Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors New powder for 250 savage?

A bowl of Varget with a little sugar and milk makes for a hearty breakfast too.

Single-base extruded powders like Varget and the 4895's are generally cleaner-burning with sub-maximum loads than even modern, cleaner-burning spherical powders.

Another extruded powder I've often found produces better accuracy in the .250 is Accurate 2495.

Very, very late to the party, but useful info...

Varget is affectionately called "4064 Short Cut" by the Hodgdon people. That's where I'd start.

RE 15 worked well for mine.

Further OT: I've started experimenting the last couple weeks with Varget in a pre-64 M70 .30-06. Accuracy was average so-so with the old standbys of 4895 and 4350- certainly plenty good enough, 1½MOA on average. The starting loads of Varget with Sierra 150 spitzers, 165 BTHP's, and 168 Matchkings all went sub-MOA (with the Matchkings making bug hole groups that I would blush to brag about). This from a standard M70, the type of which that has never been regarded as a super-accurate rifle in the "modern" sense. I probably won't mess anymore with it other than maybe increasing powder charges at least into the mid-range as long as accuracy holds. Heck, I may not even work it as a cast bullet rifle (gasp!) and just leave things well enough as is as a jacketed bullet shooter. The main reason for its existence in my battery is as a dedicated long(ish) range rifle, the presence of which would've put a big rack on the wall and venison in my freezer last year when I found myself in a freakish 350 yard long range (for me) situation with absolutely no cover for a stalk, and me with a peep sighted 99T in hand- and no idea of its bullet drop past being sighted in 1½" high at 100. (And me steadily refusing to scope a 99. No such qualms about a bolt gun.)

Has anybody tried CFE-223 in the '06? It's burning rate isn't ideal in such a big case, but Hodgdon does list loads for it, but with rather higher pressures for the same velocities achievable with slower "classic" '06 powders.

Still in all, I think CFE-223 is ideally suited for rifles that experience relatively high volumes of jacketed bullets per shooting session, ie: .223 AR's for example, or prairie dog shooters. For a guy sighting in and doing a little target practice now and then with his hunting rifle I don't see a need to switch unless there coincidentally is an improvement in accuracy/performance to boot. Unless of course said guy is extremely anal about getting every last trace of copper fouling out of his barrel after every range session, in which case the CFE powder gives him a leg up with that chore.

I have been shooting Leverevolution in my 250-3000 under 87 and 90 grain bullets. It works well, good accuracy and velocity. I would have to check my notes for charge weights, but I think I used about 38 grains. Leverevolution is very close in burn rate to CFE223.