3 powders you need to always have.

I could get by with these three:

H4198 (larger pistol and all cast rifle)
H4350 (Milsurp and hunting rifles)
Retumbo (fun boomers)

A fourth would be Titegroup.
 
Well, it's pretty obvious not all people agree with the OP's ideals.

I would seriously hate to be limited to three powders. Ten maybe.

Every firearm has its own personality. For instance, 22 bores like different powders than 308 bores and so on.

Just because a certain powder will give acceptable performance, doesn't mean other powders won't give better performance all around in a particular firearm.

I will admit, I have some powders that are the base I work from. Then again, my interests are in intermediate size cases and small cases. Recently, I have developed an urge for the 45-70 cartridge. It is completely different than most of what I shoot now, for the most part.

I have a couple of 45-70s including an original US 1873 Trapdoor Cadet rifle and a Siamese Mauser conversion. I don't like shooting the 1873 for a couple of reasons, one, if something breaks, original parts are hard to come by and it should be fed black powder with cast bullets. The Siamese on the other hand will take very close to a compressed load of IMR3031 with no problems, other than the pain tolerance of the shooter. I have a 1874 Sharps on the way and that should fall somewhere in the middle. Again, a different powder will be required.

I have a couple of different options for the 223, 22 Hornet, 308 Win etc. Yes, I have one powder that will work in all of them acceptably but each of them have powders that work exceptionally well. Why limit myself???

If storage or money is the issue, fine. I did similar things when I was younger and limited in both areas. You have to live within your limitations until you no longer have to.

Every one of us has their personal reasons to use the powders we do. Sometimes it's because we're so familiar with a certain powder/primer combo it is easy for us to figure out the parameters they will operate in well. In many cases, like some of the milsurp cases we are more familiar with today, like the 303 Brit, 7.62x54, 7.62x51 etc. One powder would easily cover all of them, not just acceptably but allow them to perform to their full potential.

One powder I really like, comes from the cases of the cheap 8x63 Swede machine gun ammo Marstar dumped onto the market a few years back. It works very well in the 8x57 Mauser case as well as the 30-06 case with heavy bullets. I will be sad when it's all gone. I have a rifle chambered for the case but the recoil is more than I can handle these days.

No, three powders would make me feel really restricted.
 
Wish there was a tool that you could enter you want to reload for 357 mag, 223 rem and 9mm luger, you can use this one powder for all of them at x grains
That would make me finally take the dive into reloading..
and yes, I am just looking for an excuse lol
 
1000yards said:
Wish there was a tool that you could enter you want to reload for 357 mag, 223 rem and 9mm luger, you can use this one powder for all of them at x grains
That would make me finally take the dive into reloading..
and yes, I am just looking for an excuse lol
Click to expand...

There is a very good tool, called a reloading manual. In it you will find the powders used by whomever wrote the particular manual you have for testing. Usually, most of those manuals will have powder burn rate charts. If not, good ones are readily available on the internet.

Rifle powders and pistol powders, seldom mix. Especially for the cartridges you list. Bore diameters and length are the main reason fast and slow powders are needed. Even different bullet weights can require different powders.

Some shotgun and pistol powders interchange very well. 700X is a good example.

One thing many people don't realize, is that even the old black powder cartridges were loaded with different powders. By different, I mean coarsness of the granules. It wasn't until smokeless powders became available that things really started to change significantly.
 
H1000 - finding out it is way more versatile than I first thought.Not just a big boomer powder
H4350 - Always consistent and nice accuracy
W760 - Nice for medium/standard sized chamberings and produces nice velocity and accuracy for my hunting rounds.Meters WAY too nice , wish they all did this.

No shotgun or pistol powders for me as I don't know how those machines work!!
 
There are probably at least 20 powders that could be considered "universal", i.e. can be used in any pistol or rifle cartridge with any bullet weight, and safely propell the bullet out of the bore, but that same powder would be "optimum" in only a small percentage of them. For example, I defy anyone to tell me that a safe load using Bullseye cannot be developed for everything from 25 ACP to 505 Gibbs.
 
Andy said:
There are probably at least 20 powders that could be considered "universal", i.e. can be used in any pistol or rifle cartridge with any bullet weight, and safely propell the bullet out of the bore, but that same powder would be "optimum" in only a small percentage of them. For example, I defy anyone to tell me that a safe load using Bullseye cannot be developed for everything from 25 ACP to 505 Gibbs.
Click to expand...
Maybe that might be the next thread question. What powder have you used that could be stretched to all your centerfire guns, both rifle and pistols? So far, it's been the faster burning pistol powders that I have exploited for this task. I have been using Clays, Bullseye, Red Dot, Unique and Trailboss for propelling some of my projectiles in my 308s and 35 Whelen guns.
 
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