Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Mixing similar Powders

8lb jug of H4350 half empty,

I just picked up 2 1lb bottles of same,

Throw it all in the the 8lb jug?

Why, why not?

There are people here that will have a purple cow if you did that but I wouldn't have a problem with it. If it were me I'd make a couple average rounds with each and chrono them to be sure they were close and mix away.

What he said

tmax, I love your hard charging up-front attitude,

So you're willing to take full responsibility here?

Say you're one of those 10,000 match competition shooters and you've worked up the best load in your rifle, but alas, you need to burn 20# of powder to get through the season...what to do?

Aha!

I'm not taking responsibility for anyone else's doings, but mixing hasn't been a big deal for me.

I wound up with pieces of a couple of a couple of eight pound jugs of Varget, and a couple of new one pounders. It all went into one of the big jugs, got shaken well, and voila! Shoots great too.

The "responsibility" line was all in good clean fun, no worries guys....

reading that, from you,

I come up comparing single malt Scotch versus a blended Scotch,

How can a person really go wrong either way?

I was shooting some 225 grain bullets in my .338 Lapua, using a few different powders and loads right out of the manual.

I wasn't getting the same velocities as the book, so I mixed in some Bullseye and got the speed. Manuals are just guidelines anyway.

The analogy doesn't quite work. What I did was more along the lines of putting together several open bottles of the same type of single malt Scotch. Single malt producers do the same thing on a larger scale with different barrels.

Blended scotch mixes different types of malt and grain whisky. That would be like putting some H4895 in with the Varget to quicken it up a bit.

BTW, I enjoy quality blended Scotch too. "I only drink single malts, never blends" is often an accurate indicator of an uninformed palate, or plain snobbery.

So, you're the one who invented the Triple Malt Scotch?

Here's how it works. If you open three bottles of The Macallan and mix them, there is still only one malt there, namely The Macallan. You have a single malt whisky.

I have a couple of special bottles of Famous Grouse at 15 and 18 years of age. They are all malt, no grain, but they could be quadruple or quintuple malt whisky. The term for this style used to be vatted malt. But of late, and unfortunately, the term blended malt has come into use. I think this confuses people who are used to what blended whisky means.

Work your load(s) back up, including chrony work, first. Personally, I'd not mix lots...

Why?

Damn you're a bunch of fun at times,,,,,

The analogy was enough for you to connect the dots, ok, the humor was weak,

So, ice cubes in Blended Powder would be bad also?

some one, help!

I have no problem blending lots of the same powder and do it on a a regular basis. I've never had a problem and load data stays very consistent. Mixing in Bullseye to bump velocity? Remind me not to shoot your reloads. Glad it worked out for you.

I've blended different lots of the same powder & not had problems but I tend to stay a gr or two back from max so I have some built-in insurance there.

I've blended the same powder's but different lot number's for years! If you don't have a chronograph, and even if you do, telling one from the other would be tuff!

Well, if for no other reason Purple cows and Green and Gold Packers are not color coordinated. Other than that I'm fairly confident powder people even recommend not mixing lot numbers as some variations may occur. Shoot up the 4 lbs and then rework the new powder lots. The powder loss should be very minimal and it's just CYA. And it's CYA for the powder folks too. Since you are asking I think you know the answer on this one.

Doe, I really don't have the answer,

but here's my thought process......

If there was a slight variation in the powder, Wouldn't mixing the 2lbs with the original 4lbs dilute most of the variation?

Blended there "might" be a small variance between the two lots, but by a much smaller percentage than unblended..