With the scarcity of powders today, what are some of your favorite multi caliber powders to keep in stock. I am pretty new to this but have found w748 to be very useful for several rifle calibers.
With the scarcity of powders today, what are some of your favorite multi caliber powders to keep in stock. I am pretty new to this but have found w748 to be very useful for several rifle calibers.
IMR-4064 will cover quite a bit. I've run it in everything from a 5.56 thru 350 Remington Mag.
Favorite powder in our 250 and 300 Savage's. AA-4064 is another good one.
Keeping my bad Karma intact since 1952
Varget has been my go to followed closely by IMR-8208, BL-C2, IMR-4064 and then down the line. I try to keep a dozen or more different powders in the stash. Shooting around 10K of .308 per year plus other calibers, I tend to go through my fair share. Whatta Hobby!
Semper Fi
Sgt USMC 66-72
For me, Varget's great advantage is its temperature insensitivity - 4 fps change over a 0-125 def F. range for the same powder charge, making it an all season powder.
It is also very accurate in the rifles I use it in.
And it is a very multi-use powder.
I use it, when available, for my four .308s, for my three .223's with bullets from 60 to 77 grs, and for my two .22-250s.
VV N540, with more temperature sensitivity -100 fps change over the same 125 deg F. range, gives it a run for its money for accuracy, in the same set of rifles. But you have to load N540 for the temperature that you will be shooting in to get similar performance.
N540 actually has a slight muzzle velocity increase over Varget given identical exit times from the muzzle.
Unfortunately, Varget doesn't perform as accurately as H4350, 8 fps change over the same 125 deg range, in my three 6.5mm CMs.
If it did it would be even more multi-use.
I am another fan of Varget for my .223, .308 and 6BR.
But, I have also used IMR4166, AA4064, BLC2, and RL17 in the .308. The 6BR also likes N150 and will try N540 in it. The Garand gets a lot of 3031.
I do a lot of shooting with cast loads in the .308. For that I use IMR4198, 3031, 4895, 4064 and Varget.
Thanks for the replies! This gives me a little better idea of what to keep my eyes open for. I have seen IMR 4064 in the past at my local Bass pro shop, which is about my only retail source around me.
H110/win 296, basically the same powder. Good for .357 magnum, .44 magnum, 30 carbine, 300 BO subsonic, 458 SOCOM as well as others.
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h4064, varget, cf223
.223 Rem AI, .22-250 AI, .220 Swift AI .243 Win AI, .6mm Rem AI, .257 Rob AI, .25-06 AI, 6.5x300wsm .30-06 AI, .270 STW, 7mm STW, 28 nosler, .416 Taylor
I did pick up some H110. I found it to also work for my 350 Legend.����Originally Posted by lonestardiver
I use Unique a lot, also H4895, these 2 work in many different cartridges. Unique is especially good for cast bullet shooting in anything from smaller pistol rounds to large bore rifles, it's also useful for loading the old black powder cartridges with safe pressure levels. I have started to buy my most used powders in 8 pound jugs when I can get them. I try to use powders that have multiple applications but I still have probably at least 20 different powders at the moment. Some powders are exclusive to a single rifle, Winchester 760 for example is used only for full power loadings in my .375 H&H and it excels in that role.
It's better to shoot for the moon and hit the fencepost than to shoot for the fencepost and hit the ground!
H4895 will always be on my shelf. It has one of the largest charge weight/velocity windows I'm aware of. Great economy when downloaded to 60% of max for plinking and one of the only powders Im aware of that can do this. Suitable for "Youth loads" as well as full power loads and versitile across many cartridges from short action to magnum. It may not always produce the highest velocity for a given cartridge but I'm not aware of a more versitile powder on the market.
A good wife and a steady job has ruined many a great hunter.
There are a bunch of other powders that can be downloaded, H4895 is the only one with web pages from the powder mfg promoting it (that I am aware of). But, Lyman has a lot of reduced loads for many powders. I do agree that it and the IMR version are great powders.
Jacketed bullets can be fired at the same reduced velocities as many of the cast bullets with a wide variety of powders. Some are more consistent than others. Many of the 'magnum' or slower burning powders can be downloaded safely but they can be a bit erratic when not loaded to higher pressures. There is also the problem with empty volume in a case with reduced loads.
I picked up a pound of H4895 mostly to download a 30-06 round that is shown in one of my manuals. Is there a particular manual that shows multiple cartridge uses for this powder?
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