Gary Reeder
again I have to disagree with you. A lightly compressed
Monday, January 01, 2018, 21:12

load of ball powder and a magnum primer will not give you a squib load. Leaving a space in the ball powder that allows the powder to move forward away from the primer flame will give you a squib load. As Lee told me once, ball powder has a light "plastic" coating and your primer has to burn thru that and the closer to the primer flame the better. One load he gave me for my 44 Auto Mag was 29 grains of powder. The case only holds 31 so it was a heavily compressed powder charge with Sierra 180 grain bullets but with 296 powder and the magnum primer and a heavy taper crimp it never failed to fire.

Another one is 3031 powder. Put a light load in there with a standard primer and you will get a squib load 90% of the time with that stinking yellow burnt powder in a big lump when you pull the case out. Run a fairly full load of powder, at least 85 to 90% case capacity and a magnum primer and no problem. The 3031 is not a ball powder but the squib situation runs true with this one too.

I don't recommend heavily compressed powder charges at all but I do recommend lightly compressed ball powder charges to keep the powder hard against the magnum primer flame.