Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters New IMR powders for sale from Hodgdon

Powder Valley has H-4350 in stock, $22.45/pound, ready to ship.

DF

3rdGen has IMR4350 & several other IMR's in stock for a couple of dollars more. Nothing I noticed for pistols though.

Key point that was missed in the above is availability date(s). . . "Early 2015 . . . " which is about as generic as it gets. I wouldn't be running to my LGS asking for it the day after New Years.

http://www.theoutdoorwire.com/story/1413848877yn6a7rhwm83

Just looking at some 7-08 loads and it looks like 4166 has the same max charge and velocity as Varget...but pressure at max was lower. Could it be the one to replace Varget!? What....there's a target on my back? LOL!

It says 4166 will be first and they're saying November '14 here: http://www.lohmanarms.com/product_p/imr41661.htm

After reading the posts, here are some other observations. Aside from Pyrodex and some of the other black-powder substitute-type products, Hodgdon doesn't "make" rifle powders.

Instead they contract with other companies to produce them. H4350 and the other Extremes are made in Australia, and there have been some bottlenecks in supply from there, not caused in any way by Hodgdon. Among the bottlenecks is that, due to increased demand, more ships full of powder have been leaving Oz for the U.S. They normally refuel and resupply at Auckland, New Zealand, but the Kiwis got nervous about more than one ship loaded with powder being in their harbor, so ruled that only one powder ship would be allowed at one time. This naturally slows down shipments.

Two, the Australians can only make so much powder, and demand is still well above average. The old law of supply and demand definitely applies, even though many handloaders apparently can't understand such a basic economic principle. That's one reason the price has gone up.

In fact, apparently shooters in general can't understand why there are still "shortages" of rimfire ammo and some loading components. These are the same shooters who, two years after Obama's reelection, are often buying all the rimfire ammo they can find at inflated prices, anytime they can find it, or buying several 8-pound jugs of powder, where they used to buy a couple pounds. Factories can only produce so much, and they are NOT going to increase their capacity 10 times just to satisfy the panicky desires of shooters in the U.S., who may suddenly decide after next month's election there's no need to hoard .22 shells or powder anymore, or may finally fill their garages so full there's no more room for either.

I suspect (but don't know) that among the reasons for Hodgdon contracting with the factory in Canada for the Enduron powders is that shipping powder from Canada to Kansas is much easier (and cheaper) than shipping powder from Australia. The ability to make temperature-resistant powders isn't unique to Oz, and if Hodgdon can supply other powders that do the same things (actually more, with the decoppering agent) without the hassles and expenses of overseas importing, why wouldn't they?

I also suspect the reason IMR4451 isn't called some version of 4350 (HMR4350, or 4350.2?) is that there are already THREE versions of 4350 on the market. But 4451 fills basically the same niche, and may be the best version of all.

Nah, it's really a government conspiracy.......

So how much is there to the "decoppering" agent claims, John? Marketing or truth? I haven't played with the others that have it to know myself, yet.

Decoppering agents have been around for a long time, but not in many handloading powders. They're really pretty simple, a slight amount of some soft metal that combines with the copper, making it brittle, whereupon most of the copper's blown out of the bore with the next round.

The oldest decoppering agent is lead. It doesn't even have to be combined with the powder; artillery shells often had a coil or piece of lead foil placed on top of the powder charge, under the projectile. (As you might imagine, it's a PITA to clean copper-fouling out of a cannon barrel.)

But decoppering agents have been in a lot of military small-arms powders for years, mostly due to automatic rifles, and when those same powders are sold to handloaders they work well. Ramshot TAC, for instance, is a Belgian powder originally designed for NATO military rounds, the reason it contains a decoppering agent and the other Ramshot rifle powders don't, even though they're made by the same factory and use the rest of the same basic technology. Some of the older ball powders sold by Hodgdon also have long had decoppering agents.

These days lead pollution is unpopular, of course, so other decoppering agents are used. Bismuth is a good one, for instance.

I tested the decoppering of IMR4166 by shooting my Thompson/Center Icon .223 for 100 rounds without cleaning, while making other tests with the powder. The Icon's barrel doesn't foul a lot, but it does end up with enough copper inside after 100 rounds to show up plainly in a bore-scope, and to turn a solvent-soaked patch a definite blue. After cleaning out the slight amount of powder fouling with some alcohol-soaked patches, there was only a hint of any copper in a few places inside the bore, and a patch soaked in Montana X-Treme Copper Killer showed only a very faint hint of blue.

Great info, John. Thanks!

Looking at 7977 for my 270. A 150 bullet cruising at 2940fps out of the lowly (aka "gay") 270 is nothing to sneeze at.

JB, you wouldn't be scheduled to do a magazine article on the new powders by chance?

I got acquainted with IMR4166 while doing an article for the upcoming Hodgdon Annual Manual.

Mule Deer,

Thanks for the updates, and the updates to the updates.


Whatdoyaknow, thought it was tin.

Thanks for the update. I understand now why I saw IMR4350 on shelves before H4350.

Hodgdon has their online "Reloading Data Center" updated with the new powders. Performance with IMR 4451 and 180s in the 30-06 appears to be similar to H4350 and IMR4350, for velocity. They say 55.5 grains should give about 2750 fps out of a 24-inch barrel, at under 60K PSI (SAAMI standard). Not that I would load above a manufacturer's recommendation for the old war horse...

So, why the heck is Australia our powder stash? Law? Raw materials? Labor? Fosters lager?

And dang, I just bought two 8lb jugs of H4831.........


Casey

JB, Any hints as to whether the 4451 is a good candidate for the 338-06? No load data with hodgdon, but H4350 has shown to be quite good for 210-225gn bullets. I've found that powders, even of very similar burn rate, as shown in charts, can have quite different results in actual application.

My guess is 4451 probably would be very good in the .338-06. As you note, it's sometimes hard to tell exactly what will happen even when powders supposedly have similar burn rates, but single-based extruded powders like the Enduron line tend to perform most predictably.

Thanks. I'll keep an eye out, and if I find some I'll give it a go with 225 Partitions. I have a few hundred of those I need to find a use for.

I just wished the ship with the Trail Boss would get here.