Hodgdon H4350 at Bullseye North
- Thread starter Blinkmaster
- Start date
$58/pound is a steal at most places these days.
Someone definitely thought so since they sold what they had. I have been offered more for my AA4350 and IMR 4350.
LeadMonkey
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
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We are happy to pay $650 plus tax shipping and hazmat now... can't keep it in stock for $100 a pound...
This indeed crazy. Back in May I ran out completely, in June found an 8lb jug at BassPro as you say for $650 + tax = $735.00 But at the time I could not find anything anywhere, so if I wanted to shoot I had to pay up, so I did. But I regret it. When I saw Bullseye North had 20 in stock for $200 less than price gouging BassPro/Cabelas I immediately posted here, within an hour they sold out.
At the last Salmon Arm gun show, there was a fellow going around and picking up opened, partial cans of powder.
He didn't care which manufacturers they were, quantity. All he was worried about was burn rates and labled powder on the containers.
He told me that he had read on CGN that powders of the same speed, same ID on the container and from the same manufacturer could be blended together for one useful lot.
I had him come behind the table to sit with me for a chat. He was quite astute and not the type to take unnecessary chances.
I explained the methods for doing this and made him promice to get in touch with someone such as Ganderite, a very knowledgeable/ethical member on this site, if he had any concerns.
Mixing powders from the same manufacturer, with the same designated type, from different lots, is not only safe, it definitely will make for a much larger lot with a very consistent burn rate, which is much more useful.
I personally don't purchase partial/opened containers of powder, but I often will blend several different lots of the same powder from unopened containers or new manufacture containers.
This is an option for some to consider.
I get at least one call per day from people begging for primers and powder. Our local gunshops and CT do have some powders on hand, not sure about primers. I send them there.
Usually the response is "I'm not going to pay that much"
You've got to go with the times, when all is said and done.
When you get caught shy????????????? You pay through the nose if you really want it.
Talked with one fellow this morning, didn't hunt this year because he didn't want to pay $180/box for his "MAGNUM" or the outrageous price for the fuel in his pickup.
LeadMonkey
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- Off The Radar
While it may be safe in theory many powders that have similar burn rates will spike in pressure with as little as an extra grain ect this can be dangerous to even the most experienced reloader.
It is unclear if you are suggesting mixing the identical powders together or different types of powders from the same manufacturer with similar burn rates?
I’m not going to tell anyone what to do it’s not my place but having observed the median level of intelligence in Canada over the last 2.5 years for the vast majority it is a recipe to blow their faces off.
Not to mention it is illegal as it potentially breaks NRCAN regulations which govern the storage of smokeless powders (unless you load the entire batch immediately into cartridges)
The thought of mixing different lots of very same powder to increase volume to just one "blended lot", has crossed my mind many times..... But then, I ask myself, "how do I know with certainty that the powder is completely mixed to one homogeneous mixture" (consistent lot)? It will appear mixed, because the powders appear exactly the same.... But is it perfectly mixed to a consistent blend of the ingredient powders? If it is not, well then, the effort has missed miserably short of my objective....
If anyone has a proven method for mixing powders, please chime in......
If anyone has a proven method for mixing powders, please chime in......
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Many of us have been doing this for decades, without issues.
Some folks, such as Ganderite once became the recipient of several hundred pounds of powder that came out of a lot of Santa Barbara produced surplus 7.62x51nato.
The ammo was sold by International Firearms out of Montreal and apparently some of it had ''pistol'' powder put into one of the hoppers by mistake.
There were several Kabooms, which International took responsibility for, but I don't believe there was anything serious, other than some damaged beyond use rifles.
I have a friend that got some of those disastrous rounds, which were all in a couple of specific lots, indentifiable by the code on the boxes. We both bought a half dozen crates at the same time. One of his crates was in the ''infected'' lot. None of mine were.
Anyway, to make a long story short, International had all of the ammunition from those lots broken down for components.
Not sure if Ganderite was involved in that or not, but he took all of the powder and blended it all together to make up a very large and useful lot of powder for his reloading endeavors.
That isn't something I would recommend for the average handloader to pursue, unless they have some indepth knowledge on how such things work.
As for the speed between different lots of the same powder, as long as none of it has broken down, there isn't any danger.
As a rule of thumb, the powder will burn at the rate of the slowest powders mixed.
To give you an example of mixing lots of powder, when 4831, first came onto the market, it was surplus powder, bought up by Bruce Hogdon and marketed to the plebes at very affordable prices. A lot of that powder came out of surplus 20mm shells, broken down for their components, then put into large mixers and ''blended'' into a huge very extremely consistent lot of several hundred tons.
There was also a bunch of that same powder that had never been loaded and was stored in large paper drums, 50 pounds each.
Powder controls in the 1940s weren't nearly as stringent as they are today and it was a common practice for post war hand loaders to ''blend'' same designation powders so that they could get a decent lot of consistent burn rate powder.
Right up to the early eighties, it wasn't unusual to go into certain outlets and purchase different powders directly from their original drums and weigh it out, then dump it into paper sandwich bag or maybe a box, depending on the amount.
There were a lot of foolish experimenters back in those days that tried to blend powders of different burn rates and it ended badly.
There were lots of other experiments, such as duplex loads, which utilized a fast burning powder covered by a slow burning powder to get a more uniform and efficient burn. Some went so far as to install extended primer tubes to burn the powder from the top down, with the hope of extending the pressure curve, rather than having a high pressure spike, more akin to a small contained explosion.
Go ahead and blend away. Just DON'T MIX different manufacturers or burn rates listed on the containers.
I have a friend with appx 40 pounds of very early 4831/H4831/IMR4831/H4831sc all mixed into one large lot and he's been using it in his 30-06, as well as that both son in laws and several grandchildren for the last 20+ years. Every time he comes across a part can or a cheap can of H4831, he adds it to the blend and stirs it in well. He uses different loads for each of the different rifles, but not out of anything but being careful to tune the load to the particular rifle. He never exceeds any of the loads in the latest Lyman manual.
Not necessary, unless you just have to compare the difference between the two lots beforehand. The burn rate will be closest to the slower of the two lots, so in these times of component drought, it would be an expensive waste IMHO.
Todays manufacturers are held to such close tolerances that there is very little difference between burn rates from lot to lot.
Most hand loaders don't even bother to change their loads or check them from one container to the next, because they are so reliably consistent. You couldn't get away with that 20 years ago, if you wanted good accuracy.
I had no problems mixing my own powders of the same lot - my 240 wby costs' 3-4 bucks a squeeze. I might squeeze out three this weekend to make sure it's still zeroed at 200 yards. I do not rely on just one powder for reloading have several different powders that I have decent loads for - it will be sometime before I need to purchase any
If a person shoots long range.
If a person shoots near max pressure.
If a persons load is not in a middle node.
These things can absolutely matter, and should be checked out. I don’t mix powders, but I would check velocity between them if I was to mix the same powder with different lot numbers.
