{"id":2017,"date":"2022-10-19T18:51:45","date_gmt":"2022-10-19T18:51:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fwrrclub.org\/?p=2017"},"modified":"2022-10-19T18:51:46","modified_gmt":"2022-10-19T18:51:46","slug":"making-a-smokeless-powder-cake-sorta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fwrrclub.org\/index.php\/2022\/10\/19\/making-a-smokeless-powder-cake-sorta\/","title":{"rendered":"Making a Smokeless Powder Cake (Sorta)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We reload our Junior ammunition with a surplus powder,\nWC-844.  It is available only once or\ntwice a year and we jump on an opportunity to buy 24 or 32 pounds in a single\npurchase just in case it doesn\u2019t show up again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, unlike commercial powders which are manufactured to be consistent from container to container, military powders do not have the same lot-to-lot consistency.\u00a0 Different lots may vary and when the military arsenals load ammunition, they vary the charge weight in the cartridge to get a specified velocity within pressure limits.\u00a0 So, an M193 round loaded at Lake City in 1998 may have used 24.3 grains of WC-844, but an LC 2015 cartridge might only have had 23.8 grains.\u00a0 When we use powder from pulled down ammunition, the powder can be a mix of who knows how many different powder lots \u2013 we only know that it is WC-844.\u00a0 We need all of our powder to be the same for accuracy and safety reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
We need all of this powder to be the same. Time to do some mixing!<\/em><\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As the picture shows, we had five different jugs of\nWC-844.  Now, they might all have come\nout of the same drum of surplus pull down powder — but then again they might\nnot. To make sure that all the powder is the same, I have to blend it together \u2013\na process not terribly different from mixing flour, sugar, baking powder and\nsalt to make a cake.  You pour a little\nout of one jug, add in some from another, and stir well (with a wooden paddle).  Then you repeat until you have all of the\npowder from the five jugs in one big bucket \u2013 all mixed up into a consistent\nbatch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is when you realize that you have about 35-pounds of smokeless\npowder sitting in an open bucket in your garage \u2013 pucker time.  You pour it back into the black anti-static\nplastic jugs with a glass cup and once it\u2019s all back \u2013 you give a big WHEW!  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now we have our powder blended for the summer of 2023.  I have to do test loads to make sure that we\nare not going to have any pressure issues \u2013 but that should be done by mid-November.  Mark Walters and I have looked at many fired\ncases, and we think we will reduce our load by a half-grain for 2023 \u2013 a basic\nload of 23.5 grains from the 24.0 we used in 2022.  That should not have any real difference in\nzeroes and muzzle velocity, but it will make life a bit easier on rifles and\ncases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We reload our Junior ammunition with a surplus powder, WC-844.  It is available only once or twice a year and we jump on an opportunity to buy 24 or 32 pounds in a single purchase just in case it doesn\u2019t show up again. But, unlike commercial powders which are manufactured to be consistent from container…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fwrrclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fwrrclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fwrrclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fwrrclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fwrrclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2017"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fwrrclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2130,"href":"https:\/\/fwrrclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2017\/revisions\/2130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fwrrclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fwrrclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fwrrclub.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}