Powders/Load Data Manuals

[Appleseed]

Lost my notes moving to a new loading room, and my "advisor" retired from the reloading shop, so I'm starting over. (Also load for .223 and .243).

I shoot .221fb in a cz 525 rifle and savage striker pistol: 40-55 grain bullets. Hodgdon manual lists IMR 4198 and RL-7 for most all the bullets, however, I was using ball powder H322 on some of the loads (20vt) as a substitute for one of these powders.

Fortunately I have several un-opened pound cans of powder not listed in the manual: Varget, Hodgdon 4350 and IMR 4064; is there data in another manual to study for .221fb?

The manual lists different loads and powders for the pistol vs rifle. Is that because chamber pressure or barrel length difference between the two guns, or will those loads cross-over? I think both are 8 twist Sinarms barrels.

[JCalhoun]

Varget works well in .223 with 60 to 70 bullets but it may be too slow for the .221FB. 4064 is almost identical in speed as Varget and 4350 is quite a bit slower.

[sixonetonoffun]

I would guess varget and 4064 will be ok but not stellar speed wise I tried 25.3 imr 4064 in 223 with 50gr barnes vg in fed cases clocked just under 3100. Switched to rl7 but haven't settled on a load. 22-22.5 shows some promise but the vg isn't proving to be a keeper. Am probably going to switch to the 53gr v-max after we shoot up the vg's and stick with 4064.

[Dan Fletcher]

All of the powder companies have load data on their web sites.

[Savage6x284]

Dan is right but the three best resources for load data are Loaddata.com, Ammoguide.com, and the amazingly, astonishingly fantastic QuickLoad.

Loaddata has a ton of loads and it costs like $20 a year.

Ammoguide is even better and they have some pretty useful and enjoyable features there. Stuff like a comparison which tells you if you can ream an existing chamber for another cartridge.

Quickload however is the ne plus ultra of reloading resources. If it cost $1000 I'd still think it a bargain. It only costs like $150 though which means it should be in every reloaders computer. The stuff you can do with QL boggles the mind and although I've had it for several years now I still haven't tapped the full potential.
I've found through experimentation that the results predicted by QL are very closely matched in reality. If QL says a particular load will hit 3270 fps at 62,684 psi out of a 24" tube my chronograph reads 3272 and my Pressure Trace reads 62,667 psi.
It blows me away every time I use it.

With these three resources my huge collection of printed reloading manuals became nothing more than placeholders on a shelf.

[jonbearman]

In the fireball you should not try untested powders period. Stick with what the books suggest. Which reloading manuals do you have?

[LHitchcox]

I use AA1680 in the .221 with 34-40 grain bullets. The three powders you listed are too slow for good performance i the .221.

[Appleseed]

I switched to RL-7 to start some loads, not as consistant groups as 4198, good data in the manual however.