Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Varget Anyone?

Can't find any in stock anywhere, they all say out of stock, not backorder. I'm down to my last pound, and kicking myself for not buying more when I could find it.

So, has anyone else noticed this, or is it just me.

Due to life happening I packed all of my reloading stuff into boxes around 1995 & it's just this year seeing the light of day again. Varget, like short grain H4350, is one of those mystical, mythical powders that I've heard of but never actually seen or used.

I use Varget a little bit, like in 308 with the 175gr SMK, but never got into the camp of praising it as one of the best powder choices. In the large majority of applications I've tried it for, I've found other powders that give both better accuracy and velocity while still being very stable in changing conditions.

I'd suggest if you can't find Varget, post up what you're using it for and there are probably other choices that work as well or better.

With that said, it's still been a regularly stocked item in the local stores here, and I haven't noticed any shortage of it.

You might try TAC at one grain less than your Varget load or Accurate 4064 at one grain more.

I have had the same luck with varget. I finaly gave up on it because i found far better powders to use. For me, everything you said is true and ill add that it doesn't meter very well either. Because of things like that, i always get a kick out of guys suggesting it for cartridges like the 223/556.

It's the bomb in my 7-08's. No drama, just great results.

I've always considered Varget to be something of a jack of all trades, master of none type of deal. I've used it a lot, but usually found powders I like better. But, it is my go to powder in the 308 and the 168 grain Sierra HPBT that I like so well. It is also produces the most accurate load in 40 grain bullets for the 22-250 that I've found. I'm sure I can find something that will work as well, and it's not the end of the earth if I don't find anymore. But, it's a powder that I do have a use for.

I have about 4 pounds left in a jug. I have mostly moved on to 4895 or 4166 if someone wants to come get my varget lol

I thought maybe you'd deliver

Well sure. Just pay for gas and a day off work. Should be about $300 for 4 pounds of varget lol

Ive got a couple pounds stashed back. I use it in my 7-08 but since Ive found Big Game I have stopped using it for now! Big Game has given me better accuracy with 150 gr NBT's

Which 4895 are you using? I or H? I seems to be easy to find, H is nowhere to be found around here, same as Varget.

They may all be hard find at the moment. Varget is a great powder in many applications, but, overall, I've found H4895 to be a little better in terms of accuracy even if you have to give up a little velocity.

I don't think it matters. I am using H4895 though

I don't have any and haven't used any Varget, but instead use RL15.
I currently have around 12 pounds of 15. That should be all I'll ever need and then some, but when I see it on a shelf occasionally, I always think about buying more.

Yes, definitely scarce lately. Just scored an 8-pounder from a guy at my club after searching everywhere.

My go to powder in 7-08, .308, .35 Remington and 30-30 Winchester,,,,,

If I could only have one powder it would be Varget. Shootable .223 to 9.3 for me.

A very few years ago a fellow, Gary Sciuchetti (sp?) did one of the most exhaustive accuracy articles ever written short of the Houston Warehouse test. It was published in Handloader. In a nutshell, he tested every component separately with an incredibly accurate .308 SIG sniper rifle. Bullets, primers, powder and cases. The number of shots fired and components switched, it must of cost thousands of dollars and taken a year. Beyond thorough, scientific elimination test. None of your gun forum 3 shot group bs. Anyway, his powder? Yup, Varget...edged out RL-15.
Like Ned, I find Varget to be a universal powder and simply superb in the .35 Wh and 9.3.

I use it in all my 223's that's uses 65 and 69 gr bullets

Can't find it here either. Love it in 22-250, 308s and 35 Whelen.


Haven't experimented with much others. I've compared it to R15 in the whelen though. Side by side accuracy is really similar. Till it gets above 45 degrees or so and the R15 loads open up. I've shot varget from the teens to the 90s from the 22-250 and don't see a change.

Varget has been one of my favorite powders that has won a couple local bench matches for me
with 22-250 heavy bullets. It's performance in my 9.3x62 is very good also. It appears to be very temperature stable
as we hunt predators to -20F.

Its a powder.

It will work for some ......and some it will not.

Many people thought it was "the stuff" because in competition circles it made it to the top for some shooters.
So...."it must have magic to make my gun accurate too"........uh huh......

It will work for some and some it wont........reality sets in.

Its a powder among MANY others.

I have a friend who reloads sometimes and he used it in a .308 Win, it did quite good and when he could not get it he tried TAC, it worked too. Not as good but he could get it easier.

Best

Heavy

Where are you in Ohio? I might be interested in buying it if it’s not too far to drive from me in Massillon

Sorry you’re in that predicament. That is why I bought 8# jugs when this happened the last time.

I have maybe 100 pounds of powder in all flavors and quantities but I find myself using Varget as much as anything else in mid-capacity cartridges. If I were starting over and limited to just a few powders I could get by ok with just Varget, as long as I had some Bullseye, Unique, and 4759 too for cast bullet shooting. Oh, and 2400 and L'il Gun for the Hornets. And CFE-223 for the .223's, and, and, and.....

So it seems the Aussie made powders are the ones hard to find, Varget, H4895 and H4350. It must be a supply issue from Australia.

I normally keep several pounds of the powders that I use most.....Varget, W760, IMR4350, and a few more. I "thought" I had several pounds of Varget, but turns out I had not replaced the last one I used, so that was my bad. I have a lot of H322, W846 and 844, H335, and I rarely use those anymore. Oh well, I'll find something that will work if I really need to load some stuff up. Varget will probably show up at some point in time.

I drank the Varget Kool-aid a little while ago trying it in .257 Roberts, .30-06 and .35 Whelen. Did not see any of its mystical qualities in those cartridges and went back to other proven performers.

The same Aussie’s that pride themselves on gun control make gunpowder. Isn’t that the height of hypocrisy?

Imagine that.

Did you get Big Stick’s permission to say that? Hint.......😜

Please don't reference Pee Wee Herman's lookalike on my thread.......lol.

I haven’t had the good luck that others have had in the calibers that I’ve tried it in except for my 243.
I thought I would try it in the 243 just to use it up and low and behold I came up with a load that shot really well using Sierra 85 gn. BTHP’s. So yes, it’s been working in that capacity for me and doing a good job.

36.5 by any chance? That's the one I found with that bullet...

IMR 4064 did same speed, and a tad more accurate for my loads in 7/08..........both top speeds at the time, and I'm not sure much else is out there now that will beat it. FWIW, 2960 fps in 2 700s chopped to 21" using 139 and 140gr. Bug hole groups.

So novices don't get into trouble, it would be prudent to note this load is above book max.

I'm not trying to pick a fight. 7-08 has a wimpy 60.2kpsi max pressure; run it harder if you want.

Hodgon,139 Hornady, 2,847fps max in a 24"
Hodgon, 140 Swift, 2770fps max in a 24"
Barnes, 140 TSX, 2738fps max in a 24"
hornady, 139, ~2800fps max in a 24"
Lyman 49e, 139, 2854fps max in a 24"

No sir, but close. 35.8

I was able to buy a couple pounds a couple weeks ago. I went by today to see if they had H-4895. No luck, no Varget on shelves either

901 -

Indeed, I did not list my charge, but it is a bit over published loads, used in RP brass partial sized to my former rifles.

WW brass holds about 1.5-2 grains more IIRC. Anything 2800 and up is very effective, it ran 2850 in a 20" M70 and the Mule Deer I dumped in CO did not like it.

Run many loads of Varget in 6BR, 243 (light bullets), and 7/08 in the past. in the 7/08, again, I had a tad better accuracy, using 4064 and it meters great. I was weighing charges for accuracy testing.

With all this talk of Varget I dug a pound out and went and shot some 140 gr Sierra Pro-Hunters today! I threw a load of 42.5, which seems to be a Campfire "standard", a WLRP and a seating depth of 2.760 and they shot exceptionally well. Well under an inch.

With the way they shot Im contemplating changing what I shoot now! I have a real good load of Big Game and 150 gr NBT. I have also found some Varget at a local gun store as well. Im gonna lay a couple more pounds back!!

Now, that’s funny right there. I don’t care who you are.

I think even the local feed store has varget still in stock. If someone just has to have it, I’ll swing by and see how much.

Local shop just got a ton of it in. Buddy bought some. I thought about picking up a pound or two. But I don’t really use it in anything at the moment.

As will RL-15, H4350 & IMR-4350, IMR-4451, IMR-4166 & IMR-4064.

Varget is good in many rounds, almost never the very best & almost never the very worst, but it has no magic that cannot usually be equaled or bettered by other powders.

JME

MM

That's a pretty good summary, and matches my experience.

I think it might have been one of the best options for the 308 when it was introduced, but we have a lot more powder choices now. I also think a lot of people have made or perpetuated the mistake of thinking if it was hot in a certain cartridge, it must be one of the best choices for other cartridges too, and that gets exaggerated when top shooters used that particular powder; basically that "follow the leader" syndrome that happens in any sport or competition.

And I'll even go a step further.................at the risk of offending some.

Way too many people get hung up on a given gun's need to be fed a very specific powder & maybe a very specific bullet, & frankly, those kind of guns go down the road pretty quickly for me.

Good rifles with good barrels, square & concentric receivers with good bedding are usually not finicky & will usually shoot several loads well.

Marginal guns usually tend to be very finicky & that's where lots of guys get hung up on "magic" powders.

MM

As I said in an earlier post, I've always looked at Varget as a jack of all trades, and a master of none. I've always had problems getting it to meter right. But, it's given me some very good results in the 308, and with 40 grain bullets in the 22-250.............and I've experimented quite a bit with other powders. However, I agree that there are other powders that will work just as well, if one will take the time to find out. I'm a hunter, not a target shooter, so a few hundreds of an inch difference in groups isn't going to matter very much to me, but it would be a different matter if I were a target shooter in a competition.

I guess I'm just old fashioned, because I still use H4831 for the 270, even though most people have gone on to newer powders. I figure if it's not broke, why fix it. So, I'll use Varget for a few applications, but won't lose any sleep over not being able to find any.

Hodgdon introduced Varget in 1994, I tried it and liked it and really stocked up on it.
I ran out of my 1994 supply of Varget in 2017 and bought a new lot#. WOW the new Varget is not the same as the old Varget that I loved.
I don't know what year Hodgdon introduced their "EXTREME" powders but they must have changed the formulation for Varget at that time ?????

The OP mentions Varget as the" jack of all trades, and the master of none" this may be true of the post EXTREME Varget but for me the powder it describes is CFE223. I can always find a powder that works better than this stuff

Not offended I just disagree,
Apparently you don't know too many benchrest shooters !!!!!!!!! 90%+ shoot a 6PPC and 90%+ of those shooters use VihtaVuori N133 powder, they might vary a bit on bullets but all are 64gr-68gr.
Even on my custom Varmint and big game rifles I can always find a specific powder that works best, sorry it does not work this way for you.

Not sure he is saying what your thinking.

I think he is saying that some rifles will shoot a plethora of combinations pretty well no matter the powder or bullet used and some will only shoot 1 bullet and 1 powder good enough to shoot smallish groups.

I had a Savage 22-250 that with about 4 different powders and at least a half dozen different bullets it would always shoot under 1/2" group.

I could take 1 each of 40, 50, 52 and 55 grain bullets, each with a different powder underneath and still shoot a 3/4-1" group.

Even when I was loaded and sighted in with 1 combination I could load a new combo and POI was within an inch of the previous load.

That's my kind of rifle, not picky at all.

I did not intend to convey that given enough trials, that one very specific powder might turn not out to be "best' but that's a relative term, & for BR's that might be the difference between 1/4" & 3/8" given enough trials.............so yes, BR is maybe a special group.

And yes, I do use VV 133..........in 8 lb jugs.

But for typical hunting rifles, I really don't want one that I have to go through a dozen powders to find one that gets me to an acceptable level of accuracy that is 1/4" better than all the others, when all the others are MOA or better.

Do as you like & I'll do likewise, but I'll not keep hunting rifles & require one very specific powder to get me to an acceptable level of accuracy unless I absolutely LOVE the rifle.

YMMV & obviously does.

MM

Seems like Varget has been in short supply just about every time I've ordered powder in the last 10 years or so. My timing must be bad. Years back, I went with jugs of RL15 and H4895 as a result, and both have treated me well.

BR is a poor example; those guys don't care if a barrel shoots reasonably well with a lot of different loads, they only care how good it is with that match-winning load. And they're looking at the difference where a 0.20" group vs a 0.220" group might be the difference between winning and not even placing. For a hunting rifle, that kind of difference is completely irrelevant.

Your BR example does illustrate what I was saying about "follow the leader" syndrome though; if the top guy wins a few matches with a different powder, most of that 90% group will switch and do whatever he did. They're not necessarily wrong, but not necessarily right either, and it shows why following the pack doesn't necessarily get you the best results.

The Best (supposedly) rifle I ever owned was a Cooper in 280. Tried quite a few powders and bullets to get one to shoot about an inch at 100. Down the road it went. Several powders usually work in most guns if you play with them a little. Ed k

I have an LVSF 22-250 that only loves Varget. I could have bought 3 lbs today but I don’t need it. So tempting though because it’s been very scarce.

Truly dreadful analysis !!!!!! funny though

Are you able to look through a keyhole with both eyes, too???

MM

Now that is a funny!

You proclaimed an absolute, I pointed out that it was not absolute............
and all you got is weak keyhole smack
I expected more from a dude from Montana