Best idea I've seen for these tests is to get one of those small insulated "lunch boxes" with the heater in it from Amazon, and get a small cooler with ice or dry ice. Preload the mags and if you want to, you can pre-heat or pre-cool them however you like, or just put them in the cooler and lunch box for a few hours. For gauging temp. I've seen guys tape a temp. probe in empty brass with the fired primer still in it, and this probe just hangs out with the preloaded mags wherever they go. If you want to get fancy, you could make a plug for the temp probe out of jb weld or something. Or you could make a dummy round and put the probe through the primer pocket, which would probably be best because it would better account for the heat or cold that the projectile "holds on to". Being the component with the most mass and density I would think that the projectile actually plays a pretty good role in how quickly the cartridge heats up or cools off, and how long it takes to cool down or warm up once it's moved back to "room temp". Anyway, keep up the good work Sir
I have really enjoyed your tests. I’m glad you are using 6mm ARC as your test platform. It is the cartridge that I have been learning to load with and it is really a good shooter.
I agree but this is also only one test in 1 cartridge. More testing is needed to confirm these results. This powder at a glance seems very temp stable.
Use a hair dryer to heat the next ones up. adjust the distance from the brass to adjust temp and it keeps them dry. Also once your set up it's a lot faster to get the heat evenly on and in the ammo. Great stuff. thanks I appreciate your information. by the way have you done a video on the stock and changes you have made to your rifle. I will be picking up a switchback in the near future so that information would be a huge help. Thanks again and looking forward to the next one.
Interesting. The better test would be the gun being as cold or hot as the ammo. Not wanting to shoot in 150° weather is fine, but if one shot their rifle 6-7 times in rapid succession, in 95° weather, the gun barrel and the last chambered round would be near 150° and its velocity could then be measured. One could also leave the ammo and firearm in the noonday Summer sun for a few minutes and both would heat up quite nicely. Similar acclimation could be done in cold weather.
I did a test the same powder , except I was pushing 3000 FPS out of my 300WSM with 180 bullets. The powder seems to be stable at lower 2600 FPS, but take it higher where the temperature makes a greater difference at the result is instability. My rounds at 50 degrees were perfect, 1/4 MOA. Same load @ 70 degrees started opening up. @ 80 degrees primers stated blowing out the back and some bullets hit completely side ways. My opinion is that StaBall, is only stable at lower velocities. Try the same test at 2900 FPS with your 6mm.
Testing to higher temps would be more better. It's not the temp you're shooting in(mostly), it's the temp of the powder in the case. You would be shocked at how quickly the ammo gets well over 100F just sitting in the sun on a nice 65F day, much less in a car or in the summer or hot environments. When doing temp testing, the largest extremes in temp that you can get should be the goal, in order to provide the best "snap shot" of the temp profile. Many other factors affect the profile, and it's not perfectly linear(usually), but in the absence of massive testing and analysis, the wider the snap shot, the better the approximation.
Looking forward to more testing with other powders and calibers. I'm planning on doing some testing of my own. Cause I do load development during summer typically, And hunt in very cold conditions. So this new Staball powder looks promising
In testing done at the GRT Lab, VV N555 actually lost velocity as temperature increased, and gained velocity as temperature decreased. The delta between the high and low was only 3 fps. So, do not assume that StaBall Match does not loose velocity as the temperature increases. That is the nature of the latest temp control chemicals. GRT process is to vacuum seal the rounds in a magazine, and hold those temps for 24 hr. One bag is held in a antifreeze mix that gels at -4 F / -20 C, one bag is exposed to 70 F / 21 C, and the hot bag is held in a thermostatic hot bath at 140 F / 60 C. Before going to the range the Thermos containers are sealed and taken to the range. For each temp. the rounds are taken from the Thermos, removed from the bag and fired as fast as the chrono will allow. Temps are adjusted approx 5 F for handling. A minimum of 5 shots are required. The 70 F / 21 C temp is standard, but but may not be the actual break point in the response curve since this is tested at 3 points only. A test using 10 F steps would be better, but costly. The 3 step test does establish the general trend. GRT has a Assistant (wizard) that allow the standard temp. curve to be adjusted, and is effective once the propellant model is adjusted at the 70 F level. The Temp. field in GRT is propellant temp, not air temp. With your measurements of high and low, the GRT Propellant temp values are approx. -.0251 for tcc, and -.0163 for tch. This a bit crude since your middle temp was off by 8 F. I also used the 6 shot average of your 105 F V0 readings. The N555 tcc is -.0057 and tch is -.0033. So N555 is approx 5 times more temp stable than StaBall Match. StaBall Match has approx half the velocity swing of LeverEvolution, which is what your viewers really want to know. However, the bulk of StaBall Match will prevent it from ever producing LVR velocities, and it may be impossible to cram enough into a 6 ARC round to go over pressure. StaBall Match when compressed does not clump like LVR which requires one to dig the propellant from the case if the bullet is pulled out by collet. So it can be said that StaBall Match is not sticky while LVR is sticky.
My guess with the vacuum sealing of the rounds in the 1st test: the vacuum condition may have introduced a different variable - reduced oxygen. Maybe. (not the water) Great tests & very interesting results! Thanks for sharing!
Yeah I'm not sure how it changed the rounds but seems like it caused an extra variable. That's why I felt the need to try warming rounds in a different way.
Maybe the vaccum sealing lowered the humidity in the powder? That may have changed the burn rate a little. Usually humidity is important while you're reloading. If its dryer you're actually ending up with more powder because it contains less humidity. When loading in humid conditions, you're weighing powder plus water content ending up with less powder per grain weighed. But in the case of vaccum sealed, the powder was already weighed and even if you dry it after you still have the same amount of powder. That may be why your vaccum sealed loads shot close to the cold shots. But overall it seems stable for most hunter's need anyway.
You'll want a test sample larger than 3 each to resolve any differences. While Hornady suggests 20 shots before you have a true picture of an average velocity and accurate SD, that's a lot of commitment for what we are doing... That said, I ran a similar test when StaBALL 6.5 was released using 10 shots each and it showed a pretty clear trend.
I’ve got a Savage 110 Tactical in 6.5 Creed and it struggles with extraction/ejection. I’ve swapped out the extractor and pin with factory replacements and aftermarket ones from Tactical Research to no avail. I see yours occasionally fails as well. Mines pretty much a fail every time. Love the rifle and how it shoots. WIll be requesting a new bolt from savage. I also have a 20” 6mm ARC AR15 and just picked up a few hundred factory second 105 OTM’s (Hornady) and some Staball match, appreciate the data you tested here. I was hoping it was similarly stable as Varget and it looks to fit the bill. CFE 223 is just far too unstable for me to do much more than plink with it despite being so versatile. Might make the switch for 223 as well if i can get it to shoot good with adequate velocities.
Being vacuum sealed you created a negative pressure inside the bag that slowly sucked air out of the cartridges. Less O2 to ignite with the powder equals lower burn rate and lower pressure. You probably cut open the bag and shot them right away not giving them time to equal out again. Who would have thought? I'll ignore the third test, but really like the results from 14 to 62 degrees. What's the chance you bought some Staball HD to test?
Wow…I should have bought that powder when I could have! Sold out everywhere I look. Do you have a food dehydrator? I use one to dry my brass and maybe a good safe way to heat up those rounds on the next go around. Thanks for my Saturday pre-range entertainment!
I'm going to look into those heated containers to allow the rounds to "cook" for hours prior to shooting. Since I shoot at my home I can leave rounds in the freezer as long as I want then shoot them minutes after coming out. The hot rounds are the ones that are hard to control for me.
I wonder, if when you vacuum sealed the first ones in water, the bullet could have been pulled into the case further causing less pressure and the lower velocities?
That's a good guess, except if the bullet seats deeper it increases pressure and increases bullet jump to the lands, both of which increase velocity. I'm going with the negative pressure inside the bags over extended period caused a negative pressure inside the cartridges giving the powder slightly less O2 to burn. Who knows for sure?
@@RobsReloading awesome im testing varget in 6.5 Creedmoor and 38gr gets me 2740 with 140gr bullet and Winchester staball match has about the same burn rate
Should have done all your talking before loading the rounds. I also would have loaded the rounds in a magazine and then heated or cooled them. That would have been more realistic.
Deeply flawed test. However, despite the flaws and the bias that you used to skew the velocities… the total group… looks great… and that’s what really counts. Despite changing so many variables the POI and group size held together. This is a very good sign that that powder will work well in your load…. Depending on application.
From a Hunter's perspective the fact POI doesn't shift much is fantastic.
Best idea I've seen for these tests is to get one of those small insulated "lunch boxes" with the heater in it from Amazon, and get a small cooler with ice or dry ice. Preload the mags and if you want to, you can pre-heat or pre-cool them however you like, or just put them in the cooler and lunch box for a few hours. For gauging temp. I've seen guys tape a temp. probe in empty brass with the fired primer still in it, and this probe just hangs out with the preloaded mags wherever they go. If you want to get fancy, you could make a plug for the temp probe out of jb weld or something.
Or you could make a dummy round and put the probe through the primer pocket, which would probably be best because it would better account for the heat or cold that the projectile "holds on to". Being the component with the most mass and density I would think that the projectile actually plays a pretty good role in how quickly the cartridge heats up or cools off, and how long it takes to cool down or warm up once it's moved back to "room temp". Anyway, keep up the good work Sir
Thank you for the video on 6ARC keep them coming 👍🏻
Using a sous vide to heat them up was genius.
Only it turned out to not be a great idea. Seems it changed the rounds in some way.
I have really enjoyed your tests. I’m glad you are using 6mm ARC as your test platform. It is the cartridge that I have been learning to load with and it is really a good shooter.
That's way more temp stable than I expected. Thanks for testing this!
I agree but this is also only one test in 1 cartridge. More testing is needed to confirm these results. This powder at a glance seems very temp stable.
Great test. Good thinking. Huge encouragement. Thanks a bundle.
Great test and info, thank you sir!
Use a hair dryer to heat the next ones up. adjust the distance from the brass to adjust temp and it keeps them dry. Also once your set up it's a lot faster to get the heat evenly on and in the ammo. Great stuff. thanks I appreciate your information. by the way have you done a video on the stock and changes you have made to your rifle. I will be picking up a switchback in the near future so that information would be a huge help. Thanks again and looking forward to the next one.
Interesting.
The better test would be the gun being as cold or hot as the ammo. Not wanting to shoot in 150° weather is fine, but if one shot their rifle 6-7 times in rapid succession, in 95° weather, the gun barrel and the last chambered round would be near 150° and its velocity could then be measured.
One could also leave the ammo and firearm in the noonday Summer sun for a few minutes and both would heat up quite nicely. Similar acclimation could be done in cold weather.
Watching!! ❤
I did a test the same powder , except I was pushing 3000 FPS out of my 300WSM with 180 bullets. The powder seems to be stable at lower 2600 FPS, but take it higher where the temperature makes a greater difference at the result is instability. My rounds at 50 degrees were perfect, 1/4 MOA. Same load @ 70 degrees started opening up. @ 80 degrees primers stated blowing out the back and some bullets hit completely side ways. My opinion is that StaBall, is only stable at lower velocities. Try the same test at 2900 FPS with your 6mm.
Testing to higher temps would be more better. It's not the temp you're shooting in(mostly), it's the temp of the powder in the case. You would be shocked at how quickly the ammo gets well over 100F just sitting in the sun on a nice 65F day, much less in a car or in the summer or hot environments. When doing temp testing, the largest extremes in temp that you can get should be the goal, in order to provide the best "snap shot" of the temp profile. Many other factors affect the profile, and it's not perfectly linear(usually), but in the absence of massive testing and analysis, the wider the snap shot, the better the approximation.
I'm impressed with your shooting from the bipod. Seems to me, the groups are just as tight as you used to shoot off bags.
I've been doing a lot of practice.
Looking forward to more testing with other powders and calibers. I'm planning on doing some testing of my own. Cause I do load development during summer typically, And hunt in very cold conditions. So this new Staball powder looks promising
In testing done at the GRT Lab, VV N555 actually lost velocity as temperature increased, and gained velocity as temperature decreased. The delta between the high and low was only 3 fps. So, do not assume that StaBall Match does not loose velocity as the temperature increases. That is the nature of the latest temp control chemicals. GRT process is to vacuum seal the rounds in a magazine, and hold those temps for 24 hr. One bag is held in a antifreeze mix that gels at -4 F / -20 C, one bag is exposed to 70 F / 21 C, and the hot bag is held in a thermostatic hot bath at 140 F / 60 C. Before going to the range the Thermos containers are sealed and taken to the range. For each temp. the rounds are taken from the Thermos, removed from the bag and fired as fast as the chrono will allow. Temps are adjusted approx 5 F for handling. A minimum of 5 shots are required. The 70 F / 21 C temp is standard, but but may not be the actual break point in the response curve since this is tested at 3 points only. A test using 10 F steps would be better, but costly. The 3 step test does establish the general trend. GRT has a Assistant (wizard) that allow the standard temp. curve to be adjusted, and is effective once the propellant model is adjusted at the 70 F level. The Temp. field in GRT is propellant temp, not air temp. With your measurements of high and low, the GRT Propellant temp values are approx. -.0251 for tcc, and -.0163 for tch. This a bit crude since your middle temp was off by 8 F. I also used the 6 shot average of your 105 F V0 readings. The N555 tcc is -.0057 and tch is -.0033. So N555 is approx 5 times more temp stable than StaBall Match. StaBall Match has approx half the velocity swing of LeverEvolution, which is what your viewers really want to know. However, the bulk of StaBall Match will prevent it from ever producing LVR velocities, and it may be impossible to cram enough into a 6 ARC round to go over pressure. StaBall Match when compressed does not clump like LVR which requires one to dig the propellant from the case if the bullet is pulled out by collet. So it can be said that StaBall Match is not sticky while LVR is sticky.
Interesting information here. Wonder if get will add the new Staball powders.
Didn't AR Comp also lose velocity as temps increased in Johnny's tests? I think it was AR Comp.
No telling how the vacuum sealing affected the powder.
Thanks, great video
My guess with the vacuum sealing of the rounds in the 1st test: the vacuum condition may have introduced a different variable - reduced oxygen. Maybe.
(not the water)
Great tests & very interesting results! Thanks for sharing!
Yeah I'm not sure how it changed the rounds but seems like it caused an extra variable. That's why I felt the need to try warming rounds in a different way.
Maybe the vaccum sealing lowered the humidity in the powder? That may have changed the burn rate a little. Usually humidity is important while you're reloading. If its dryer you're actually ending up with more powder because it contains less humidity. When loading in humid conditions, you're weighing powder plus water content ending up with less powder per grain weighed. But in the case of vaccum sealed, the powder was already weighed and even if you dry it after you still have the same amount of powder. That may be why your vaccum sealed loads shot close to the cold shots. But overall it seems stable for most hunter's need anyway.
I'm wondering if the vacuum sealing lowered the ammo of oxygen in the case, effecting combustion.
You'll want a test sample larger than 3 each to resolve any differences. While Hornady suggests 20 shots before you have a true picture of an average velocity and accurate SD, that's a lot of commitment for what we are doing... That said, I ran a similar test when StaBALL 6.5 was released using 10 shots each and it showed a pretty clear trend.
I’ve got a Savage 110 Tactical in 6.5 Creed and it struggles with extraction/ejection. I’ve swapped out the extractor and pin with factory replacements and aftermarket ones from Tactical Research to no avail. I see yours occasionally fails as well. Mines pretty much a fail every time. Love the rifle and how it shoots. WIll be requesting a new bolt from savage. I also have a 20” 6mm ARC AR15 and just picked up a few hundred factory second 105 OTM’s (Hornady) and some Staball match, appreciate the data you tested here. I was hoping it was similarly stable as Varget and it looks to fit the bill. CFE 223 is just far too unstable for me to do much more than plink with it despite being so versatile. Might make the switch for 223 as well if i can get it to shoot good with adequate velocities.
Being vacuum sealed you created a negative pressure inside the bag that slowly sucked air out of the cartridges. Less O2 to ignite with the powder equals lower burn rate and lower pressure. You probably cut open the bag and shot them right away not giving them time to equal out again. Who would have thought?
I'll ignore the third test, but really like the results from 14 to 62 degrees. What's the chance you bought some Staball HD to test?
I don't have any Staball hd. Haven't found any yet.
Wow…I should have bought that powder when I could have! Sold out everywhere I look. Do you have a food dehydrator? I use one to dry my brass and maybe a good safe way to heat up those rounds on the next go around. Thanks for my Saturday pre-range entertainment!
It's available online.
Attention brothers and sisters, somehow CZcams unsubscribed me from this channel just recent subscribed
Where is everyone getting brass & primers to reload 6mm ARC? I've seen bullets around.
Good question, especially about the brass.
@@theoriginalDAL357 I use resized 6.5 grendel brass.
I'm thinking that you should heat or cool entire loaded magazines in Ziploc-type bags, which would provide more temperature stability.👍
I'm going to look into those heated containers to allow the rounds to "cook" for hours prior to shooting. Since I shoot at my home I can leave rounds in the freezer as long as I want then shoot them minutes after coming out. The hot rounds are the ones that are hard to control for me.
Understanding nabors I guess
I can shoot some but then I piss them off.
Isn't it supposed to be temperature for the air that is burned by the powder, instead of the casing the powder is in?
How does Staball match meter out of your Lyman Gen 6?
I think they designed this to be hottest at normal temperatures
My thing is shouldn’t the rifle be similar temps?
I wonder, if when you vacuum sealed the first ones in water, the bullet could have been pulled into the case further causing less pressure and the lower velocities?
That's a good guess, except if the bullet seats deeper it increases pressure and increases bullet jump to the lands, both of which increase velocity.
I'm going with the negative pressure inside the bags over extended period caused a negative pressure inside the cartridges giving the powder slightly less O2 to burn.
Who knows for sure?
Could you test match in 6.5 Creedmoor
In the future I will
@@RobsReloading awesome im testing varget in 6.5 Creedmoor and 38gr gets me 2740 with 140gr bullet and Winchester staball match has about the same burn rate
Should have done all your talking before loading the rounds. I also would have loaded the rounds in a magazine and then heated or cooled them. That would have been more realistic.
Deeply flawed test. However, despite the flaws and the bias that you used to skew the velocities… the total group… looks great… and that’s what really counts. Despite changing so many variables the POI and group size held together. This is a very good sign that that powder will work well in your load…. Depending on application.
What bias did I use to skew velocities? This was the most reasonable way I could think of to test temp stability.