Titegroup

[fiver]

soo lets discuss this goofy powder.
airc it was a replacement for a winchester powder that had a tendency to go a bit haywire under compression.
[571 maybe?]
titegroup has that same tendency, it goes along fine but under any type of compression it goes real bad quickly.
no warning signs just good then over pressure.
I have also seen it start eating into powder hoppers and erode the bottom of powder coated bullets.

it's one redeeming feature is that it can be dropped below start loads, and works well in big cases without giving erratic ignition characteristics.
great for cat sneeze loads, or target loads, or just plain base boolit loads in rifle cases.
this tendency has been the basis for a love/hate relationship with the powder.

what have you seen from this powder that makes you shoot it or shy away from it.

 

[Josh]

I have found it is a lot like bullseye, so long as it is cheap and available it will have a spot on the bench. I have used it in most everything, including the 9mm but with middle charges and bullets no heavier than 124 gr.

Let us not forget that it is a very accurate powder as well, and it meters amazingly.

 

[fiver]

it for sure does not do well under heavy bullets in the 9mm.
I worked up to 158gr swc's in a Taurus that shot amazingly accurate [only thing that did in that gun]
and fed like butter.
I kept pushing things further and further until the frame turned green and bulged out the grips.
somewhere around 4 grs was the pistols demise, it was .2 grs above 95% function.

 

[JonB]

I've only used it with Jacketed bullets in semi-auto pistol caliber.

I started using it over a decade ago, long before my casting hobby started, I originally chose it, because of my cheapness, it achieves a standard power load with the smallest weight charge of nearly everything else. I have had only success using it.

Along the way, I've heard it's not a position sensitive, but I've never tried it in a rifle. Also, I never heard of it going haywire under compression...but I've never used it in that type of load...that's good to know.

 

[Ian]

Well, let's see. I kaboomed a 1911 with a target load of the stuff because I wasn't watching my case tension well enough and a Win case let the bullet play turtle. You're danged right Titegroup doesn't like to be squeezed. Ruined my Uniflow hopper storing some in it overnight. But it does great in big ol-cases like .45 Colt and recently I've wrung it out really well in some popgun loads for .308, .223, and .30-30 using chrono data and positioning to compare to several other similar powders. Titegroup is the CLEAR winner for those applications, but I learned something else about it in all those position tests: It gets erratic with hot primers, jumping the mean velocity up quite a bit and SD's going from single-digits to like 50-80 fps. Nuts.

I just ordered another four-pound jug of it this morning to make sure I have enough for a while in the special circumstances where nothing else will do so well. So you could say I have a love/hate/fear/thrill sorta co-dependent relationship with it....kinda like that redheaded cheerleader/alto sax player I dated my senior year of high school.

 

[Pistolero]

I have used at least 16 lbs of it in the last decade or so, 4.8 gr at a time. That works out to ~
23,000 rds of.45 ACP and never a bobble. Well into my 3rd 8 lber since 2000 now, probably my 6th or 8th total 8 lb
bottle of this stuff, mostly .45 ACP, so if 6 that is 70,000 rds, it 8th it is over 90,000 rds. Before that
I used a few 8 lbers of W231, and before that about 3-4 of BE, now we are back to early 80s.
I have completely replaced BE with TG and never looked back. Still use 231 for some revolver loads
where it excels. Using nowhere near as much .45 ACP ammo as I used to, so this one will last
longer.

Never a bad result with TG. It makes for good moderate .44 Spl and .45 Colt loads, too, although I lean on
W231 more for those loads, most of the time, recently got an 8 lber of 231 for that application. The Dillon 550 reservoir
has been filled with it for more than 20 years now, no damage, but it is discolored a bit.

I traded CHEAP into a 8 lber of Vectan SP8, so my 9mm loading is covered for the next 8-9000 rds, and won an
8 lber of Clays, and I only use that for .38 Spl at 3.0 or less per round, so no TG there for a long time, too.

Never tried TG in a rifle, may give it a try for popgun loads. Any hints on where to start?

Bill

 

[Missionary]

This has been an enjoyable read. Never used TG. The older I get the more I like to stick with what has been working well. But maybe I need to look over the hill a bit.
Thank you all !

 

[fiver]

not sure on your rifle combinations.
but assuming a 150-170gr boolit and plain based, 5 grs would be on the slow side and getting on to 8grs would be about the top speed.

 

[358156 hp]

I tried TG in 38 Spl & 9mm for action shooting. I turned away from it because the guns kept getting really, really hot. I used to joke that they'd get hot enough to brand cattle. For more casual shooting it wasn't a concern, although I thought it did produce a lot of soot. Other than those two points, I had no performance issues with it.

 

[Pistolero]

Believe that I have shot it fast as can be in IPSC, no particular heat issues in .45 ACP, but no experience in
9mm and .38 Spl to speak of.

Thanks for the rifle info, will have to give it a try one day.

Bill

 

[Ian]

Bill, all I can tell you on the rifle is two to three grains in .223 works great and I'll have to check but I think my 235-grain subsonic .308 load used 6.0 grains, maybe 6.4. It blows away the usual suspect for those situations (Red Dot) in both applications due to relative position insensitivity in those huge cases. Same reason I shot so much of it in .45 Colt under 255 cast bullets, didn't matter if you just drew it from a holster and fired or cocked and fired from a muzzle-up position, powder burned virtually the same either way.

 

[Brad]

Never shot any Titegroup. Might need to change that. Probably ought to use up my 15 pounds of Red Dot and 8 pounds of 231 first.

 

[Pistolero]

Thanks, Ian. Not loading cast in .223 at this time, but subsonic .308 is of interest, since I
have a suppressor that fits on a couple of my .308s, although it primarily is for the .300 BLK
where it is VERY cool.

Brad,
Both RD and 231 are good powders, but TG is extremely consistent metering, extremely consistent burning
and the real punchline is that it is typically notably cheaper than other powders that it competes with. AND you typically
use a lot less. 5.6-5.9 of 231 does the same as 4.8 TG. IME, RD meters
about like Unique, not a compliment, which I put up with because it is so...... wait for it, - - - unique.

As a friend of mine used to say-- "Good chit".

Bill

 

[waco]

I use 3.2gr of TG under a 158 cast in the 38spl in both revolver and Marlin ans Rossi lever guns. It's my go to powder for that caliber. I've used it with some success in the 45acp. A little goes a long ways. Accurate and clean burning.

 

[fiver]

probably 6.0.
that's what I use in the 45 colt to duplicate 14-K colt type loads.
I bet it'd push the 308 to about the same 900 fps.

 

[Tony]

BPI has published some interesting 12 gauge data utilizing TG.

 

[Josh]

I forgot I have used titegroup in my 300 Blk, with the 155 gr Lee I used 40 S&W data to get a load.

 

[fiver]

titegroup does work in shot shell applications.
I worked up a load using 17grs of it in the AA hull with Rio primers and 1 oz of shot.
it is a pretty light load but about as far as I dared go without any data to go by.
but it breaks clay targets from the 16 yd line well enough.

 

[Josh]

titegroup does work in shot shell applications.
I worked up a load using 17grs of it in the AA hull with Rio primers and 1 oz of shot.
it is a pretty light load but about as far as I dared go without any data to go by.
but it breaks clay targets from the 16 yd line well enough.

How the heck does titewad compare? I assume they were close, but when looking on the burn charts titewad is almost beside flash powder.

Is there a nice way to use titewad? I am playing in the subsonic 222 stuff, will a smaller charge work for the same velocity?

 

[fiver]

now your getting up there in powder speed, titewad is faster than red-dot.
I'm pretty sure it'd be along the line of clays [not in burn rate] where it is just fast no matter the conditions.
and even giving it lots of airspace to work in doesn't change how it burns.
if you have the titewad and wanna try it I'd go with 2 grs and see what happens.
you might be able to go lower, you might stick a bullet.

tightgroup is shown to be on the slow side of 700-x or in between red-dot and green-dot.
titewad is shown by alliant to be faster than bulls-eye.
bulls-eye is shown to be much slower than red-dot by hodgdon.
I think they base that on the fact you can use more bulls-eye [by weight] in many cases than red-dot, forgetting red-dot has a lower nitro content.
it had none until the last few years when they 'cleaned' it up. [which they did actually, I was shooting some older r-dot and noticed the smoke I hadn't got the pound before]
okay now I'm wandering.

anyway, it would be worth looking at and so would clays it takes reductions like this with a big ol' smile.
1.5grs of the clays might be a decent start point.