hodgdon Superformance

[tufrthnails]

My buddy picked up a lbs of this stuff for me thinking I could use it for .223 or the .270win, but it has load data for neither and I have read it is very case specific on other sites. Anyone in central FL load, 22-250, 243win or 308 win? I hate for it to sit on the shelf until I get board and draw something on the ground on the backsid eof the property and light it up!

[scope eye]

I don't buy it a powder being case specific, I have used it in many other cases and used, H4831 and Win780 load data.

Dean

[243LPR]

I've used it in the 243 and 6mm. Seems to leave a lot of ash in the barrel. Not one of my favorites.

[tufrthnails]

I have been kicking the idea around of getting a 22-250 this may just push me over the top if I don't find someone to trade with of course drawing something vulger in my cousins front yard and lighting it up also sounds fun! I sure miss disposing of powder on the gunline! Steel Rain!

[thermaler]

I bought a pound of it too before realizing it was a mystery powder that simply promotes the superformance name. I've pulled apart hornady superformance ammo and it doesn't even resemble what's inside those. Mine is destined for 4th of July disposal.

[fgw_in_fla]

Jonathan -
Keep it in your stash area. You never know when you might need it for something or someone. I have a full can of H380 I bought a few years ago. I hate it. It meters like sugar and was inconsistent in a 223 wssm I had.
It's still in my powder stash cabinet. I'll use it someday or run into someone that needs it.

It makes good trading stash for later. Now that your almost a full blown case of Chronic Reloader's OCD, you'll learn to save everything. Never throw anything out or give anything away. You just never know...

[n4ue]

One thing to keep in mind is that all the factory Superformance cartridges (not this one powder) are custom blends of powders. So the Superformance blend in a .223 is NOT the same as the powder in a .308, etc........
What 'thermaler' said....

ron

[frank1947]

http://www.hodgdonreloading.com/data/rifle

22-250

[Monroe]

One thing to keep in mind is that all the factory Superformance cartridges (not this one powder) are custom blends of powders. So the Superformance blend in a .223 is NOT the same as the powder in a .308, etc........
What 'thermaler' said....

ron



I spoke with Hodgdon about Superformance powder a few weeks ago and he confirmed the above. I have shot some of the Hornady Superformance factory ammo (in my 7mm-08) with excellent results so I bought a pound of the powder when I found it. Much to my dismay, no (official) 7mm-08 data. I found several posts on internet forums claiming you could just use H4831 data, but this (according to the Hodgdon rep) is not the case what-so-ever. He would not come right out and give me any reasonable starting data, because he said they have an agreement with Hornady not to publish any data for Superformance that doesn't give a 200-300 fps increase over other powders. But, I did get him to discuss it in hypothetical terms. Superformance is a pretty slow spherical powder and he said if he were to try and develop a load he would use start data from another slightly slower sperical powder, not from an extruded powder like 4831. I decided not to persue it for now, but may revisit it at a later time. For now, I'll leave it for someone with more experience "wildcatting" a load. Hope that helps.

[thermaler]

Like I said--mystery powder.

I can't remember who it was that gave this great advice--maybe Frank?:

"When in doubt, have your friends test your loads--if the bang isn't followed by a scream you're good to go." lol

[Frank V]

Jonathan -
Keep it in your stash area. You never know when you might need it for something or someone. I have a full can of H380 I bought a few years ago. I hate it. It meters like sugar and was inconsistent in a 223 wssm I had.
It's still in my powder stash cabinet. I'll use it someday or run into someone that needs it.

It makes good trading stash for later. Now that your almost a full blown case of Chronic Reloader's OCD, you'll learn to save everything. Never throw anything out or give anything away. You just never know...

I agree NEVER throw away any powder in the original can. Powder availabily being what it is these days you never know we may have to make do with a powder that isn't really our choice.

Something else I'd do is call Hodgdon, I've called them a couple of times & talked with one of their ballistions, they are very helpful & eager to answer questions. Give them a try.

[243LPR]

Would a magnum primer make it burn cleaner?

[darkker]

First part, Use:
Superformance was originally geared toward the 30-06 case. Now that being said, DOES it work in other applications? Of course it will! The problem with/for the reloader, is knowledge. Remember that we are the waste market, who is subject to a large pile of sh....Marketing. WC 846 is a powder with a set of specs. Now much like cooking, there is a lot of "Art" that goes into it. Just because you use the same seasonings and grill, doesn't mean your steak will taste the same as someone elses.
IF a stabilizer of acid(CaCO) was within the allowable range, and met WC846's specs; AND it was sold to the waste market, us the Canister Grade reloader, You call it Bl-c(2). IF 846 fell into the lower range of still allowable CaCO, then (when they still made powder) Olin called it WC844(H335). 844 and 846 are built to the same specs, they just ended up with a slightly different amount of CaCo, but burning rate is not directly changed BECAUSE of that.
But if you tell most folks that their beloved H335 is the same thing as Bl-c(2), they will swear at you, and kick you out of the club...:rolleyes:

The sub-set of this "issue" is that if you are a company who's job is fracturing the market, and selling the same powder with a different name. How many more identical performing powders can you sell? IF you this awesome stupoformance powder that is good with the 30-06, but just sort of... meh.. in other applications. Are you going to spend a lot of time testing and proving how mediocre it could be elsewhere? Probably not.
It does have use with light bullets in the Creed, as an example.
Also remember that Hodgdon will give you NO: Nominal Bulk Densities, Nominal Burning rates. AND much of their real live testing, is not done by them, but Western's Lab.

Second part, Clean burning:
Magnum primers had a TON of testing done on them some time ago, specifically IIRC in the 45-70 case. They are at best, very inconsistent in output, over a standard primer. And lets face the facts of history: Roy Weatherby didn't like shooting his Cavernous cases either. He "Pioneered" Federal to make them for him, when he massively downloaded a Cave, with extremely slow burning powders, when in the rockies in December... Shouldn't really be a surprise that ignition could be problematic; It's also never been entirely clear that he was actually using the demonized "ball" powders.

So what is "Clean burning"? The coated extruded powders from ADI, such as Varget get billed as being "Clean burning", as they leave little detectable ash in the bore. What doesn't seen to get paraded around, is their long known problem of creating Hard Carbon fouling. So for me, who has personally had that particular issue to fight in the past, I'll take a loose, easily cleaned ash, over hard carbon ANY day; twice on Sundays.
WC842, or we know it, CFE223 with magic carbon cleaning Tin/bismuth compounds(As well as the others containing it: Win760/H414/AA2700, and Win 748) tend to leave a sooty residue as a side effect of cleaning the fouling.

I've fought the Hard Carbon wars, I've done the clean everytime you look at a gun, I've tested the theory that it's all hogwash....
Obviously YMMV, and your weather, etc. Powder fouling doesn't bother me, nor affect my groups. The metallic grit from the primers I don't like, so I will pull a dry snake through my bore frequently. But I don't scrub my gun religiously. Groups don't move, and I'm over 4,000 rounds down the bore; so am I THAT guy that won the lottery?

Things to think about, if nothing else.

[emtrescue6]

Like I said--mystery powder.

I can't remember who it was that gave this great advice--maybe Frank?:

"When in doubt, have your friends test your loads--if the bang isn't followed by a scream you're good to go." lol

Ship it to Deano....he'll eat anything :)

[Brianatl]

Love it in a 260 with 123's

[langenc]

I agree NEVER throw away any powder in the original can. Powder availabily being what it is these days you never know we may have to make do with a powder that isn't really our choice.

Something else I'd do is call Hodgdon, I've called them a couple of times & talked with one of their ballistions, they are very helpful & eager to answer questions. Give them a try.

Try the guys at Sierra--used to be 1 800 bulletsmiths.. they give data about any powder, any bullet not just Sierra..

[Maztech89]

Sierra is 1-800-223-8799.

[theloyalsavage]

super performance????? I tend to be rather skeptical of new things with "catchy" names. More times than not the catchy name is used to market a product that the company knows is actually inferior to existing products.

I' recommend going to a few shooting competitions. These folks can give you a lot of useful information about newer powders as well as
older. You'll get the truth from these guys - something that you might not get from salesman and marketers.

And i guarantee that 95 % will NOT be using super performance powders.

[thermaler]

I find it intriguing in the sense that I ask myself "just what is this stuff for?" I have to admit, during the great powder shortage of a couple years ago I immediately grabbed a can thinking "superformance ammo is decent in my 308 and AR10--so maybe it's equally good for handloads."