by Hoot » Mon Dec 20, 2010 10:28 pm
While I can buy the longer case life, I doubt the increased capacity amounts to a significant advantage. I only neck size my bottleneck calibers, but prefer to full length resize the 450b. I've tried not resizing the 450b and the cases drag going into the chamber just above the web. I never expand my necks anymore, only to turn around and crimp them back down. I sincerely believe I not only get stronger neck tension, but more importantly consistent neck tension from round to round by just cleaning the inside of the necks after resizing. Consistent neck tension yields the best group consistency for me more than any other factor with this caliber. I have not used H110 for the 200 grain FTX's. I have had acceptable results with Lil Gun, but only when I fill 'em up and use a hot primer like the Remington 7 1/2. I have not tried magnum primers in the 450b. What I'd like to find is a powder slightly faster than Lil Gun and slightly slower than 2400. I tried N110, which depending upon who's chart you look at implies it's in that zone, but it threw residue all over my chrony. Not unburned powder, but it seems to create a gritty residue after combustion like dark brown pepper. I only tried 2400 with a cooler running primer. It worked very well as long as I wasn't trying to get top speed. In practice, I found there was a small window in charge weight change between sooting and case head imprinting with 2400 and the 200 FTX. If the chamber wasn't chromed, I suspect the cases would grip the chamber tighter. The 200 FTX opens up at speeds much slower than 2200fps so if you're content with keeping the speed down in that area, 2400 is hard to beat. I ran out of R&D time before deer opener and intend to continue pursuing the 200 FTX when spring comes. Right now, the compounding snow at the range is almost up to the tops of the shooting benches and we still have three more months of it to go through. My work with the 200 FTX and 2400 was early in my experience with the 450b and I suspect some of the reloading techniques for the 450b that I've refined may yield better results when I resume experimenting.
Hoot
In Theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In Practice, there is.