Unique question

fiver

Well-Known Member
the only other thing it could be is Herco.
it matches the density profile and look of the powder.
as a commercial grade of powder that wouldn't be far fetched at all.

I have about 20 lbs of AA-4100 I got from Dick Casull that matches Alliant's 2400 weight data about 99% perfectly.
if I poured some of it out right next to current production 4100 you couldn't tell them apart, but I can assure you the canister 4100 burns slightly faster and needs about 1/2gr. reduction across the board for start data.
that's a 3% difference in a starting 44 mag load.
 

RBHarter

West Central AR
By weight of charge ?
I'm burning 1968 Unique . I've reviewed Hornady,Speer and Lyman books from 73'-the 50th edition Lyman and not noted any significant changes .
With that the 1968 does seem to show more impressive numbers than the book data and in application I shot some from a later lot , post 2000 , and it produced better than book numbers but not what the old lot does . On 5.5 I'm getting 890 fps with a 454424 in a 1917 with the new lot I got 820 and the books say like 780 in a 1911 5" ....
In 45 Colts I load into Ruger data but have no side by side of the old and new .

I can tell you that they don't look a like .
Appearently I didn't post this yesterday .......
 

pokute

Active Member
I'm not sure what the question "By weight of charge?" is referring to, but this is the evidence:

The OP weighed a charge by volume of the powder, and it weighed about 20% more than the same volume of (Modern?) Unique. I assume that fiver had some insight into the charge density (from a Nosler manual, maybe?) of Herco vs Unique, and was able to make an i.d. I've never seen Herco, but the reported flake size in the forensic powder database says it has the same diameter as Unique.
 

RBHarter

West Central AR
The Lee auto disc or whichever one I had didn't come even close to the guesstimate for drop weight . So for pure example because that entire tool set is someone else's problem now (which I really wanted to work) , a .55 cc volume was called for 5.5 gr which was 5.4+ to 5.6- regular in the new Unique but it took a .72 cc to get 5.3+ to 5.4 solid with the old . So the old took a greater volume to reach weight but it also gives higher speeds per weighed charge . Volume exchange ? IDK . For my use weighed charges trump volume every time . Now that doesn't mean I don't use a measure but I check what it drops every time I load it and a probably paranoid number of times . 5 and check , 10 and check , 15 and check then every 20 plus visual and a reject of high or low in anything straight case that I load in volume believe it or not I drop and trickle all of the rifle loads . That of course is due to a rifle that knows the difference in 3/10 gr it shows 5 touching to 1.5" change .
 

Ian

Notorious member
10 grains of canister-grade Unique by volume should equal 9.7 grains of Herco. 3%.
 

pokute

Active Member
The Lee auto disc or whichever one I had didn't come even close to the guesstimate for drop weight . So for pure example because that entire tool set is someone else's problem now (which I really wanted to work) , a .55 cc volume was called for 5.5 gr which was 5.4+ to 5.6- regular in the new Unique but it took a .72 cc to get 5.3+ to 5.4 solid with the old . So the old took a greater volume to reach weight but it also gives higher speeds per weighed charge . Volume exchange ? IDK . For my use weighed charges trump volume every time . Now that doesn't mean I don't use a measure but I check what it drops every time I load it and a probably paranoid number of times . 5 and check , 10 and check , 15 and check then every 20 plus visual and a reject of high or low in anything straight case that I load in volume believe it or not I drop and trickle all of the rifle loads . That of course is due to a rifle that knows the difference in 3/10 gr it shows 5 touching to 1.5" change .

Well, there's a whole other result. Completely opposite to what the OP was seeing! It's a shame that after Phil Sharpe died nobody picked up his torch, because he kept dated samples of every powder he could find, and could identify the type and year of a powder sample by comparison with his powder library.
 

pokute

Active Member
10 grains of canister-grade Unique by volume should equal 9.7 grains of Herco. 3%.

As expected, given that their grain size is almost identical, and their energy factor is within a few percent. So where did fiver get his density data?

And are we seeing a real extreme variation in the bulk density of Unique? That would imply that it's name is not entirely appropriate. But 20%, or the even greater change (of opposite sign) that RBHarter reports... Wow, those are some extreme variations. Maybe this really is voodoo.
 

pokute

Active Member
Clearly, the problem here is in the weighing. It's the one piece of data where we are relying on some instrument to tell us something that we can't verify by simple observation.
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
I would load some mild 38 specials and fire them in a strong 357 revolver. Chronograph will give a good idea of where the burn rate falls. Use that data for future load development.
 

pokute

Active Member
I think that even though we'd all agree that accurate weighing is the best way to get a charge, we might get better repeatability from dippers given the poor quality scales that we all use.

Harry Pope used an insanely precise laboratory balance... To calibrate his dippers!
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
How do you verify the accuracy of your chronograph?
I don't.
If I wanted to I would use a single lot of Eley rimfire.
Does it matter if I was off by a few fps? Not to me, I'm not gonna hotrod with Unique anyway.

We can agonize over how to KNOW exactly what we have or we can use common sense and tools readily available to us as handloaders and move forward.
 

pokute

Active Member
The problem is that this thread has proved that we can't use common sense. Common sense doesn't help when four weighings of what we all assume to be the same powder produce wildly different results. At some point, we have to agree on some way of quantifying things that we can all reproduce and verify independently.
 

RicinYakima

High Steppes of Eastern Washington
How do you verify the accuracy of your chronograph?
Well, I still have some Federal 900B .22 LR Match that has been at 1015 - 1025 since 1993 when fired from my original Browning T-bolt. That is close enough for me.

"As expected, given that their grain size is almost identical, and their energy factor is within a few percent. So where did fiver get his density data?"

Handloader Digest for many years published density charts in the back under the reference section. The ones edited by Bob Bell were very comprehensive.
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
The problem is that this thread has proved that we can't use common sense. Common sense doesn't help when four weighings of what we all assume to be the same powder produce wildly different results. At some point, we have to agree on some way of quantifying things that we can all reproduce and verify independently.
I disagree.
I don't have to reproduce anything as I don't have any of that specific powder. I simply proposed doing exactly what many do when using military surplus powder with "use x data as a start point" instructions.

What I suggested was a way to calibrate the powder by weight to existing data.
 

pokute

Active Member
Well, I still have some Federal 900B .22 LR Match that has been at 1015 - 1025 since 1993 when fired from my original Browning T-bolt. That is close enough for me.

"As expected, given that their grain size is almost identical, and their energy factor is within a few percent. So where did fiver get his density data?"

Handloader Digest for many years published density charts in the back under the reference section. The ones edited by Bob Bell were very comprehensive.

So we have one person who can verify that chronographs agree (or not). That's exceedingly valuable. I watched two International Master silhouette shooters agree that their chronographs disagreed by 110fps at ~1300fps. That's good enough so they can verify that their chronographs disagree consistently. It was good enough so they could shoot tiny groups at 200m. They had to let all comers use their chronographs, which was a big pain, but it made it possible to (painfully) share load data.

So how did one person get a density difference of 3% for Herco vs Unique, where another person get 20%. Can you tell me one year where HD had the density data so I can get one?
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
So pokute, what do YOU propose he do with the powder. We are well aware that you don't like any of our ideas.

How would YOU handle the situation using tools and information readily available to the average handloader?
 

KeithB

Resident Half Fast Machinist
Let's not overthink things. From the picture of the can it appears that this was packaged for the commercial market, not necessarily for sale to handloaders. Commercial loaders look at velocity and pressure and adjust the powder charge for every batch. So I would act like a commercial loader and follow some of the very good advice offered here. I would load by powder charge mass and not volume. Start low and work up. You're not going to load any kind of match ammo with Unique so I'm not sure if a chrono is even necessary. The only thing I load with Unique is standard velocity loads in handgun cartridges, i.e. .38 and .44 Spcl and .45 ACP. Shouldn't be that hard to find a safe load in any of those and if loading by volume just find the best size bushing to match the resulting load volume.

I can understand someone not wanting to take a chance on old powder; For example I won't use open cans of powder from any source for fear of adulteration. But a sealed can of clearly labeled powder that doesn't appear to have deteriorated is within my risk range. And I think I could probably generate a lot of plinking ammo w/o using a chrony, although using one might be interesting and helpful.