The last batches of the old H4831 I've gotten have all been gifts. In the late 1980's Eileen and I did a road trip through the South during spring turkey season, on the way stopping to visit an older writer, Charlie Waterman, in Deland, Florida. Charlie was in his mid-70's at the time and had just decided to sell their summer/fall home in Montana and quit big game hunting, so he gave me a gallon Thermos jug of old H4831, which he'd used in his .280 to kill a pile of antelope, elk and some really big mule deer. That jug lasted until maybe 1990.
More recently a buddy ended up with several of the original waxed cardboard 1-pound "cans," also thanks to an older friend who quit hunting and shooting. That's where the unopened can came from that I recently tested against the new stuff.
One thing I do know from several tests over the years is that while the mil-surp H4831 was good stuff, and cutting-edge for its era, it was more temperature sensitive (especially in cold) that H4831SC. But then that was true of just about any powder made before the 1990's.
