Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada Powder situation has eased a little

I managed to get four powders today. Three desparately needed refills and one new one to try.

I got lucky and only paid $67 for a pound of Benchmark. It's $80 everywhere else around home. I was visiting my sister and stopped in Waterloo. It's sad to think that $67 is a good deal, but the shortages of the last couple of years drove prices up. They have a long way to go before we see something that resembles normal. Can we expect that again?



I have some TAC coming from X-Reload. I was out of that. And a new, never tried before powder. Shooter's World Rifle Match. It's manufactured in Czechoslovakia by Explosia. This is the same company that makes Semtex, a plastic explosive that was used in several terrorist bombings a few years back.

X-Reload is selling some of SW product line and I figured to try Rifle Match in a few cartridges. You can download their manual at the link below the picture. Rifle Match is also known as Lovex D073.6. It was a bargain at $58/lb. The other SW stuff is close to $80/lb.



SW Manual

Popular powder such as Varget and 4350 etc....are $100 a lb, we were always able to get them, but were limited to 2lb a day, not a big deal, but now there have been limits imposed on primers.

Only 2 sleeves of primers per lb of powder, probably because of shooters like me who stocked up on primers, I saw no reason not to when they were $5 a sleeve, now they are $12.

I doubt if prices will be going down on powder around here, shopping around pays off, especially if its an 8lb jug you are looking for, it was then just under $50 for CFE223 or TAC, a great price.

Anybody find Trail Boss?

I just checked my usual haunts. Everyone is sold out.

Thanks

Kurgan;
Good afternoon to you and welcome to the 'Fire from just north of the medicine line in the sunny south Okanagan.

While attempting to find an answer for your question as to where Trail Boss might be found, I bumped into this exchange.

https://forum.accurateshooter.com/threads/is-trail-boss-unobtanium-right-now.4089609/

The chap from Australia indicates it's not officially discontinued, but they haven't made any since '21.

Perhaps it's like our Canadian made Enduron powders and they're filling other contracts? To be clear I have no insider knowledge whatsoever.

That's too bad as I've found it a pretty handy powder for some applications like cast bullets in the .30-30.

Again welcome here and all the best.

Dwayne

I wish it was better news. Depending on the cartridge, you could try 5744 or any of the IMR single base powders for reduced loads.

Thanks for the information guys. For now, I'll just stick with IMR 4227 in reduced 7x57 and 308 loads.

There's not much we can do until powders become more widely available.