What’s the POWDER you love to hate?

[Lefty7mmstw]

What velo you getting?
I'm at 2950 with 568, 200 gr accubond with a 26"
Seems mediocre but I have zero pressure..??

I honestly haven't bothered to chronograph it, but it'll cloverleaf at 100yds out of my Browning 300win. The Browning is a bitchy rifle... This is about the only boat tail bullet she likes, but I've killed to 662 yards with her with a 165 Hornady flat base and rl22... I'll have to run it over the Oehler; my kid's Savage Impulse likes the load too...I'm suspecting between 2900 and 3K.

 

[Lefty7mmstw]

The one I want and can't get.

There are plenty of girls on the dance floor. Some people get too hung up on a certain powder's characteristics and forget the powder's only function is to create pressure to push the bullet. Most of your accuracy will be the bullet and how the barrel acts on it (twist rate and bore tightness, etc..). If you can find a powder of the correct burn rate that's relatively decent at it's job you can make the rifle work.

 

[ARlife4me]

I might just be wasting time doing load work for 7977 as for only 1# in my inventory. I bought it for 264wm.

 

[Lefty7mmstw]

I might just be wasting time doing load work for 7977 as for only 1# in my inventory. I bought it for 264wm.

I've done a bit of that lately mopping up oddball stuff... A couple of boxes of 30-06 with rl16 and 150's... a few other irons in the fire including blowing out H&H brass to 7stw without using prime components... Trigger time without paying through the nose...
With the 7977 I'd just run a mild load and call it... why waste 1/2 # working into a stout load when you can't re-supply? Good 1-200 yard practice ammo that'll be easy on the barrel.

 

[ARlife4me]

I've done a bit of that lately mopping up oddball stuff... A couple of boxes of 30-06 with rl16 and 150's... a few other irons in the fire including blowing out H&H brass to 7stw without using prime components... Trigger time without paying through the nose...
With the 7977 I'd just run a mild load and call it... why waste 1/2 # working into a stout load when you can't re-supply? Good 1-200 yard practice ammo that'll be easy on the barrel.

Break in powder in conjunction possibly without using the 2 you want to finally use.

 

[MagnumManiac]

the old war surp h4831 would do nearly 3150 fps with a 180 in an old rem 700 300win I owned. I ran that # out and switched to sc... I barely got 3000 fps at the same charge. Even h1000 would barely do 3100 fps with a 180 in that rifle. I switched to rl22 and my 300win rifles have been up to speed since.
I've got to find a good rl22 replacement that isn't Hodgdon though. I have some, but my kid's rifles both run REALLY well on it and it's been hard to get at a decent price... Perhaps I'll dig into the 7828...I've got a few other powders to try too I guess...

A much better powder in the 300WM over RL22 is by far RL25. Less temp sensitive and gets 180g Accubuonds to well over 3100fps.
Accuracy is excellent too.

Cheers.

 

[benchracer]

@Thebobcat, your disturbing ways have been truly inspirational to us all.

@Gingerman (or should I say BFD!!!! ) you're up there on the naughty list as well (and I want you to imagine Austin powers telling you to behave!)

Anyways, now that that godforsaken thread about hated cartridges (that I participated in way too much and gambled my thumbs over - @Muddyboots, better luck next time) has reached EIGHTY FREAKING PAGES ….

What's a powder or powders you HATE! You wouldn't touch them again , they freaked you out, yuu had a bad experience, they smell funky and bad , they're temp sensitive, they burn filthy, you just never could get them to do what you wanted, they caused male pattern baldness and bad breath leading to your wife leaving and taking your dog and truck with her like a country song, I DONT CARE!!!!

What's a powder you'd publicly condemn!!!! Do it!

I ain't saying anything more about 4955 than I did on a seperate thread that did more to expose my stupidity than any shortcomings in that powder (which I still have no use for now)

And I think we all know how @ButterBean feels about StaBall 6.5….

GO!!!!

The internet is a supporter place that seems to be fed by emotion. I HATE both of those things, so I will stop short of declaring hate for a powder, and simply take great glee in goring an Internet Sacred Cow by declaring the following:

VARGET is overrated!

Why do I say this? It does nothing special. There are other powders that offer the same velocity potential and temp stability characteristics, cost less, and do not have the lot-to-lot consistency problems VARGET has.

The supporters line up behind it as THE must-have match powder, even in applications for which it is marginally appropriate. As usual, The supporters are know-nothings parroting internet gospel.

VARGET is a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none powder. It offers mediocre performance in a lot of applications and can be handily outperformed by other powders in every one of them.

I have 20+ lbs of VARGET that I would gladly trade for something else, should someone disagree with me vehemently enough to put up or shut up.

 

[Calvin45]

What velo you getting?
I'm at 2950 with 568, 200 gr accubond with a 26"
Seems mediocre but I have zero pressure..??

2950 with a 200 out of a 26" 300 win mag is exactly on the money I'd expect. I hit 2900 with it in a 24 inch years ago.

The 225 eld m hits 2800 out of my 24 inch with 8133

 

[Calvin45]

The internet is a supporter place that seems to be fed by emotion. I HATE both of those things, so I will stop short of declaring hate for a powder, and simply take great glee in goring an Internet Sacred Cow by declaring the following:

VARGET is overrated!

Why do I say this? It does nothing special. There are other powders that offer the same velocity potential and temp stability characteristics, cost less, and do not have the lot-to-lot consistency problems VARGET has.

The supporters line up behind it as THE must-have match powder, even in applications for which it is marginally appropriate. As usual, The supporters are know-nothings parroting internet gospel.

VARGET is a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none powder. It offers mediocre performance in a lot of applications and can be handily outperformed by other powders in every one of them.

I have 20+ lbs of VARGET that I would gladly trade for something else, should someone disagree with me vehemently enough to put up or shut up.

Agreed!!!!

Varget is Overrated with a capital "O" haha.

Now I'm really gonna make people come at me…

H1000 is OVERRATED TOO!!!!

 

[benchracer]

Agreed!!!!

Varget is Overrated with a capital "O" haha.

Now I'm really gonna make people come at me…

H1000 is OVERRATED TOO!!!!

I am SHOCKED, perhaps even dismayed, that the first response to my post is in AGREEMENT! What a buzzkill...

 

[Calvin45]

I am SHOCKED, perhaps even dismayed, that the first response to my post is in AGREEMENT! What a buzzkill...

I'm tremendously disappointing all around

But seriously I just never got what was so great about varget or h1000. They are great powders in and of themselves. They're not that special in my opinion that I'd pay what people were willing to pay for them when others were available for less.

But I'm boring. The older I get the more I feel that IMR 4064 and 7828 are UNDERRATED for those same applications.

 

[Mike Matteson]

Fair or not, I don't give a powder second chances to show impressive results. Although I am going against this practice with H4831sc. I bought 4lbs and I am not getting near book level velocities in the two rifles I have tested it in. I bumped the loads a bit beyond max and started getting faint ejector marks, but still didn't get good velocity. I get better velocity with IMR4831, but don't like the temp sensitivity.

The IMR powders I got better veloicties, but temp sensitivity got me. Below a primer out of my one rifle. Not again. I nornaly use H4350. It's a little quicker than H4831sc. In my rifle I am 5.5grs above the max load shown. Doing 3330fps with 165gr in a 308NM. A friend had a 300WM and he was getting 3440fps same bullet.

 

[Calvin45]

I must be lucky with imr because I haven't had any big temp issues (certainly not like what happens with rl22 or some of the other "hot"'double bases) with 7828, 4350, or 4064 from them, living in Saskatchewan which has some of the biggest temperature differences between seasons on this planet.