cause of sooty fired brass?

[huntsman]

Many of my fired handloads come out of the chamber of my 6.5x55 at the range stained with soot all the way from the neck down to the rim. Obviously there is some space between the case and the chamber that is allowing this to happen. Performance of the rounds is good, and there are no signs of high pressure. Is this normal, or should I be concerned?

[Rojelio]

Up your load a little and your problem will go away. You're not running enough pressure for your case to expand and seal the chamber. Rojelio.

[bgjohn]

Up your load a little and your problem will go away. You're not running enough pressure for your case to expand and seal the chamber. Rojelio.

Righto!
  JM

[jamie]

Yep, this is one of the few times that somone has too light a load.  Be careful up it slowly.

[Leftoverdj]

The other possibility is that your necks are too hard. If you are happy with your load otherwise, annealing the case necks will solve the problem, too.  Cast bullet shooters who don't want any more pressure run into this a lot.

[huntsman]

Using once and twice fired brass, so necks shouldn't be too hard yet. But I am shooting some lower-velocity loads, so that my be it. Would neck sizing only help the problem?

[Leftoverdj]

I've seen brass too hard right out of the factory.  If you have the room to increase the pressure and are willing to shoot heavier loads, increasing the charge into the normal level should stop the sooting. Necksizing is not likely to help because you are still workhardening the neck and that is the part that needs to expand.

I'm mostly a cast bullet shooter and my bullets just won't take more than modest pressure levels. I got a batch of Rem 7x57 brass with necks so hard that gas leaked around them to the point that it spit in my face. They might have worked fine at 50K psi, but my pressures were in the low 20 k range. Annealed the necks of the whole batch and they worked fine.

[Flint]

Some brands of brass are harder than others, and avoid nickle plated brass.  I have had unfired virgin Remington Peters (R-P) 357 brass split on the first shot.   Winchester seems a hair thinner than R-P.  44-40 brass is so thin it expands well with light loads.  45Colt is a lot stiffer. 44 Magnum is very hard.

[Castaway]

If I was gettng the performance I wanted, I put up with sooty brass.  Got one 45 Colt load that soots down one sided heavily but it plunks them in the "X" ring at 50 yards day in, day out.  On the other hand, I have hunting loads that seal the bore and don't soot.  Guess it depends on what you are using the load for.

[CASEY]

I FIND THAT "STARTER LOADS" IN YOUR LOAD BOOKS WILL SOOT BECAUSE OF THE LOW PSI'S THAT THEY START AT. YES, WHEN YOU INCREASE PRESSURE THE SOOTING WILL STOP.

[bigjeepman]

huntsman ...

You have been given some good advice here offering several options. Though I have not had this problem in my rifle loads, it is quite common when I am shooting .45 lc cowboy loads. My end purpose has always been accuracy first with comfort of shooting a distant second. In my opinion, it is much easier to clean some brass in a tumbler than to find yet another load that shoots as well. However, as some suggested, if you gradually increase your powder amount, you might eliminate the soot and not lose any accuracy.

[charlie45]

i'am using imr3031 @ 34 gr. with 140 gr. corelocks and remington brass and very little soot, although a near max load in the lee book it is mild and very acccurate.  crony @ 2350 avg., you could shoot this load all day and enjoy.