Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Redundant Powders?

Hodgdon markets H4895, IMR4895, and Varget. These all seem to me to fit in the same niche of usefulness

Seems like in an era when inventories are limited that it might be better for most if they concentrated production to one of these.
What am I missing here?

Additional topic; Can any of the other 4895 powders be used for reduced loads, like H4895 is known for?

Even though close in burn rates, powder is made in different places all over the world. So they don’t compete with each other until it ends up on your bench.

Hodgdon just buys and markets powder, they don’t make any of it. The more variety they can offer folks just gives them more chances to sell something!

Yes words like temperature stable, consistent metering, carbon erasers, blah blah blah try to distract you from the price tag.

Accurate 2495 is supposed to be a 4895 analog. I’ve been using it in .308 lately and am going to try it in some others as well where I have used Varget for years.

Uh, I dunno, maybe the free market? Which powder manufacturer gets to give up their product to bring your notion to fruition? Do they draw straws?

Carbon erasers?

The Hodgdon website had specific information on that: https://hodgdonpowderco.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/h4895-reduced-rifle-loads-2.pdf

Copper my apologies.

Wtf another minimalist. All powders are useful some more than others. If you can get a deal.on a powder for a really good price that works well it justifies the expense..mn

Wtf another minimalist. All powders are useful some more than others. If you can get a deal.on a powder for a really good price that works well it justifies the expense..mn

Well let’s talk about redundant cartridges and when we’re done with that redundant rifles.
We certainly don’t need so many rifle manufacturers - they are so redundant.

Oh my I forgot to complain about the redundant primers, that is really irritating.

Does Hodgdon not own IMR? And IIRC some other powder makers as well.

Powder sources have changed, at times. Hodgdon has, for many years, sold Hodgdon powder made to their specs, whether made in the U.S., Scotland, or Australia. If that's an over simplification, forgive me.

Is there an advantage to having a half dozen powders that perform so closely?

That's basically correct.

Somebody mentioned earlier Hodgdon has never manufactured any powder--which isn't quite true, since they own (and developed) the plant that makes Pyrodex.
But they started by selling WWII surplus powders--and when those ran out contracted with various manufacturers to make similar powders.

They've bought other "brands" in the past several years, including IMR and Ramshot. Even though there's some overlap in powder performance in the various brands, it has been a good idea to be "diversified," since the plants are located in places from Australia to Belgium to Canada to Florida. This allows Hodgdon more flexibility in obtaining powders, including some which overlap in performance--important these days when so much powder production is going to military orders.

Sorry, that was mean.

I do know a bit about marketing and procurement though.

If you have a large group of customers that love IMR 4350 and another group that loves H4350, you don’t shut one down and hope the customers buy the other.

If there’s several suppliers one who makes IMR 4350 and another who makes H4350 and both suppliers are producing all they can, you don’t shut one down and hope the other supplier will double production, especially if there’s other suppliers that want a piece of the pie.

Then there’s IMR4451 which is close to the others. If you relied on IMR4451 to supply your customers and you’ve abandoned H4350 and IMR4350 right now you’d be SOL.

And if their product is better for one purpose and the other is better for another that is yet another reason to have two suppliers.

Both of my .243s do very well with several bullet weights and styles combined with Varget.

My 25-06 Classic Featherweight cannot duplicate either the accuracy or velocity I get from the 75 Vmax and R15 with any other powder yet tried...

I suspect that you missed the point that Hodgdon owns and controls the manufacturers who make many of these powders.

To say that Hodgdon doesn't make any powder is not true any longer.

I like as many options as possible, I'll cite my latest 6.5 Creed as an example, 105 BlitzKing with Varget is dismal, same bullet on top of H4895 and I can cover 3 shots with the rim of the case. Options are good.

I don't mind redundant powders.

It's the often the unavailable and overpriced powders (even the redundant ones) that are concerning to me.

BTW, Varget is a 4064 type, not 4895 if looking at the IMR scale.

IMR4064 is still one of the best for multiple applications. It was THE best in my 7-08.

Bob
www.bigbores.ca