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..

Blend away. Done it for years, and some manufacturers actually recommend blending of some powders to alter the burn rate, as in blending LT-32 with AA2015.
Only 1 reason not to would be if there was a recall, you would have a beotch of a time separating them.

I've done it for years, also, with no problems.

I mix them and don't worry about it at all. It keeps things from changing if you finish a can of one lot and start another. If I've got five pounds of Varget of different lots then I blend them all together and pour them back in the cans, now all my cans are identical powder.

I have a few rifles that just love RL22, but this powder varies more from lot to lot than any other powder I have used.
mixing a couple lot#'s together does mellow it out and make it more useful.

Mix them together and rock on.

"Varget..... Stirred... not shaken..."

Bond, James Bond...

Other way around.

Whittle down a wine cork, after you finish the wine, so it'll insert to about 2" depth in the end of your rifle barrel. I find this allows the pressure curve to reach optimum level quicker then flat-top for an extended duration. Keeps the mostest pressure for the longest time, not that you'll get to see it of course.

To the fellow who got to this post from Google. He's just kidding.

I guess I'm just in the file that reads... " when/if in doubt DO NOT". Of course, everything your read on the internet is true.. it must be, it's on the internet. Rock on....

+1 same lots no problem. I am not brave enough to add 'just a little' blue dot, bullseye, unique... To bump velocity I just add more of the same powder I'm currently using, not so complex that way.

Well, as long as we're fessing up, I'm not either.......and I don't even own a 338 Lapua......

Phil Sharp even had a chapter devoted to blending different lots of the same powder. Recommended using a sieve for the chunky stuff.

In most old photos I have seen of him he had both limbs still.

I did it with a several 2 lb cans of H870 to prevent load work up each time I switched jugs. I was tempted to do the same with AA8700 but it just didn't load the same as the surplus 870.

Two to three grains different in max loads is too much for me to consider them the same.

Same powder with close lot numbers I don't hesitate but I consider the blend a new powder and work back up.

A blend of two different but very similar powders will end up halfway between in burning rate. This is exactly how powder companies "adjust" powders to keep lot-to-lot variation at a minimum.

It's also mmo companies usually "adjust" powder when they get new lots. They usually don't use blended home-handloaders powders, but large lots of unblended powder. They test new lots to see what works best, and while they can usually find a load that works, sometimes they'll blend powders as well. In fact one of the original factory loads for the .300 WSM used a blend of what we know as Winchester 748 and 760.

But mixing different lots of the the same powder involves about as much risk as using different toothpastes.

You use different toothpastes?

Why on earth would you not mix the same powder? I can't see how that would ever be a bad thing.

You use toothpaste?

Yes. But not toilet paper.

Mix, blend, and shoot.

Like most of life, it depends.

I habitually take the last bit of powder in a can and add it to the next can of the same powder. Only once did I run into a lot of powder with a vastly different burn rate and that was RL22.

I had safe loads worked up for the .270 and .300 Win. Mag. with one jug of RL22. These were top loads but did not exceed listed manual levels. When the first jug ran out I bought another and loaded to the same charge weights. My safe 3060 fps .270 load with a 130 grain bullet suddenly produced 3300 fps with everything else the same. The .300 Win Mag load also showed about a 150 fps increase in velocity. I had to back down at least two grains with each load to get velocities back into sane levels.

But other than that, I've never had a problem taking leftover small amounts of powder and dumping it into a new bottle.

I have never had issue with mixing different lots of the SAME powder...I have serious problems with mixing different powders.

No problem. But. I usually will let the new powder breath a little to evaporate the solvent base. I was told that by a fellow from Accurate Arms a long time ago. Doesn't hurt to do it, so I do it.

Various lots if the same powder get mixed, now you have 1 lot.