Well I made it to the range today and the weather cooperated. I set the chrony up at around ten feet from the bench. Temperature on the range today was a nice warm 48 deg. I used two different guns, a Ruger Blackhawk with a 4 5/8 inch barrel and a Ruger Sp101 with a 3 inch barrel to fire the test loads. Upon firing the loads they didn't seem any more powerful than loads I have fired from these guns in the past, at least going by felt recoil. Time for the chrony results. Remember Alliant lists this powder as hitting 1,686 fps with a max load with a 158 grain bullet and using a 10 inch barrel. Once again my load is:
Winchester .357 mag brass
laser cast 158 swc
17.5 grains of 300 mp
cci small pistol primer
I knew since I was only using shorter barrels today I wouldn't hit Alliants claimed velocity. I did believe that if Alliants claims were true I should see velocity in the 1,300 fps range or so.
Ok, without further ramblings here are the chrony results.
Ruger Blackhawk 4 5/8 inch barrel.
Shot 1: 1,170 fps
Shot 2: 1,121 fps
Shot 3: 1,231 fps
Shot 4: 1,173 fps
Shot 5: 1,152 fps
Average velocity: 1,169 fps
Standard deviation: 40 fps
Average deviation: 26.3 fps
extreme spread: 109.6 fps!
Ruger Sp101 3 inch barrel
Shot 1: 1,127 fps
Shot 2: 1,162 fps
Shot 3: 1,121 fps
Shot 4: 1,181 fps
Shot 5: 1,147 fps
Average velocity: 1,147 fps
Standard deviation: 24.7 fps
Average deviation: 19.1 fps
Extreme spread: 59.5 fps
Well as you can see this powder didn't even come close to its velocity claims. Why it didn't I don't know. Was it the colder range temp, short gun barrels, less than max load, who knows. I am surprised that the shorter barreled Sp101 didn't suffer to much of a velocity lose compared to the Blackhawk. Of course now I have to try these loads out of a 16 inch barreled Winchester and a 6.5 inch barreled Blackhawk to see if maybe I pick up more velocity than the 10 or so fps per inch that I am currently getting with the two different guns.
As it stands right now this powder wouldn't be my first choice for max velocity. In fact in the past using the same amount of Lil gun powder and this bullet I have seen velocities nearly 100 fps faster than today's results out of the same guns.
