If you want peak performance and likely peak accuracy with heavy for caliber bullets in magnum handgun cartridges, then IMHO H-110/W-296 is the best powder. No it can't be downloaded, but it's the best for that use.
How do you figure that
when 2400 will give you the same energy and velocity with similar bullet weights as either of the powders you mentioned? What can those powders do that 2400 cannot?
, in my experience, in any of the magnum revolver cartridges I've used it in (357, 44, 45C, 454). I've always been able to reach higher velocity with H110.
For mild to mid-range loads, Unique will give the same velocity as 2400, but with less flash and less recoil.
2400 is a popular old powder, and it meters well, but I haven't found any loads that can't be done better with either H110 or Unique. Since I'm not a guy to own just one powder, 2400 doesn't seem to have any clear advantages, in my experience.
Well somebody should tell Lyman that 2400 will not do that because their loading manuals have been saying that it will for the past 50 years or more, and my chronograph says it will, regardless of your experience. Unique will not come close to the same velocities as 2400 and anyone who has any experience at all knows that.
I am going to continue to try to answer leomort's questions, and I shall ignore the attempts to deflect this thread into what loads you like or what your experience has been.
Bob, 2400 is a faster powder than H110. Matching velocity with both leaves lower pressure in the H110 load, and room to go up. Lyman's old data is about the last data I'd trust for a reference on this, but you probably don't want to hear that.
You also didn't read what I wrote about Unique.
Well now, leomort said he was going to be shooting a 4 inch barrel Ruger revolver. You can get all a four inch revolver is capable of giving with 2400 powder. That being the case, there is no need to go up in pressure. You make an interesting statement when you say
Matching velocity with both leaves lower pressure in the H110 load, and room to go up
Since velocity is caused by pressure and you can't have velocity without it, and velocity is corrolated and varies directly with the pressure, how can you have the same velocity with lower pressure using the same weight bullet in the same 4 inch barrel? What you meant to say, but did not say, is that the pressure curve is longer with H-110 because it burns slower than 2400, which means H-110 is not very efficient in shorter barrels because it doesn't reach maximum pressure in them. But 2400 will give you all you can use.
Leomort didn't ask about Unique, but he said he had some which is good because it is such a versitle powder in hand guns and cast bullet rifle loads. It is an intermediate powder between Bullseye and 2400 and more versitle than either of those. I always keep an 8 pound jug on hand unless I have two 8 pound jugs.
The Lyman reloading manuals were around before any of the others even thought about it and they have more experience doing that than all the others combined. Lyman is the standard manual for reloaders and it has been for over a half century. The data in them is accurate and if it were not, they would have been sued out of business a long time ago. I have several other manuals and I update them about every two years or as soon as a new edition is made available, but I just use them as a cross reference. If I work up a new load for a cartridge I have not loaded before, I lay out four or five DIFFERENT manuals on the bench to be sure I am in the ball park and then develop the load from there. I have been casting bullets and reloading for 55 years and still have all my fingers and hair, so I must be doing something right.
