI powder specs

[Finniss]

When i was a kid i started supergluing 22lr cases together. I never had enough but with base and top/mouth glued together side by side they get a nice curve. 80000 might be enough for a globe.

[bladeracer]

When i was a kid i started supergluing 22lr cases together. I never had enough but with base and top/mouth glued together side by side they get a nice curve. 80000 might be enough for a globe.

Interesting idea but I'm leaning more toward end of year trophies for the club. Making something cool out of what normally ends up in the garbage. Cast medallions for trophies with the club logo CNC'ed into them could be neat. A mate also suggested some large dummy cartridges for the sign-in bench, like 6:1 or 10:1 scale .22LR, 9mm, .38, .45ACP and such. .22LR is one-inch long, so a dummy cartridge six-inches or ten-inches tall on display. I can bore the guts out so it wouldn't be solid.

[fnq22]

Okay, everything ran perfectly.
Virtually no difference between the seating depth on the FMJ load, except possibly a little more consistency seated deeper:
5rds 124gn FMJ 1.129"
955fps ES36 SD 12

5rds 124gn FMJ 1.100"
948fps ES12 SD4

10rds 125gn Berry's CPFP 1.080"
940fps ES25 SD7

10rds 115gn HRBC 1.100"
1015fps ES41 SD12

The 115gn was faster due to the lighter bullets. All loads dumped the brass at 4-o'clock about 1.5m from my right foot, except the Berry's which was at 5-o'clock and 2m away - no idea why. No indications of any pressure on the brass, these are not heavy loads at all. Didn't lose any brass either

I don't know why your pistol won't cycle your 3.2gn load. If you bought it secondhand could somebody have put a heavier recoil spring in it perhaps?

The 115gn load was lovely to shoot so I think I'll get some APS350 and do more resting with it. All the shots seemed a little smokier than I'm used to but not too bad.

Sounds like a successful day then mate....with the 3.2 loads the other day a couple cycled and the rest tried and jammed so it was close..maybe its just because the gun is new and hasnt loosened up yet....but anyways I loaded some tonight at 3.4gr and a little bit deeper at 1.118...

I'll give them a go soon as I get a chance...

Cant help on the lead ..except to say when i was a young teenager we used to put a handfull of Diabalo .177 pellets in the gob to be able to load the break action sluggys faster...stopped it once my mate's mum took him for testing... :lol..quite possibly explains my terrible memory and concentration issues but anyway we all have to die of something...:

My range has large fans mounted high up about 2 metres behind the tables and pistol shooting stalls which keeps ventalation and airflow quite nice...sometimes even a bit of pain in the arse as it often blows my hair into the eyes from behind as I'm shooting but between cooling the place down and dispersing any particulate matter forward I'm surprised all ranges dont have this...

[bladeracer]

Sounds like a successful day then mate....with the 3.2 loads the other day a couple cycled and the rest tried and jammed so it was close..maybe its just because the gun is new and hasnt loosened up yet....but anyways I loaded some tonight at 3.4gr and a little bit deeper at 1.118...

I'll give them a go soon as I get a chance...

Cant help on the lead ..except to say when i was a young teenager we used to put a handfull of Diabalo .177 pellets in the gob to be able to load the break action sluggys faster...stopped it once my mate's mum took him for testing... :lol..quite possibly explains my terrible memory and concentration issues but anyway we all have to die of something...:

My range has large fans mounted high up about 2 metres behind the tables and pistol shooting stalls which keeps ventalation and airflow quite nice...sometimes even a bit of pain in the arse as it often blows my hair into the eyes from behind as I'm shooting but between cooling the place down and dispersing any particulate matter forward I'm surprised all ranges dont have this...

I don't have an easy way to measure the weight of the slide spring on my Hi Power, but it takes a good heave to rack it. I have used a mate's 1911 .45 that is even heavier but most pistols I've used require less effort than my Hi Power. So if this load cycles mine I would think it would cycle most others. I meant to grab some factory 124gn S&B to chrono alongside the reloads but forgot.

I was the same, most afternoons after school I'd have a mouth full of pellets, and the same with the single-shot .22's

I want to get some video with the thermal camera to see the gas cloud. And try a cheap pedestal fan to see if that blows it away from my face. If it does then I would think we could mount nine such fans behind the shooters, and they would be more effective cooling in summer than the huge industrial fan that makes it difficult to hear the range commands.

[fnq22]

Sounds like a successful day then mate....with the 3.2 loads the other day a couple cycled and the rest tried and jammed so it was close..maybe its just because the gun is new and hasnt loosened up yet....but anyways I loaded some tonight at 3.4gr and a little bit deeper at 1.118...

I'll give them a go soon as I get a chance...

Cant help on the lead ..except to say when i was a young teenager we used to put a handfull of Diabalo .177 pellets in the gob to be able to load the break action sluggys faster...stopped it once my mate's mum took him for testing... :lol..quite possibly explains my terrible memory and concentration issues but anyway we all have to die of something...:

My range has large fans mounted high up about 2 metres behind the tables and pistol shooting stalls which keeps ventalation and airflow quite nice...sometimes even a bit of pain in the arse as it often blows my hair into the eyes from behind as I'm shooting but between cooling the place down and dispersing any particulate matter forward I'm surprised all ranges dont have this...

I don't have an easy way to measure the weight of the slide spring on my Hi Power, but it takes a good heave to rack it. I have used a mate's 1911 .45 that is even heavier but most pistols I've used require less effort than my Hi Power. So if this load cycles mine I would think it would cycle most others. I meant to grab some factory 124gn S&B to chrono alongside the reloads but forgot.

I was the same, most afternoons after school I'd have a mouth full of pellets, and the same with the single-shot .22's

I want to get some video with the thermal camera to see the gas cloud. And try a cheap pedestal fan to see if that blows it away from my face. If it does then I would think we could mount nine such fans behind the shooters, and they would be more effective cooling in summer than the huge industrial fan that makes it difficult to hear the range commands.

OK so I got success by the 0.2 gn increase to 3.4gn...consistent cycling and much softer shooting then the 153 power factorr factory loads...case and primers show no issues after firing either....its just so exacting this pistol reloading compared to the larger cailbre rifle ammo..quite a science to it isnt it.!

I'll load up some more and do some accuracy tests and make sure they have no issues with rapid firing but I think they will be fine.

I'll see if I remember and take some photos of the fan set-up at our club..shooting in the shed would be impossible during summer without them with our humidity and "heavy"air up here.

At one stage I had to have a little chat with the local Sarge for me a few mates heading back to my place during school lunchtimes and doing a bit of plinking...we lived only a block from school and adjoined a large state forest and and all was good till someone dobbed us in for using my dads semi auto browning .22 with a silencer..Lucky dad was deputy principal and a mate of the copper so we were just forced back to using the sluggies...Got better the folowing year when we moved onto 100 of rugged bushland..Paddock basher, dirtbike and my own 22 ...life was fun back then...teenagers nowadays have a much different life for most..

I made up some of these as well..Power factor 0...

[bladeracer]

Great work! I'm really surprised that ADI have 3.2gn listed as max as it's a fairly light load in my opinion.

The dummies are useful for malfunction drills, stick one or two randomly in each mag when you're practicing.

OK so I got success by the 0.2 gn increase to 3.4gn...consistent cycling and much softer shooting then the 153 power factorr factory loads...case and primers show no issues after firing either....its just so exacting this pistol reloading compared to the larger cailbre rifle ammo..quite a science to it isnt it.!

I'll load up some more and do some accuracy tests and make sure they have no issues with rapid firing but I think they will be fine.

I'll see if I remember and take some photos of the fan set-up at our club..shooting in the shed would be impossible during summer without them with our humidity and "heavy"air up here.

At one stage I had to have a little chat with the local Sarge for me a few mates heading back to my place during school lunchtimes and doing a bit of plinking...we were only a block from school and adjoined a large state forest and and all was good till someone dobbed us in for using my dads semi auto browning .22 with a silencer..Lucky dad was deputy principal and a mate of the copper so we were just forced back to using the sluggies...Got better the folowing year when we moved onto 100 of rugged bushland..Paddock basher, dirtbike and my own 22 ...life was fun back then...teenagers nowadays have a much different life for most..

I made up some of these as well..Power factor 0...

[fnq22]

Great work! I'm really surprised that ADI have 3.2gn listed as max as it's a fairly light load in my opinion.

The dummies are useful for malfunction drills, stick one or two randomly in each mag when you're practicing.

Yeah had 2 issues with not seating the mag fully home in my first shoot with the 9mm and nboth times should have just "tapped and racked" and kept going but instead i tried racking first which of course cost time and created confusion so I need some malfunction practise for sure.....also for just one round of nine mill is over .4 oz so the difference between a full mag and empty is substantial and makes quite a difference to the gun and mag weight for draws and mag reloads during dryfire..

I loaded a hundred rounds of the 3.4gn and will see how they go on the next weekend..having issues with the cheap scale i bought though..seems to just change zero after calibration randomly by between -0.3 and -0.7 gn which makes it unusable and unsafe..fortunately my .0.5cc dipper is just about perfect for the load so I hope the rounds are consistent .....it was this one but not sure what to get to replace it..it seems like a lottery with cheap scales...https://www.xhunter.com.au/smartreloade ... ale-funnel

[bladeracer]

Yeah had 2 issues with not seating the mag fully home in my first shoot with the 9mm and both times should have just "tapped and racked" and kept going but instead i tried racking first which of course cost time and created confusion so I need some malfunction practise for sure.....also for just one round of nine mill is over .4 oz so the difference between a full mag and empty is substantial and makes quite a difference to the gun and mag weight for draws and mag reloads during dryfire..

I loaded a hundred rounds of the 3.4gn and will see how they go on the next weekend..having issues with the cheap scale i bought though..seems to just change zero after calibration randomly by between -0.3 and -0.7 gn which makes it unusable and unsafe..fortunately my .0.5cc dipper is just about perfect for the load so I hope the rounds are consistent .....it was this one but not sure what to get to replace it..it seems like a lottery with cheap scales...https://www.xhunter.com.au/smartreloade ... ale-funnel

Yep, you need to practice malf drills so they just happen, you don't want to have to think about them.

I've been using a pair of these since January last year and am very impressed.

Screenshot 2026-02-16 113129.jpg (11.01 KiB) Viewed 1314 times

I have a set of calibration weights from .010gm up to 100gm (.154gn to 1543gn) so I know it's accurate and consistent. It doesn't "float" like the Gempro 250 does so I can just throw a charge on it and it gives me the weight immediately. It is still affected by air flow so I can't have a window open or a fan running. Unfortunately I can't find them anymore so they may be already superseded. They're cheap so I bought two and ran them side-by-side for a while for comparison, and they always tallied.

I have no issue with dippers, they can be very accurate.

I use the Lyman Powder Pal pan/funnel, brilliant design.

I'm heading in shortly for some more load testing.

[fnq22]

Okay, everything ran perfectly.
Virtually no difference between the seating depth on the FMJ load, except possibly a little more consistency seated deeper:
5rds 124gn FMJ 1.129"
955fps ES36 SD 12

5rds 124gn FMJ 1.100"
948fps ES12 SD4

10rds 125gn Berry's CPFP 1.080"
940fps ES25 SD7

10rds 115gn HRBC 1.100"
1015fps ES41 SD12

The 115gn was faster due to the lighter bullets. All loads dumped the brass at 4-o'clock about 1.5m from my right foot, except the Berry's which was at 5-o'clock and 2m away - no idea why. No indications of any pressure on the brass, these are not heavy loads at all. Didn't lose any brass either

I don't know why your pistol won't cycle your 3.2gn load. If you bought it secondhand could somebody have put a heavier recoil spring in it perhaps?

The 115gn load was lovely to shoot so I think I'll get some APS350 and do more resting with it. All the shots seemed a little smokier than I'm used to but not too bad.

Shot 100 rounds through the other day of 3.4gn APS350 125 grain black widow..sometimes had full mags without a hitch then a jam or failure to eject occasionally on aother mags...I did however use an old powder thrower for the first time and whilst it was 90% or so humidity and when finished even though I was tapping the sides each load there was a buildup of powder granules throughout the thrower so likely my loads were not consistent...and very frustrating with the current floating scale to periodically check throws...

I have a couple of different cheap scales on the way so I'll weigh up some more consistent loads around the 3.4-3.6 grain mark I think and have a another try next weekend...

Also someone mentioned there was a chronograph available for use at the club..which I will try and use next time as that it the only real test of whether my loads are actually consistent isnt it.

Also pic of the fan set-up. at our club..you can chose a stall or bench close to the fans or in the middle of them a bit further away like I did on the weekend because I was I wanting concentrate on doing some testing and dint want my hair blowing around..lol....

[bladeracer]

I'm using very old flake powder that sat in a steel gallon can for almost fifty years in an opal mine before I got it. The powder is good but there are some "clumps" that fall apart at the lightest touch, but are enough to block the thrower if I don't notice them as I pour the powder into the hopper. I've had a few incidences of throwing light loads as it cuts off the flow, but a quick poke with a pencil breaks it up. As I look across the fifty charged cases in the block before I seat the bullets it doesn't cause me any issues. The light loads are obvious so I just dump the few before them into the scale until I find the last good one, toss them back into the hopper and carry on. On Saturday I was loading .44's for yesterday so, for consistency, I dumped powder into a stainless measuring cup, stirred it up with a comb for a minute, and then dumped it into the hopper. Shouldn't be any clumping in this lot.

If you don't have complete confidence in the thrower perhaps make a dipper once you settle on the load you want that throws exactly that load. A dipper can be as quick as a powder thrower and just as accurate.

The ammo I made was for the rifle so was on the hotter side, but I forgot I'd changed from the unknown 200gn bullet I was using (possibly Black Widow) to a 165gn HRBC bullet. It seems to be just slightly narrower across the ogive so fits into the seating stem a touch more. I didn't adjust the die to suit so the ammo came out at 1.615" and is just too long to feed through the 1866 lever. So I used the Rossi 1892 in .38 instead and used the .44-40 ammo in the pistols. It has quite a bark and plenty of recoil so I want to chrono it after lunch when I get to the club. Max velocity for Cowboy pistols is 1000fps but I'm sure I'm not pushing the .44-40 close to that. Another shooter was using S&B .357 158gn LRN that seems very hot, so I've got some of those to chronograph as well. S&B claim 1125fps for it in a 150mm barrel so we'll see how close it gets out of the Model 19. Some of our members use the Fiocchi 148gn wadcutter .357 training ammo which is specified just over 1000fps. I did chrono some last year to confirm but don't have it recorded. Fiocchi also offer a very hot .357 158gn LRN training round at 1312fps but I haven't seen it yet.

I've been using the 130 primed .44-40 cases that I accidentally dumped into the ultrasonic bath. Rather than decap them all I decided to just load them and deal with any that were damaged by the immersion. I've got 40 left for another Classic Pistol match next week but of the ninety I've fired I've had one dud that simply wouldn't go, I've had four stop in the bore (three in the throat and one at the muzzle), and about 15 that went pop and fell out the muzzle. One of those gave me my lowest ever chrono measurement of 26fps, and I found the bullet about 15m down range. Two bullets dented the paper target without going through and bounced off the coreflute backing. One of them I saw fall to the ground, thinking it was a patch coming off, but when I checked the target there was a hole missing and I found the bullet on the ground. So I guess if you do get a batch of primers really wet, I wouldn't recommend them for anything other than practice ammo, and have a rod with you.

If you have access to a chrono then yes, it can tell you how consistent your loads are without burning hundreds of rounds shooting groups.

Those fans look good, but I'm shivering at the thought of switching them on for three-quarters of the year down here Right now it's pretty much a sweatbox still, especially in the air-pistol ranges, but in the winter it gets icy in there. Good looking range there. We only have nine shooting bays, which is bad for Rapid Fire as we can only have three shooters on the line.

Shot 100 rounds through the other day of 134gn..sometimes had full mags without a hitch then a jam or failure to eject occasionally on aother mags...I did however use an old powder thrower for the first time and whilst it was 90% or so humidity and when finished even though I was tapping the sides each load there was a buildup of powder granules throughout the thrower so likely my loads were not consistent...and very frustrating with the current floating scale to periodically check throws...

I have a couple of different cheap scales on the way so I'll weigh up some more consistent loads around the 3.4-3.6 grain mark I think and have a another try next weekend...

Also someone mentioned there was a chronograph available for use at the club..which I will try and use next time as that it the only real test of whether my loads are actually consistent isnt it.

Also pic of the fan set-up. at our club..you can chose a stall or bench close to the fans or in the middle of them a bit further away like I did on the weekend because I was I wanting concentrate on doing some testing and dint want my hair blowing around..lol....

[fnq22]

Ok so I had a win yesterday..

3.7gn APS 350 , 125 gn Black widow OAL 1.130 did the trick..

I also cleaned and lubed the gun up real well and shot through a box of factory ammo first then a box of the reloads with zero malfunctions..

and now I have a scale which seems very accurate and consistent so I loaded up another hundred weighing each one for now just to maintain that consistency.

Didnt bother with the chrono for now though I'm sure they were faster then 26 fps..lol..Next trip i'll do a bit of accuracy testing at 50 and 75 yards..

and whats the go with ultrasonic cleaners..I'm just using a Hornady tumbler with corn media and find the shells come up clean and shiny although it probably doesnt clean the primer pocket as much as you would want..

I didnt think about your climate challenges there regarding fans but we can turn them down if needed which is never up here...you definately need some type of breeze from behind to clear the air in the pistol bays I reckon though..

[bladeracer]

That's great news, FNQ22

I bought a rotary tumbler last year to clean my blackpowder brass as the brass is so discoloured that you can't easily find it in the gravel and grass. I tried it initially with the stainless balls that were included. First dry, then with water, and both were poor results. Then I tried stainless pins dry, and wet, and wet with dishwashing liquid. Results were better, but still not great. And all of them were very noisy, for many hours - it was like spending a day sitting beside a waterfall, and I definitely couldn't run it at night. One of the guys at the club gave me some walnut media so I tried that dry. Still wasn't impressed. I might try the pins with the citric acid one day.

So I bought the ten-liter ultrasonic bath, which easily holds 400 .44-40's - if I filled it right up it would probably do more than 500, so would go close to 1000 9mm. I tried it just with cold water and it didn't do much at all. Then I turned the heat up to 50C, and it did a little better. Then I turned it up to 75C, which was a little better again. Then I added a tablespoon of powdered citric acid, at 50C, and that made a noticeable difference. I worked up to 75C with two tablespoons of acid. Within perhaps three minutes of turning it on the water is too dark to see any of the brass. It did the best job so far, though most of the brass still has some discolouration. After the state titles I'll have a pile of brass to clean again so I want to add some dishwashing liquid as well this time. Probably the best bit is it's so quiet that I can barely hear it when I'm standing over it, from the next room it's silent, until the beep goes off.

Yesterday I shot a match with the last of the primed brass that I dropped into the water. I had five stop in the bore, out of 41rds, but still managed my highest score so far with the .44-40 Single-Action Army Out of the 130rds I only had one actual dud primer, 13 stopped in the bore, most just into the throat and three at the muzzle. I was able to punch one bullet out, reassemble the pistol and complete the string on the clock. I couldn't recover the unburned powder for examination as it just fell out of the bore and chamber when I dropped the cylinder out of the gun to clear it. I had about 15 I think that barely left the muzzle. I had at least two bullets that bounced off the coreflute target backing, one barely split the paper target. I guess about 75% of them were unaffected by the immersion. Hopefully I don't make that mistake again

I chronongraphed the hot .44-40's, one was right on 1000fps, one hit 1020fps, and they averaged 958fps, which is too close to the 1000fps max. Shooting steel plates three meters in front of you, ten times in maybe six seconds it felt like the whole world was vibrating around me, way too much muzzle blast for that. The max allowed for Cowboy is 1000fps for the pistols and pistol-caliber rifle. The long-range rifles can go to 1400fps. I would expect these to add another 200fps in the rifle.

I also chronographed the S&B .357 158gn LRN factory load in my six-inch Model 19 - 1142fps with a high of 1216, so no good for Cowboy.

I'm loading a pile of blackpowder for this weekend so I tried the quickest load, filling the case with black and seating the bullet on top. I filled the case to about 2mm from the top, giving me 35.5gn of FFFg (a heaped 2.2cc dipper) still with some compression. In the rifle they averaged 1172fps, with a high of 1235fps, so definitely way too hot. So I dropped it to 21.5gn of FFFg (a heaped 1.3cc dipper) with 11gn of polenta on top (a heaped 1cc dipper). I tried chronoing these, but in the atrocious weather we had I only got one measurement, of 6908fps, which I guess was a Mach-6 grain of polenta It's very time-consuming making blackpowder loads.

I had a GA on Thursday to put a camera down my throat. I usually don't much like GA's but they improve the drugs every year and this one was amazing. They were still making me comfy on the bed when they switched me off with no warning. I opened my eyes from a lovely dream (that I couldn't remember) to a pretty Asian girl who had been sat there to watch me come out. I felt absolutely fine as soon as I woke, though it took about fifteen minutes for my eyes to focus properly. Rose picked me up a few minutes later and we went to the pistol club to move some target frames before we went home where I ate everything I could find. I woke up at 0300 with some reflux, but that could've simply been due to all the grub I stashed down there rather than the procedure. Put a slice of bread in there to settle it, sat up for an hour and went back to bed. Only twelve years ago I had a GA that took more than an hour to come out of and bothered me for days, before that they were even more rugged. Incredible progress.

Ok so I had a win yesterday..

3.7gn APS 350 , 125 gn Black widow OAL 1.130 did the trick..

I also cleaned and lubed the gun up real well and shot through a box of factory ammo first then a box of the reloads with zero malfunctions..

and now I have a scale which seems very accurate and consistent so I loaded up another hundred weighing each one for now just to maintain that consistency.

Didn't bother with the chrono for now though I'm sure they were faster then 26 fps..lol..Next trip I'll do a bit of accuracy testing at 50 and 75 yards..

and whats the go with ultrasonic cleaners..I'm just using a Hornady tumbler with corn media and find the shells come up clean and shiny although it probably doesn't clean the primer pocket as much as you would want..

I didn't think about your climate challenges there regarding fans but we can turn them down if needed which is never up here...you definitely need some type of breeze from behind to clear the air in the pistol bays I reckon though..