doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Am I missing something on pressure?

Got this off another forum where a fellow has developed and sent off his own turkey loads for testing. Here's his post:

Here are the results on the 1 3/4 oz, made some last min changes and it came out better than I thought. I needed to get the loads under 16k on PSI. It's been a long hard road down this reloading path, but it was worth it.
Now I have 2 safe and custom made turkey loads.

The LOADS #6's were @ Average....FPS 1176..............PSI 12510......PASSED !!! 8)

I like to think Scott at precision reLoading.
They sell alot of great reloading products and they do a great job with the lab work and results.



If you blow up the printout, you will see at the bottom under comments that max pressure is 11,500 PSI and these are 12,500 PSI average. Also deviation is 1,000 PSI between two of the loads that were sent in for testing. Lastly, does anyone have any idea why there is a figure of keeping it under 16,000 PSI quoted.

FYI, Saami specs for 2 3/4" and 3" 12 gauge is indeed 11,500 PSI which is what was quoted on the bottom of the testing data sheet.

What am I missing if anything??

You could ask the guy that's doing it??

Dr.WtS

I THINK HE IS MISSING REASONABILITY. I KILL TURKEYS WITH MY OLD
GREENER AND 1 OZ # 6. WHY THESE TURKEY HUNTER TYPES THINK THE NEED A PUNT GUN LOAD IS A MYSTERY TO ME.

16,000 psi is approaching proof load pressure. You're not missing anything, Tut. The guy playing around with 16,000 psi loads is the one who's missing it . . . unless he's interested in doing destruction tests, a la Sherman Bell.

Ok. I questioned what he was doing and got the following reply:

"I was having a hard time getting the pressure down from my original start of 18k. My goal was to get under 16K and then go from there. Most reloaders feel that getting 11,500 into the 15K is in the safe zone for the psi. Yes for 3" shells (11500 psi), and well under for 3.5" shells (14000 psi). The only reason they have the specs different is because there are old guns out there with 3" chambers. If you're shooting a gun made since the mid '70s, it has been proofed up around 20000 psi, so you are not going to be shooting anything that will hurt you or your gun if you go up a little higher than SAAMI. International CIP specs call for around 15000+ psi for both 3" and 3.5" shells, by the way.

Now I have my loads in the 12K and I'll settle for that."

PS. I wouldn't be shooting them out of anything I own.

You can always increase shell power (higher payload and/or higher velocity) if you are willing to use higher pressure. By the same token, you can get there sooner if you go faster - - - maybe. I can think a of many reasons not to exceed SAAMI or CIP pressures. There is always someone who thinks he needs something crew-served where hand-held is called for. Much like the hillbilly theory of luberication - enough is good, more is better, and too much is perfect.

My first questions would be "What website forum hosted this exchange?" and "Why would the company perform the test without questioning the experience of the person submitting the loads?"

I've had loads tested and I have no special "experience" to "qualify" me to send loads in for testing. They were tested for me and, as I expected, most of them came back well within my self-imposed limits for my 144 and 116+ year old damascus guns. I won't use it in my old guns but the one that was above my limits (as I expected it would be) was still well within SAAMI limits. The recipe was requested by the tester but pressure guns are designed to withstand much more pressure than sporting arms so the testers are not particularly concerned about damaging their equipment.

The problem here is not the company doing the testing but the idiot who thinks that shooting loads with pressures higher than the SAAMI limits is OK. He was properly warned that his loads exceeded SAAMI limits. You can't fix stupid.

I believe this was the company that did the testing based on the post:

https://www.precisionreloading.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=BLST&Store_Code=PRE

Send in your shells and send your MO for testing and they will give you the testing data. Would be interesting to see what they charge for testing.

When 1,000psi more only give you an increase in velocity of 8fps (or 0.68%), why go there?

JC