doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com I read it in a magazine...

That was a really enlightening anecdote.

If you have access to a chrono I would suggest firing those loads across it. Those few thousandths difference must have been giving you a better seal, resulting in a higher velocity, which could also account for the different point of impact.
PS; I will go back & dig out my Jan AR & read that article. It is well noted though the AR is sorta like the "Ol Gray Mare, She Ain't What She Useter Be" (Todays AR has a lot less Wheat but a lot more Chaff).
Just this past issue in "I Have This Old Gun" I read that the L C Smith was the ""ONLY"" sidelock hammerless ever built in America. I e-mailed them & told them just off the top of my head without further research I could give them 3 more; Baker, A J Aubry & Crescent.
Will be interesting to see if they actually ""Confirmed"" those lesened recoil claims or just ""Repeated"" them.

Miller, I'm still without the Thomas book, but I believe you are correct in stating that Thomas did not actually conduct the tests himself. My error for saying he "ran" them. Simply reported on them in his book.

As to your Alliant quote . . . well, if you want to prove my point, please post the information! Once more . . . as you pointed out, Alliant was comparing the "new" powder to THEIR OWN long-time best seller. That's a bit like Ford saying "The Edsel is a better car than a Ford, so why not buy one?" Competing with THEIR OWN brand, which does not seem to gain them much in terms of economic advantage. Now if Ford touts the Edsel over the Pontiac and the Desoto, then you have a different story: competing companies. So unless Alliant is comparing to something offered by a competitor, like Hodgdon, I fail to see they have much of an axe to grind--at least not in terms of economic benefit--by getting shooters to switch from, say, Green Dot or Red Dot to the new, improved Purple Dot.

As for studying ballistics, I believe that Thomas--whose training was as an engineer--also did that for a very long time. The simple answer is that, when "proof" is not available in the form of mathematical formulae etc, some experts reach one conclusion; others, another. Some scientists believe in God; others don't.

"I encourage all here to read the article "Something For Nothing" in the Jan. 2010 American Rifleman. It tells of a new powder used in Hornady Superformance ammo that give measurably greater velocity with less recoil. After you read the article it sounds plausible though I have not tried it, and anyway, I only have my unscientific shoulder to evaluate it."


The only thing that proves to me, is that The American Rifleman has gone from a publication that once could be counted on to tell the truth, to just another rag more interested in promoting their sponsors, than the truth. There is no "something for nothing" and no free lunch. There is no magic powder. Every powder, every wad, every choke tube, every BS barrel modification claims to reduce recoil, shoot better(?) patterns, produce higher velocity, kill deader, burn cleaner and everything else that sounds good.

What you didn't do, Keith, is to chronograph those loads. And you also didn't compare those BP loads with much lighter loads of smokeless that produced the same velocity. My point being the loads containing much less weight of powder WILL recoil less.

i had some of Thomas' books and got rid of them because there was nothing in them i needed long term but my recollection parallels millers in that thomas didn't test anything, he reported something done by someone else.

as to the weight of the powder in the ejecta, in shotgun shells smokeless powder is of utterly no consequence. 30 grains of powder versus 437.5 grains of shot at least, that's not even 1%. you can calculate the effect but it would take something more precise than a human shoulder to ever detect so the difference in weights between fast and slow powders isn't even worth bringing up.

and finally, people need to learn the difference between energy and force. everything mentioned so far relates to kinetic energy which is a function of mass and velocity. unfortunately your shoulder doesn't feel energy; it feels force. force is a function of mass x acceleration. the faster you accelerate a shot charge down the bore the more force is generated.

you can shove 1oz of shot out a muzzle at 1100fps that was accelerated slowly up the bore and another oz at same velocity that was accelerated rapidly and you'll get the same kinetic energy of recoil but the FORCE of the latter will be greater. that's an immutable law of physics in the universe we live in and any test that shows results contrary are skewed, biased, jsut flat done wrong or misrepresented to prove a point.

annecdotally, i had a flat each of B&P anagrina's and high pheasants. same pressure, IIRC same velocity, and the high pheasants were a heavier payload. the anagrinas are loaded with lighter charge of faster burning powder and were vicious by comparison, so much so i quit shooting them in my A&N SLE because of concerns over what the recoil was doing to the skinny wrist on the gun. by all rights of gough thomas and the kinetic energy math, the field loads should have kicked harder. they didn't.

as an aside, anybody know where i can find reloading data on B&P 2.5" shells? i've got 500 of them i can't do anything with.

roger

fnb25 - better change the oil in your caclulator. 30 grains are 6.8% of 437, not "less than 1%"

I'm not physicist, so I guess it is not too strange that I am finding it hard to swallow the concept of burned powder as ejecta. I also find it a bit hard to follow the "Mah shayls are jest about thu same speed, I think, but the redd wuns hit me lak a hammer. Must be thu fast powdur."

The only thing, to my way of thinking, that can be considered "ejecta" are those components being forced out by the expansion of the burning propellant, e.g., the wads and shot. The propellant, regardless of what state it is in, unburned, burning or burned, is NOT being forced out but is or was in the process of propelling the ejecta.

Bill,
Your post about accepting burned powder as "ejecta" (as related to Uncle Issac's law: for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction) brings to mind the solid boosters on the Space Shuttle (or a jet engine burning kerosene). A bit of rubber with some mag and alum in it, burning makes some heat and pressure and has only one exit path thru nozzle at high velocity. It pushes pretty hard in the opposite direction.

I have no argument that the total weight of the "ejecta" and the velocity will get you to a total energy of opposite force (I think the word "recoil" is ambiguous in this discussion). What it won't do is give you peak force in the opposite direction. That requires knowing the peak force against the base of the projectile, which in turn requires knowing the area of the base of the projectile and the peak pressure.

What someone can feel can be debated until the world runs out of beer.

Your powder is changed by chemical action from a solid to a gas. The gas leaves the barrel at high speed, thus it's "ejecta" as much as the shot and wad. Guess what? The laws of chemistry tell us that the mass of that ejecta is exactly the same mass as the original mass of the powder.

If you doubt this effect, stop by the cape next time they launch a rocket. This is quite a convincing demonstration.

Fire a 300 Weatherby in a rifle with a removeable muzzle brake, with the brake on and with the brake off. In cartridges of that class the gas ejecta is 1/3 of the total ejecta and the brake redirects a significant portion of the gas sideways. The reduction in recoil is dramatic.