Just a quick update on this thread.
4barrel sent me a few of his loaded rounds to examine. The idea being to have a "second set of eyes" looking them over.
I pulled down half a dozen of them and found more variation in the charge weights than I would be comfortable with - enough to indicate a possible problem with the powder weighing/dispensing. But the average was just over 17g, so that wasn't really the most troubling issue.
The bigger and far more alarming thing I found was that the powder didn't look anything like the IMR4227 I have. I've got two canisters of IMR4227 with the lot #1062514-4498, one of which was still sealed and unopened. When I started pulling the bullets on the sample cartridges, I noticed that the powder didn't look like what I was expecting. The powder in these rounds is a short-cut, extruded, "stick" powder - something like IMR700X. I first compared the powder from the rounds I broke down to my stash of IMR4227 starting with my open can first. Then just to be 100% certain, I even cracked open my brand new can to compare. Both my cans looked the same - small spherical grains, not short extruded sticks.
So I'm not sure what powder is loaded in these rounds, but it definitely isn't the same as my IMR4227. Like I said, it looks more like something closer to IMR700X. Not sure how this happened - maybe the powder was put into the wrong canister, or the canister got the wrong label applied? IF the powder I pulled from these rounds IS 700X - and I am not saying that is definitely the correct identification - BUT if it is 700X, or even something close, that would certainly explain the damage to Bluetopper's revolver. Because the weight of the powder in these cartridges is roughly 3 times the maximum safe charge of 700X for a 150gr-158gr cast LSWC bullet.
Below is a photo of some of my IMR4227 on the left compared to some of the mystery powder on the right. Obviously they are not the same thing at all. So while we may still not know exactly HOW this happened, we at least have a better idea of WHAT happened. There was obviously some kind of powder mixup at some point. Whether that was in the packaging process or at some subsequent point afterwards, there is no doubt in my mind that is the main cause of the catastrophic damage.
Last edited by BC38; 06-24-2018 at 12:08 AM.
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