An Early Attempt at Tri-Load

And, just imagine...? Don't the powder and/or ammunition manufacturers mix compounds and/or powders everyday to determine and develop their desired results?:eek:

Jus' sayin'...

Cheers!
 
Per the late Charlie Petty, the ammo companies do burn rate tests on each individual barrel of whatever powder they get and adjust load data accordingly. That's one-of several-of the reasons for the lot numbers on your ammo boxes.

The powder companies blend different lots of a given powder type to obtain the proper burn rate for their cannister grade powders. That's the stuff we buy off the shelves. Kind of the way distillers make blended whiskeys.
 
Last edited:
The propellant manufacturers do blend propellant lots for consistency for sale to reloaders, the purpose being to get very close to the same ballistic performance for a given powder, like Bullseye, year after year. For sale to commercial loaders that is not necessary, as the loading companies test each lot of propellant received, which can be tens of thousands of pounds or more, in their ballistics labs and adjust their loads accordingly to get the desired ballistic performance.
 
Last edited:
Rule3 said:
Have no idea what a tri load is? The concept makes no sense at all and sounds like a hold my beer and watch this!:confused:
Click to expand...

think duplex or triplex loads ... multiple powders used to compensate for the lack of powders they hadn't invented yet back in the day.
It was up there with grenade juggling then, and still is today.

While it could be done to get higher performance loads from say, a 44 magnum. The real solution is to just get a bigger gun.
 
IIRC, duplex loading was common(?) among black powder shooters, a small charge of fine, faster burning powder under a normal charge of rifle black powder. I may be mistaken but I may have read somewhere the big Naval guns uses a type of duplex load. I was into 44 Magnums for quite a while, '80s to '10s liking the wrist breaking recoil and deafening muzzle blast, but experimenting with duplex loading was not even considered...
 
Why on God's green earth would someone try it. There are powders for every application in this day and age. I see loads posted all the time with the wrong charge of 1 powder. I'll stop here.
 
In one of the books written by Elmer Keith, he described developing a duplex load for the .50 BMG that allowed a smidgen (maybe 300 FPS) more velocity. IIRC, it was done at lower pressure. He was a inveterate experimenter with all manner of cartridges. Real pleasure to simply read of the things he did with rifles of all types as well as revolvers and some pistols.

As for my part, I've only used plain common reloading powders for my revolvers/pistols. In my first few years, I did wreak some havoc on a nice post-64 Winchester M-70 in .243 Win., and a six-inch S&W M28. The Winchester was fixed. The S&W just got loose. I learned not to try to use more powder than recommended or powders not recommended to try to get more juice out of a cartridge. Now 41 years later, haven't messed up any more rifles and revolvers. Goes the same for pistols. Never really got into trying to squeeze them.

Lately I've been feeling a bit of a yen to see about a bit heavier loads of .38 Special ... .357 Magnum. Took a look at Underwood, Buffalo Bore, etc. Decided to not try to reinvent the wheel. If I really decide I can't live without trying something interesting in those calibers, I'll just buy some of the Underwood or Buffalo Bore stuff and see what it does. Just not worth messing up another revolver. Sincerely. bruce.
 
mikld said:
IIRC, duplex loading was common(?) among black powder shooters, a small charge of fine, faster burning powder under a normal charge of rifle black powder. I may be mistaken but I may have read somewhere the big Naval guns uses a type of duplex load. I was into 44 Magnums for quite a while, '80s to '10s liking the wrist breaking recoil and deafening muzzle blast, but experimenting with duplex loading was not even considered...
Click to expand...

I'm fairly sure you are correct. The fast signing powder was used to aid in igniting black powder charges in rifles. Today we can use a magnum primer instead lol.
 
A friend asked me to sight in his 45-70. Heavy gun, but the first round felt like a 458 Win Mag. I fired a second, same recoil. I looked at the brass and it was split from chamber mouth to the rim. I pulled out a box of factory loads and zeroed it. The gun was okay, I got lucky. Found out that his reloader mixed 3 and 4 powders. INSANE. Be Safe,
 
vipermd said:
A friend asked me to sight in his 45-70. Heavy gun, but the first round felt like a 458 Win Mag. I fired a second, same recoil. I looked at the brass and it was split from chamber mouth to the rim. I pulled out a box of factory loads and zeroed it. The gun was okay, I got lucky. Found out that his reloader mixed 3 and 4 powders. INSANE. Be Safe,
Click to expand...

Actually, he put you in danger doing something like that. I would not be happy with him. If was very nice of you to sight in his rifle but he should have thought of your safety, not only his sights.
 
90% or more of my shooting is handguns, and 90% or more of those are my own cast bullets. I ENJOY casting and with about 100 molds and various sources of alloys, I am always tinkering with new loads. Add to this equation the fact that I have a decent stash of TiteGroup that I obtained at pre-covid wholesale prices.

So I have learned to carefully work up loads and watch for pressure signs. As others pointed out, our craft has room to wiggle out side of published data. It is how we build an expanded data base.
 
Rpg said:
I believe that duplex loads originally were used when smokeless powder was originally introduced.

The huge British Express cartridges such as the 500BPE needed a boost to ignite the new cordite smokeless powder so a layer of quicker burning powder would be added to the bottom of the case, under the cordite. A wad or something like kapock was inserted tightly on top of the cordite to keep the powders from mixing and keep it up against the primer.
Click to expand...

mikld said:
IIRC, duplex loading was common(?) among black powder shooters, a small charge of fine, faster burning powder under a normal charge of rifle black powder. I may be mistaken but I may have read somewhere the big Naval guns uses a type of duplex load. I was into 44 Magnums for quite a while, '80s to '10s liking the wrist breaking recoil and deafening muzzle blast, but experimenting with duplex loading was not even considered...
Click to expand...


That's my understanding as well, although I hear folks claim that Buffalo Bore uses duplex loads in some of their factory ammo to get the velocities they get within SAAMI pressures.

Personally, the only duplex load I have ever used was for my paper cartridge 1859 Sharps. Even with a musket cap the path from nipple down through the block around a 90 degree turn, to the center of the block and then around another 90 degree turn to finally reach the powder is too long with the flame cooling too much to ignite pyrodex.

The only options are black powder, or a duplex load where you load the pyrodex in the cartridge first and then top it off with the much easier to ignite FFg or FFFg. That black powder is then exposed when the block cuts the back off the cartridge and ensures the cap can ignite the black powder, which ignites the Pyrodex.

But I only used that for a very short time when I was almost out of black powder and needed to make it stretch with some black powder helper, so to speak.

I don't know about using a fine grained black powder to ignite a larger grained black powder as I'm pretty sure the ignition temp is the same regardless of grain size.
 
Last edited:
I heard of a guy not happy with the tarnished look of his surplus foreign ammo so he rolled it in his brass tumbler. Apparently the burning rate of the stick powder was controlled by the length of the sticks. Tumbling shortened them and caused a KABOOM.
 
I'll confess I have done some things that aren't in any book. Sometimes I come up with stuff in my head and just want to see if I'm right. I'm fully aware of the consequences if I'm wrong. My gun, my face, my choice.

I do it out of curiosity, not ignorance.
 
When I shot Pyrodex in my old TC Hawken I loaded 5 gr of 4F first then the charge of Pyrodex...never has a miss fire. but I was hunting for next few months din-din. Never tried a duplex or triplex in smokeless. I liked Kabooms...but NOT in my hands
 
I believe it was Dick Casull who experimented with triplex loads when he was developing the 454 Casull. It has been a long time, but I think it was Bullseye powder first, then Unique(?) and finally 2400. Again the article I read was over 50 years ago, and my memory isn't that good! If you can find an article on his development you should read it. His first 454's were built on standard Colt SAA frames.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

K
Ruger pellet gun
Replies
9
Views
1K
wood714
wood714
kstaines
Need info on a .32-20 Spanish S&W clone
2
Replies
37
Views
3K
Major 2
Major 2
T
WST, Winchester Super Target; pet handgun loads?
Replies
9
Views
902
DeplorabusUnum
DeplorabusUnum
Faulkner
About a month ago . . .
2 3
Replies
45
Views
3K
steelslaver
steelslaver
F
pc'd bullets vs traditional/lubed bullet velocities
Replies
9
Views
1K
Lance Boyle
L

Latest posts

Back
Top