Lil Gun in .300 whisper

[Brian T]

Has anyone out there tried lil gun powder in the whisper?  I want to find a powder that will give the same vel as 296 but that will work better in the dillon 550.

This is a great round, I have shot everything from 110 to 220 grain bullets, jacketed and cast, all worked great, just need to kill something with it now

[J Henkle]

I tried Lil Gun with 125 BTs and the load was way way too warm.  I thought that since it was listed slower than H110 I could use equlivant amount and work up...  Not so...

Anyway, I shot one and pulled 19 rounds.  Not good when smoke rolls out of the trigger.  I stil want to revisit Lil Gun in the near future.

Post some results if you proceed....  jh

[BruceP]

I use Lil'Gun i nmy 300 Whisper with a 125 gr BT. I think that the load I ended up with was 17.5 gr but I'm not sure of that right now. I remember I went up to 18 gr and got just over 2000 fps but it was not that mush faster than the lesser load so I dropped back down. I really need to do some more work with it. I dont have any of the crono info written down because on my second shot with 18 gr. I shot my skyscreen and I never wrote anything down after I finished picking up the pieces.
BruceP

[Jim S]

Guys I also was going to work on the 30/221-125 BT and LG ? LG is supposed to be about 5-8% slower than H110 ? I haven't got to work with it yet because of other things I had to work on. LG is sold as same velocity and lower pressures than H110 or 296 ? I guess since I don't have a pressure gun I would look at case head expansion . My loads with the 125 BT have been 18.5/H110 and case made out of 223 Commerical case. Load does about 2000 and shoots just great. I tried some
(fire form )  loads using the Hdy 100 SJ and AA#5 , starting load ruined cases for me. Primers could be seated by hand and case heads went to .378 , anything over .376 is a ruined case in my experience.  Maybe LG is not linear and it's pressure curve and spikes near the top. I have worked with several powders that react that way ? One load OK and a slight increase in powder charge and pressure goes out the roof. Well it still looks like the best powder for the 30/221 is H110 ? I had hoped that LG would give the 125 another 100-150FPS but doesn't look like it.
Have either of you tried H4227 in the 300  ? It works great in my other TC rounds like the Herretts and 7 TCU.

[Lone Star]

Little Gun is not supposed to be anything relative to H110 - it changes in different applications. This is true of most powders and highlights the dangers of extrapolating your own data from different cartridges.   In tests I performed with 300-grain bullets in my .45LC T/C for example, it was considerably faster, giving almost 200 fps more velocity than an equal charge of H110.  This is in line with Hodgdon's own data on this powder in the .45LC.  Ditto with their data for heavy bullets in the .44 magnum.  Don't take powder burn rate charts as absolutes, experienced reloaders know better.

[fyrepowrx]

Has anyone else had any erratic pressures using this powder? After reading a few articles on the .221 fireball where this powder was supposed to make it stand up and act like a much bigger case,  i tried it...

poor grouping with most loads/bullets, erratic pressures also. after a string of 15 shots i blew a primer without warning, no pressure signs evident in the previous batch..

tried some different bullet loads, and ran a string of 5 shots with no problems, then smoked 2 primers. i stopped shotting the stuff, and came home & pulled the bullets. re-weighed the charges thinking i might have goofed, but charge weight was fine. For some reason my super 14 fireball does not like this stuff.

anyone else had similar problems?

[Jim S]

I hear you on working with a new powder and that is why I ALWAYS start low and work up. Not having a pressure gun I use case head expansion as a guide and it tells me what the load is doing in my gun.
I was observing , from published data, the LG appeard to be slower by
5-8%  -not from actual use .  Some of these methods are one learned from 37 years of reloading and coming from a commerical loading background.
The best powder I have found in my 221 FB is AA1680 which gives good velocity and very good accuracy with the 50 Grain Sierra Blitz .
Good to see people working with little gun , but it  looks like the 30/221 --from my experience seems to like H110 better than anything else.