what is the most versatile powder?

warrenb

warrenb

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I have'nt been reloading long enough to know much and have only used 5 powders. I have a few manuals, and certain powders appear over again.

I know everyone likes varget and I know theres no one powder for all applications. Just wondered which powder or even 2 or 3 would you say are most versatile.

I'm starting to think its BLC2. It can be used in a lot of calibres for a range of bullet weights and it meters well.
 
Define "versatile". Usable in all handgun cartridges, and small rifle, and medium rifle, and large?

If you want one powder that will "work" in everything, it will be a fast handgun powder, which will work less well as the cartridge size increases. Slower powders will rule out smaller handgun cartridges, but will work better with rifle cartridges, and so on.... Something like Unique can be used in any cartridge, but of course will not be anywhere optimal in most of them.

P.S. Dan's still right (of course) ;). If you must choose only one powder, 4895 is an excellent choice if you're talking rifle cartridges. However it's unusable for handgun cartridges and poor in the smaller rifle cartridges like the 223 and the real big magnum cartridges.
 
i use only 3- so far ww231, for pistols, ww748 for rifles, and imr 7828 for the 338 win mag- but that's 250- 275 grain bullets- hardly ever- it's my BIG bear gun, to be tagged from distance
i buy in kegs, and they last a long time- you don'y get many loads out of a 1 lb can when you throw 70 grains a pop- and there always seems to be winchester powder around- and i've been doing this 70
 
I could get by with 3 powders; Unique, 4895, and 4350. Happily I don't have to, but these 3 would allow me to load handgun cartridges at various power levels, cast bullet rifle cartridges, and normal velocity rifle cartridges with jacketed bullets.
 
Boomer said:
I could get by with 3 powders; Unique, 4895, and 4350. Happily I don't have to, but these 3 would allow me to load handgun cartridges at various power levels, cast bullet rifle cartridges, and normal velocity rifle cartridges with jacketed bullets.
Click to expand...

what would you use 4350 for? just wondering, I have a can sitting I only use for hunting bullets
 
For rifle loads, I get lots of mileage out of H4831, H335 and IMR4895.

They don't cover all the bases, but I seem to have to replace them most frequently.

Unique handles a lot of pistol loads, as does Red Dot for Shotguns.
 
Great question. My versatile powder for my handguns is W231. For small to medium rifles, it has to be either W748 or H4895 - but I am going to go with the ball powder, W748 here due to its ease of loading. For the bigger guns, I can't get enough H1000.
 
I would be close to Boomer's list. I could easioly get by with three, Unique, 4895 and 4831.
4350 is ideal for the 30-06, especially with 180 grain bullets, but we can get along good without it. 4895 will do good with all the smaller big game cartridges, like the 30-30 class, 303 British, 308, etc. With 150 grain bullets in the 30-06, 4895 will shoot them at factory velocity levels.
H4831 will give 180 grain bullets in the 30-06 as much velocity as will 4350, and likely just as accurate.
For 200 and 220, and of course, 240, if you can get them, H4831 in a 30-06 is hard to beat. I will wager that the vast majority of 30-06 owners and shooters, just don't realize how accurate their rifle can be, with a healthy load of H4831 behind a 220 grain bullet!
If we could still get Norma 205, or its successor, Norma MRP, I would take it ahead of H4831. 205/MRP will do everything here that I said about 4831, only do it with less volume in the case and in most instances, more velocity to the bullet, without increased pressure.
Those two Norma powders are tops in the 270, and made to order for most of the big magnums.
Alas, we can't get the Norma powders, so we stick to H4831.
 
Andy said:
Define "versatile". Usable in all handgun cartridges, and small rifle, and medium rifle, and large?
Click to expand...

Andy, good point. I thought about drawing lines in my original question but it would have been so long no one would answer.

I suppose by versatile - I mean what is your own versatile powder, its not up to me to define how you use it.

So far I'm surprised Varget has not been mentioned more. H4895 being a favourite does not surprise, niether does w748 it is similar to BLC2 no?
 
Win 231 for all my pistol loads

Varget for all my rifle loads

Unique for reduced rifle with lead bullets and some pistol loads...

That's it 3 powders...

at some point I had more then 10 different powders, now I prefer to keep it simple...
 
Li'l Gun, Vihtavuori N150, Norma MRP. I could get by on those three quite nicely. However, I choose to use many more. [just my way of doing things!] Eagleye.
Bullseye
Unique
2400
Li'l Gun
Norma 200
RL-7
IMR 4198
Benchmark
RL-12 [obsolete, but have a bit]
W748
Vihtavuori N135
IMR 3031
WC845
IMR 4895
Vihtavuori N140
Norma 202
Vihtavuori N540
BLC-2
RL-15
H414
W760
WC760 [slow lot 10]
Vihtavuori N150
IMR 4350
H4350
Vihtavuori N550
Norma 204
WC760 [slow lot 131]
Vihtavuori N160
IMR 4831
Vihtavuori N560
WC852 [slow lot]
H4831
RL-22
Norma MRP
IMR 7828
RL-25
Retumbo
Vihtavuori N170
WC867
H5010
 
If I could only choose one powder for rifle, I would choose H4895. All my milsurp calibers like it, & I can make it work for my hunting rifles too. For pistol I would choose Unique.

George
 
Eagleye said:
Li'l Gun, Vihtavuori N150, Norma MRP. I could get by on those three quite nicely. However, I choose to use many more. [just my way of doing things!] Eagleye.
Bullseye
Unique
2400
Li'l Gun
Norma 200
RL-7
IMR 4198
Benchmark
RL-12 [obsolete, but have a bit]
W748
Vihtavuori N135
IMR 3031
WC845
IMR 4895
Vihtavuori N140
Norma 202
Vihtavuori N540
BLC-2
RL-15
H414
W760
WC760 [slow lot 10]
Vihtavuori N150
IMR 4350
H4350
Vihtavuori N550
Norma 204
WC760 [slow lot 131]
Vihtavuori N160
IMR 4831
Vihtavuori N560
WC852 [slow lot]
H4831
RL-22
Norma MRP
IMR 7828
RL-25
Retumbo
Vihtavuori N170
WC867
H5010
Click to expand...

If I read that right, that 41 different powders, so if you had a lb of each would you need a magazine storage license :D. I never have more than about 10lbs of powder in the house at one time.
 
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