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pdman Offline OP
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Hi All....Has anyone tried IMR 4166 in their 308 yet....? Varget seems to be unobtanium again and am looking for an alternative...
Specifically IMR 4166 with Nosler 150 and 165 Partition bullets...
Thanks to all
Pete

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IMR4064 is easier to find and usually gives great accuracy. I have not tried it yet, but would like to hear back as well.


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pdman,

I tried 4166 in the .308 with 150 Accubonds and 168 Berger Hunting VLD's. Given that my Ruger American has a 22" barrel and Hodgdon's test barrel is 24", velocities were very similar with the same powder charges: 45.7 with the 150's and 43.5 with the 168's, the maximums listed for those bullet weight.

Muzzle velocity in my rifle was 2778 for the 150's and 2626 for the 168's, and 5-shot (not 3-shot) groups were in the 3/4" to 1" range. I didn't try tweaking the loads yet, and was pretty impressed.


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hunting1,

In my experience, both on websites and in stores, IMR4166 has been more available than IMR4064 since it was introduced. Only recently has much 4064 been showing up again.

IMR4166 is also a short-cut powder, so meters far more easily than 4064.


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With my Redding BR-30 I've found I need to "slow dump" the charges of 4166 else it will occasionally bridge. The kernels are short cut, but they're fatter than 4895, Varget, RL15 and the like. I think their shape allows them to pack in just the right way to hang up in my measure.

Even though 4064 is much crunchier in operation, I've thrown thousands of charges and never had it bridge.

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pdman Offline OP
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THANK YOU MuleDeer...!!!!

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Thanks John, 4064 has not been an issue here. Varget, well better buy it when you see it. I do see a good supply of 4166 so it sounds like well worth trying.


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I have an 8 lb jug of 4064, 5 lbs of Varget. Maybe I should auction them off? laugh


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mathman,

That's interesting. When testing my first batch of IMR4166 the only metering problems occurred with .22 caliber cases or smaller. In any larger caliber case it measured easily, but I can't remember which of my measures was used.


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I went into one of my old gear boxes and dug out a Uniflow that's closing in on 40 years old. At some point my father had added the "micrometer" adjustment to it.

I completely disassembled it, cleaned it up, and ran a Dremel burr tool and a rat tail file in the hole at the bottom of the body casting. There were a few casting nubs at the narrow part of the neck. This part of the Uniflow looks to be a bit larger than the similar constriction in my Redding BR30.

A test with 4166 shows this may be measure for my use of this powder. It metered smoothly, didn't bridge, and threw a string of charges -0/+.1 grains.

Forgot to say: I'm going to be using more 4166 now that mass production will be easier. It's a bit more expensive than Varget, but the top charges are about two grains lower for very similar velocities in my 308's. At today's prices this is worth about $1.75 a pound, so the per shot cost is nearly a wash.

The accuracy is great too.

Last edited by mathman; 02/13/16. Reason: added text
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That sounds perfect!

One of my measures is the Culver conversion of the Lyman 55, a generous gift from Ken Oehler. I should try it with 4166.


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Try some CFE223 if you can find it. I get it readily here. 150 Hornadys over 51 grains gets sub-3/4 moa with over 2900 fps from my Ruger American .308.


You did not "seen" anything, you "saw" it.
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I'm using it too.

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Muledeer...
you list 45.7 grains of 4166 as the maximun charge for the 150 grain bullet in the 308 winchester in this post as listed by hodgdon....they now list 48 grains as the max have they raised this since you worked with this back in 2015 or is this an error....i am know working with the 308 and this powder Thanks

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gene,

Thanks for the heads-up. Actually Hodgdon still lists 45.7 as maximum, but with the 150 Nosler E-Tip--which may be the only load they originally listed, perhaps because the E-Tip tends to produce more pressure than other bullets of the same weight, so it would be safe with just about any other 150.


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thanks for your help and support on this forum

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Thanks!

The other factor was probably the fact that when Hodgdon assigns articles on new stuff for the Annual Manual, they only send the writer what data they've developed to that point--which is not nearly as extensive as what they test afterward.


“Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans.”
John Steinbeck

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