I shot some reloads yesterday and had a few that were covered in soot upon ejection. What would cause this? The cases were from factory Berger ammo and on my first loading of them (2nd firing total). They were sized in a Redding full length bushing die. The load is 39.8 grains of N555 which is the starting load from Vihtavouri’s app, Berger 109 Hybrid Targets, and CCI 450s.

These two cases were fired back to back.
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Your pressures are too low.
I get this when I'm working subsonic loads, a lot.
Too little pressure and the brass/neck doesn't properly seal. Soot leaks back around the chamber and case.
Repeated firings and you'll find the bolt harder to unlock and extract.

Give your charge a safe bump.

Thanks I’ll up the powder some. I had some pretty bad SD/ES numbers with this load also. Could that be a byproduct of the necks sealing inconsistently and pressure escaping back into the chamber?

The bad SD/ES is due to improper ignition(likely how the powder is positioned in the case round to round)..as said, up your powder charge a bit...

The recommended charge is from 39.8-43.5. Should something in the middle 40.8- 41 be appropriate? I’m trying to get as much life out of the barrel as reasonably possible so I was staying away from max loading. If it isn’t obvious, I’m pretty new to handloading. Thanks for the response.

I would work upward from your current charge by .5 of a grain until your brass cleans up and your SD/ES tightens up and your groupings stay tight..as soon as all of those are good, you have your load since you don't want to push velocity...I will say worrying about barrel life is not a good reason to not build good loads...Ideally how fast you take each shot will likely have more affect on barrel wear than shooting a full load will..Heat kills barrels, but single round heat, as long as the barrel is given cooling time between rounds, even on full hot loads doesn't do near the damage as fast repeated firing does..

 To give you an idea, I shoot a hot load in 300rum, to the tune of a 230 grain berger bullet at 3220 fps, most average people, even shooting just factory ammo(180 bullet at 3200) are lucky to get 400-600 rounds out of a rum barrel, yet shooting a much hotter load we average about 1500 rounds before the groups open up to 1MOA...  How do we do about triple the life, easy we try to give at least 2 minutes between every shot for a max of 5 shots, then let them cool 10-15 minutes to remove all heat..that simple to prolong barrel life even while shooting hot loads...


Here is a pretty good video about barrels....

How fast do you need to go? Got a 7 twist? Looks like 14, 15, and 16gr VV N32C would be nodes.

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Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it. My comment about barrel life is relative, a good, consistent, accurate load is my primary goal. This is a PRS rifle so I shoot 8-12 rounds per stage in 1.5-2 minutes. If I can have the barrel last 1500 rounds versus less than 1000 I’d prefer that. I know barrels are consumables just trying to get the most out of them that I can. Thanks again!

Yeah PRS is going to hurt barrels, but sounds like a heck of a good time with a firearm...You are going to be fine I think..

Thanks guys!

The N555 tends to demand more powder to get in the sweetspot all other things being considered.

Good to know thanks.