Federal 209A primers with Titegroup powder - an unsafe mix?

[Bob Bethune]

As luck would have it, I happen to be in possesion of the following
shotshell components:

Winchester AA hulls (very recent, once-fired)
Winchester WAA12SL pink wads
Federal 209A primers
Titegroup powder.

I cannot find a published load anywhere that combines the Federal 209A
primer with the Titegroup powder. (Mind that's Titegroup, not
Titewad.)

This puzzles me, because I can find loadings for the Federal 209A
primer with Titewad, 700-X, Clays and International. According to the
"Relative Burn Rate Chart" in the Lyman reloading handbook, Titewad is
number 5 on the list, Clays, 700X and Titegroup are nujmber 7, 8 and 9
on the list respectively, and International is considerably slower
than Titegroup (number 16 on the list.) If the Federal 209A primer
works with powders that are faster and powders that are slower, why
wouldn't it work with Titegroup?

Has anybody out there used these two together? If so, what was the
load?

-----------------------------------------------------------
Learn about rec.guns at http://www.recguns.net
Win a Fulton Armory AR-15 "Game Gun" while supporting RKBA.
Details at http://www.myguns.net
-----------------------------------------------------------

[sta...@prolynx.com]

As I posted before, shotshell reloading is not metallic reloading.
Read the chapter in Lyman's shotshell manual on components. You can
vary pressures by 5000 psi or more just by swapping primers. USE THE
COMPONENTS CALLED FOR! If you need a different type of primer, go get
it! If you have your handy pressure gun, THEN and only THEN can you
swap components. The only way you can achieve the recorded pressure,
or near to it, is to stick with the exact components called for in the
load data. If you start swapping components, you may be lucky and
achieve a blooper. If you're unlucky, you may remove the wall of your
barrel. If you're really unlucky, some fingers might go with it.
There are no pressure signs to read. Without instrumentation, there's
NO WAY to know whether a concocted load is safe or not.

If you have a ton of XYZ powder, you scan the load books until you
find a load for it, then get the wads, hulls and primers that match.
If you don't find any loads at all, it might be that the powder isn't
suitable for that purpose. Shotshell powders have to burn at
relatively low pressures, each powder has a pressure range that it
likes to work in. Too low and you get erratic ballistics, too high
and you can get pressure excursions. No powder is suitable for every
purpose. Powder burning rate is only one factor.

Stan

[Bob Bethune]

Yes, I know all that. I tried to make clear that I have a very
specific question about the interior ballistics of this particular
combination of components. If I can't find out the answer, well,
that's life, but I would like to know.

[Bob Bethune]

It also occurred to me that no publisher of shotshell loading data can
afford to test all possible combinations of hull, primer, powder, wad
and shot. So we cannot assume that the combination I posted is
necessarily unsafe. The question is, if it is unsafe, why? Is there
anything about this combination that would lead one to assume that it
would be?

[jitte...@hotmail.com]

Fed 209As are the hottest of the non-magnum shotshell primers.
Hodgdon may have tried the combonation you want, and found that
pressures were too high, or too erratic. If you are bound and
determined to use Fed 209As rather than Win or Rem 209s (which there
are recipes for), contact Hodgdon.

~Michael