Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters H414 discontinued 😡

Well said however there is something to be said for loonyism also.

I hope they never stop making 4895 and 4350!
Ben

They won' t as long as people use lots of it. Hodgdon has bought up most of it's competition based on the premise in business " that if your going to have competition in your product market it might as well be by yourself". And it is , so at this point they improve their product lines, outdating old stand bys which are replaced "by better engineered, temp stability, copper erasing, consistancy and etc." (Cost more) Now were in the consolidating the product line to save manufacturing costs time frame. 4759, h414, 4320 and all those ww slowburners that were renovated every time you turned your head. Happening right now at Alliant also. The powder industry is in a constant state of change, better product, more market share, blahs blahs the only thing consistant about it is the price keeps going up and if the sales figures are down on a particular product get rid of it. My take MB

I have at least three rifles that I use H414 in and as I saw an 8lb at my local gun store a week or so ago I ran up there hoping to find some even in one pounders. No H414, H4895 or W760. I have a new 300 H&H that likes R19 so I picked up 8lbs of that. From now on when I find a powder I like I'll be buying 8 LBS of it at a time. I'm not a fan of change but I guess if I try to look at the bright side I'll be spending more time behind the rifles sorting out new loads.

GSPfan,

I have pointed out before on this forum that in most of the U.S. you can order powder from various websites and have it shipped to your door. I do it a lot, partly because I can often find powders on the Internet that aren't in any of the several good-sized local stores here in Montana. Quite often, too, even with the hazmat fee required, plus shipping, the price of an 8-pounder is similar to many retail stores.

I just looked at a number of sites, and 760 was listed in stock at most.

I considered W760 to be similar to if not the same as H414.

I mainly get powder off the internet or sometimes at gun shows. The sporting good stores and the different gun stores near here often only carry just a few ‘Common’ powders.

Coming back from Prairie Dog shooting this summer we stopped at a gun store and I found small rifle primers and powders I hadn’t seen available for a while.

I could have bought a nice rifle for what I spent that day.

The main problem with stocking up on reloading materials is the improvements in powder make me wonder why I have a couple 8 pounders of IMR4350 and such.

Even tho my 7-08 really likes H414, and I have 7-8 lbs stashed back, my 7-08 likes Big Game better with 150 gr NBT's. Ive got all the H414 I'll ever need.

Bugger,

We've gone through this before: W760 is EXACTLY the same powder as H4141, and has been for a long time. It's made by the same factory, in the same way, but goes into differently labeled canisters.

The reason SOME loading manuals list slightly different loading data for 760 and 414 is different manufacturing lots burn slightly differently. But ever since Hodgdon acquired the Winchester powder line (which has been a while now) their data for both powders is exactly the same, down to the 10th of a grain, feet-per-second and pressure.

That's what I believed, I don't see a big issue with H414 being discontinued.

I live in a portion of the country where the hunting season could be 70+ degrees F (or hotter) or it could be -20 degrees F (or colder). One year I might be hunting in short sleeve shirt and the next with full winter gear. I feel the 760 (and H414) are very temperature sensitive! If my rifle shot .1" groups with H414 that would be fine, but I would not consider using it hunting. The smallest groups under ideal conditions isn't as important to me as POI and pressure not changing with temperature. Plus I've had serious issues with those old Winchester powders when I sighted in at 45 degrees and hunted at high temperatures. I think the worst was with WW785, but WW760 and WW748 will never be on my shopping list either.
There are a few powders in the normal burning range of H414 or WW760, I'd be trying H4350 or IMR 4451 or even IMR4350, if my rifle 'liked' H414.

Yep, there isn't an issue with H414 being "discontinued," because the only thing really being discontinued is containers with H414 labels. The same powder will continue to fill W760 containers.

I have had temperature adventures with H414/W760 as well, to the point I swore off using either in my standard hunting handloads, though I keep some around to use in handloading articles, since many people like 'em--and apparently don't hunt where temperatures vary widely.

But H414/W760 may be more temp-resistant now, since I haven't done any serious temperature testing with it in quite a while.

This is a FWIW: I gave my H414 to my second son for his 7-08. But it proved no better in his M70 Featherweight than it did in mine. After never giving the accuracy for any bullet tried in mine from 139s to 175s, I did a lot more research and stumbled on the idea (from somewhere that I don't recall) that IMR 4064 might do what I was looking for... It did, and became a kind of miracle powder IN MY RIFLE! I'm going to suggest it to my son.

But before handing it over to my son, I also tried it in my 9.3 x 62 with the 286 Hornady and the 320gr Woodleigh. It gave good accuracy for each but MV wasn't as good as RL-15. I replaced RL-15 with RL-17 and that became my "miracle powder" for the 9.3 x 62. Nothing else has come close!

I mention this because H414, IMR 4350 and RL-17 are supposed to be within the same ball park as to burn rate. NOT SO! I've used enough of all those to know the differences. RL-17 works best when compressed in conjunction with a magnum primer, specifically the WLRM primer. It is a tad slower than H414 (W760), has more energy than IMR 4350 being a double base powder and doesn't change in any significant way with temp changes -- which RL-15 did! As someone here mentioned, H414 (W760) will let you know right away if you've gone too far! RL-17 doesn't have that habit.

So, while BG might be a good substitute for H414, so might RL-17. It's a tad slower than BG, but they are close. Just as H4895 can be compressed significantly for best results in a .458 Win with heavy bullets, so RL-17 works best with heavy bullets in the 9.3 x 62 when compressed and ignited by a magnum primer.

The point being: Experiment with something different, especially with some of the newer powders. IMR 4895 is made in Canada. H4895 is an "extreme powder" made in Australia which I much prefer over the IMR version, unless they've improved it -- likely MD would know about that. There are good substitutes for H414 that might work better, as I discovered for my 7-08.

Bob
www.bigbores.ca

I'd point out for those who can't stand reading their reloading manuals that in Hornady's burn rate chart #108 is 760, #109 is h414 and # 110 is Superformance. I have been getting good accuracy and velocity in various 30-06's with 165 & 180 gr bullet weights with Superformance. MB