You didn't say what kind of Swede, but in military barrels and chambers, the 129 Hornady flat base or SST is as good as any and better than most. Almost any powder can be more than satisfactory. The Swede in my experience, is not picky. If I could only have one powder...probably something near the burning rate of H4831...but when I was shooting competition out to 600 yds with the Swede, 4895 was the berries with SMK 140's.
This. For 30 years that bullet was my go-to in a plethora of Swedes including a couple commercial rifles. Then I discovered 139 Scenars and Berger VLD Hunting bullets and had my head turned. But I still have and use a bunch of boxes of 129 Hornadys- so what does that tell you?
Yes the Swede is very forgiving of powders but I settled on IMR4831 long ago as the powder most likely to give Sterling results, based on an old Ken Waters article and proven empirically by myself. It absolutely rocks in my current Swede, a Ruger 1A.
