Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles IMR 4759

First of all, I'm just at the beginning of this project, and I'm not going to rush into it and do something stupid; so don't worry about me blowing myself up. That said, here's where I'm at. I just bought 660 "rounds" of the craziest load-out you'll ever see: FA military .30-06 brass with no headstamp at all, 20 per box (with blacked out but visible FA print on them), crimped primers with red primer sealer. Each case has 11.0 grains of powder, exactly 1.0 grain polyester wad, and each case is corked. Yes...corked!

U.S. Army TM 43-0001-27 shows a load-out for "Cartridge, Caliber .30, Ball, Frangible, M22" with 11.0 grains of Propellant Type SR 4759. Velocity of the M22 is about 1320 fps 50' from the muzzle. A little reading on the frangible projectile BM17073 shows that it's about 110grains...although again, no bullets are present in my "cartridges".

While consulting about eight loading manuals and loaddata.com last night, I can see that the discontinued Canadian IMR4759 was used in large caliber magnum handguns and small bore rifle cartridges. There is some load data for .30-30 reduced loads in the Speer manual that I have. Other info yielded from Internet searches shows that many shooters used to load cast bullet rifle loads in several cartridges from .222 Remington to .303 British, 7.65x53 Mauser and .45-70 GOVT. HOWEVER - Many loaders described IMR4759 as "bulky", and this is not the case with the powder I'm about to pull down. It is rather fine, like pistol powder. I've never worked with IMR4759. Would someone who has please tell me, is it bulky like Trail Boss or fine? Does anyone know the weight per CC or know where to find it out?

IF that's what I have, I'd like to load it for reduced cast loads in .307 Winchester and 7.65x53 Mauser. As I said above, I'm not about to do something stupid, and at just over a pound total yield, I can afford to feed it to my peonies if it comes to that. Stuff like this is the fun part of handloading for me; so I'd like to make something of it if I can.

Your thoughts, please?

4759 is highly sought after in cast bullets shooting circles. I find it excels in my 38-55 rifles with cast bullets. I certainly wouldn't fertilize with it. I wouldn't describe it as bulky. Here's a picture of my IMR SR4759.
Phil

Ditto. 4759 isn't bulky in the common use of the word, but it is lightweight per granule and as such it "bulks up" in the cartridge case fairly well. Its granules are bigger in diameter than, say, IMR powders but a lot shorter.

11.0 grains of the stuff sounds awfully light in a .30-06. I load anywhere from 16.0 to 25.0 grains in my cast bullet .30-06 loads, 150-190 grain bullets. (The sweet spot seems to be in the 18-20 grain range.) I can't speak to its utility/versatility for extremely light loads. I use around 15 grains in .30-30 cast loads. .32-40 Schuetzen cast loads see me using 12-14 grains 4759, but bear in mind those cases are a lot smaller than a .30-06 case. I pissed and moaned for months when I heard they were discontinuing the powder, and scarfed up all I could find back then - I hope I have enough to see me through to the end! Probably no better powder was ever offered for cast bullet reduced loads in CF rifles, IMO.

Edit to note that I never use wads or fillers with charges of 4759. I don't care to risk ringing a chamber due to their use. Accuracy is the same anyways. Its bulkiness, per se, is such that the modest charges take up enough room in an '06 case to assure decent powder disposition in the case for shot-to-shot consistency, unless of course if you're shooting down a steep hill.

Thanks very much for the visual clue! I'll pull a load tonight and compare.

@gnoahhh
Thanks for the load info. I was seeing in my load manuals that most 4759 charge weights were much heavier than what I measured. That's one of the things that made me post up.

I think me and Gonahhh bought out most of the last SR 4759 on the planet...

I curse Hodgdon for ending its production... but they evidently don't like Cast Bullet shooters.... although I am not a cast bullet shooter.

Even if a barrel was shot out, you could still get fairly decent accuracy with SR 4759... it was a damn good useful powder.. especially for reduced load stuff...

Great Powder. I bought a good supply some years back and am thus set for Cast in the 30-06, 35 Whelen, and 458 WM. The text you posted above sounds about right for a 110 Grain Projectile. For normal cast loads, 150-220 the 16-25ish are more normal. 30-31 in the 35 Whelen and 42 in the 458 WM.

Back in the 1970s I used IMR 4759 in reduced 308 pistol loads in silhouette competition. It worked great. I still have a couple of pounds of that powder.

That’s great info. Thanks!

I wish they hadn’t stopped making IMR 4759. I use it in my T/C Encore muzzleloader (customized). Luckily my dad and I have a few pounds stashed away.

I can provide more detailed information to an email if you like.

FYI, I have a 5# can of 4759, still unopened, that I'd gladly sell to anyone who'll come and get it, or pay for shipping. I'm on the I-5 in Northern California. Never had any reason to use it, like a few others I have.

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