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Powder choice for 180-190gr class

  • Varget

    Votes: 71 53.0%

  • BLC-2

    Votes: 6 4.5%

  • VV N-159

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • VV N-550

    Votes: 2 1.5%

  • IMR-4064

    Votes: 28 20.9%

  • IMR-4895

    Votes: 20 14.9%

  • RL-15

    Votes: 7 5.2%

  • RE-15

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    134
  • Poll closed .
My experience comes from 175gr. As my rifle is a 1-12. Rem 700. I have never had much luck with Varget at all. I have burned up 200 bullets trying to find a load. No luck.

But my best has been with 4064. Followed by D4895.

One other powder worth looking at is CFE223. I have just started to play a bit with it. Been getting very decent results. Not record breaking by any means. But have noticed it being very consistent.
 
You know what the funny thing is? If I had this question you're one of the guys I'd be looking to ask for advice.

I have good results with IMR 4064 and varget with 175's but I've never ventured heavier. H4895 does very well for me with 168's.

My thoughts for those slightly heavier bullets would be N550 and Reloder 17. So I would have to agree with ganderite that H4350 is worth exploring. It works really well for me in other cases based off the 308 with heavier slugs for caliber.
 
I don't think you could get enough 4350 in the case for decent speed but I'll admit I've never tried it.
Any 4895, Varget, reloader 15, 4064 would be good. Whatever you could get a good batch of. The 308 isn't picky ime.
 
Funny that this poll goes up today as I reloaded 308 for the first time yesterday. I only have a pound of H4895 which won't go far in the rifle world, and my local place is out of stock but they have 8 lb jugs of IMR 4895 in stock, which I've read is very similar (burns a bit slower, slightly more temperature sensitive)... Should I just buy the 8 lbs of the IMR or wait for a big jug of H4895 to come in stock?
 
mactroneng said:
Funny that this poll goes up today as I reloaded 308 for the first time yesterday. I only have a pound of H4895 which won't go far in the rifle world, and my local place is out of stock but they have 8 lb jugs of IMR 4895 in stock, which I've read is very similar (burns a bit slower, slightly more temperature sensitive)... Should I just buy the 8 lbs of the IMR or wait for a big jug of H4895 to come in stock?
Click to expand...

Some peoples kids.
https://www.canadaammo.com/product/detail/d4895-powder-5lbs/
 
I have used many, but settled on BLC-2 and CFE223 these days as ball powder is easy to load and those two powders give very good velocities with respectable hunting accuracy. Temp sensitive though.
 
Back when (don't you just hate it when people say that) the DND grant of ammunition to the DCRA stopped and we had to start reloading, IMR 4895 was the powder of choice recommended by none other than Ganderite. Ganderite had 100's of years more reloading experience than any of us shooters that were used to issued ammo.
I played along with the IMR 4894 but started to hear good things from Precision Shooting magazine about this new powder that was "coming soon" called Varget.
As soon as it hit the Canadian market I bought some. The only load data available at the time was printed on the 1 lbs plastic container. And was only one load listed for each of about 5 different calibres. Of course not the exact bullet weight we were using, 155 grain bullets.
After a little bit of load development I settled on 46.0 gr of Varget pushing a 155 gr bullet. After talking with a bunch of other shooter that bought Varget is didn't take long to figure out everyone or about 95% were using the same load.
 
mactroneng said:
Funny that this poll goes up today as I reloaded 308 for the first time yesterday. I only have a pound of H4895 which won't go far in the rifle world, and my local place is out of stock but they have 8 lb jugs of IMR 4895 in stock, which I've read is very similar (burns a bit slower, slightly more temperature sensitive)... Should I just buy the 8 lbs of the IMR or wait for a big jug of H4895 to come in stock?
Click to expand...

My experience with IMR and H4895 have been completely different... at least in 556. H4895 is waaay hotter and the Hodgdon data for it is way over pressure beyond the mid range. I'll be trying my last lb in 308 shortly and wont likely be buying any more.
 
Did or have I missed something...? RL-15 and Re-15...are they not both Reloder 15? And on to the question, I use Reloder 15 behind 175 SMKs in my heavy barrel Rem700. In fact, it is my go to powder for .308. However, I have been trying IMR4064, behind old school 165 grain X-bullets as a potential hunting load in a scout rifle; results thus far have been very good.
 
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