Time to paraphrase something I read once: "How to convince someone to try something: if he's American, tell him it's new." I don't recall exactly where I saw that, but it generally rings true with me. I convinced myself that I needed to try these powders because they're new and they seemed interesting, even though there's not a whole lot of data out there for them yet.
(continued after the jump)
IMR 8208 XBR was designed primarily as a commercialized version of a benchrest competition powder that had existed some time ago. Hodgdon is the only source of load data for it that I'm aware of, with a few articles in their annual manual with load data in addition to the standard load charts that also appear on their website. One very nice characteristic of this powder is its complete insensitivity to ambient temperature, which will allow the same loads to be used anywhere from Alaska to Africa without worrying about pressure increases. The burn rate falls somewhere between H335 and H4895, so it will work well for similar applications. Of the numerous cartridges I'm interested in using, 8208 XBR should work well in .223 Remington, 6.8mm Remington SPC, .35 Whelen (interestingly enough), and should work fairly well in certain large bore rounds such as the .444 Marlin and the .45-70 Government.
As far as Alliant's Power Pro series of powders, I now have three: 300-MP, 2000-MR, and 4000-MR. Varmint and 3000-LR were not available anywhere that I could find. I'm not sure of the issues Alliant has had getting these to market since the announcement sometime last year, but it does appear they had trouble settling on names for them all. In the pdf version of their load guide, they list data for a 2000LR powder, which is either 2000-MR or 3000-LR now. Prior to that, when they were initially announced, they had no number designations and were simply labeled "Power Pro Magnum Pistol", "Power Pro Medium Rifle", etc. The labeling in the photo above is likely final, as they are obviously available to the general public now. Anyway, Alliant is pretty much the only source of load data right now and these powders should fit well in the general categories that they are labeled for. In the case of 300-MP, Handloader magazine did a Propellant Profile on it and gave some general loads for various handgun cartridges, and they included it in an article on .357 magnum loads more recently.
I don't expect anything revolutionary or amazing from these powders. My interest lies in trying out something new.
No comments:
Post a Comment