H4350 substitute for 6.5 creedmoor

[bearcatrp]

To each his own, by all means, but Superformance is much more flexible if you need velocity and not pressure.
If you want to try Superformance, it is DIRT cheap from Bruno.

I have 2 lbs I got cheap awhile back. Never used it yet. Flexible? How hot can you push this powder? I know Hornady is cautious when listing loads in the book compared to other books or Hodgdon web site. Is it a clean burning powder? When I start load developement, will start in the middle as usual and work up to see how far I can go.

[eddiesindian]

To each his own, by all means, but Superformance is much more flexible if you need velocity and not pressure.
If you want to try Superformance, it is DIRT cheap from Bruno.

indeed. I sometimes wish I lived in Phoenix AZ. I frequently go the Ph Az for visits to family members. Walking into that store is deadly. I walk out with massive amounts of components but my wallets been bled dry.
Has to be done though. I save (at times) upwards of 20% when I shop there as opposed to buying local in southwest Texas.

[LongRange]

simple answer...there is no substitute for H4350 LOL...try the RL-17 and super performance and go with what shoots best.

[bearcatrp]

What other rifles use H4350 that its hard to find due to folks hoarding it? Its as bad as varget for the hoarders (i'm one of them).RL-17 and Superformance is all over the place. How about IMR 4451? This is one of the newer powders Hodgdon developed along with 4166, which worked ok in my 308 but nothing spectacular.

[LongRange]

most 6 and 6.5mms as well as several others...what i find funny is you guys on the east side have none and its everywhere out west...at least where im at.

another big strain on 4350 is most of the PRS and comp shooters use it.

[darkker]

1) Flexible?
2) How hot can you push this powder?
3) I know Hornady is cautious when listing loads in the book compared to other books or Hodgdon web site.
4) Is it a clean burning powder?
5) When I start load developement, will start in the middle as usual and work up to see how far I can go.

Crikey!! Lets get you some real info to keep you informed properly here.

1) I find it insanely flexable, as I said. It is an incredibly progressive burning propellant, so flexible is kind of what it does. Last year... maybe that was 2 now... anyhow went to Phoenix and did a bunch of Pressure Trace testing with MZ5. As far as temp stability, it was every bit as stable as H4350, and actually was a little more mild temperamented in the Creed. Remember when someone begins to parrot the "It's an extreme powder" business, an Extruded powder can ONLY be made such under specific conditions. NOT a universal property. Dr. Bramwell has tested this many times.
2) .... As over pressure as you want??? As you know, Very highly calibrated copper crushers used in very carefully controlled test systems with tightly regulated reference loads will "report" pressure swings on the order of 15-20,000 psi; when tested above about 45,000 psi. A random bloke who bought a reloading kit, using off the shelf powder, in a production rifle, using an unknown alloy of brass; ain't magically more accurate at "reading" pressure by staring at the primers. Velocity is what tells you where you are in terms of pressure. Or you can buy a Strain system such as the Pressure Trace II system and see for yourself.
3) No, they really aren't; and Hodgy doesn't do much of their own testing, it's farmed out or calculated. ALL of the ball powders that Hodgy re-sells, come from General Dynamics. Hornady's head ballistician, Dave Emary was a powder creator for GD. He knows what the powders can do and what they are. It's no surprise they have data that Hodgy doesn't know about, or that they began to use piles of GD's powders with high speed, low pressure factory ammo.
4) I don't know what exactly you want here, so lets discuss fouling and you decide. Any of the powders from GD that have always had copper cleaning tin compounds (748, 760, et al) tend to produce very heavy sooty fouling. easy to clean however. Then you have the coated extruded fouling, such as Varget. That fouling "looks" clean, while in fact begin to accumulate Hard Carbon fouling, extremely quickly in small bores. Supr is more like a traditional extruded powder to me. But I also don't clean bores, until accuracy degrades, so take that for what you will.
5) Don't do that. Several reasons, and it ties to the notion of some books being "conservative". No one since the very old A-Squared manual, lists lot numbers of components being tested. Hodgdon has only ever been a surplus blender/reseller, and refuses to list any form of nominal variations of the things they sell. They will only list the caution to "Drop loads 10% when switching lots", there is a very very good reason for that. One of them being moisture. There is a very good article in the newest Norma manual about how radically moisture change(even from a sealed container) can affect burning rates.
As I said, Supr is very progressive. So what that means is that the burning curve will change dramatically with pressure. A traditional or non-progressive powder will have the same burning curve across it's happy pressure range; only the peak or total pressure is different. Not so with Superformance.

To give you a visual, look at the following pressure traces. These are NOT an indication of consistency of the powder. These are for looking at curves and velocities. There was ZERO load work done! This is so you can see the premise only.

4350: within it's happy pressure range, this gets taller or shorter, but doesn't change shape.
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j84/Darkker13/Mobile%20Uploads/Screenshot_2014-12-26-14-36-09_zpsv6lwcels.png

Superformance at "low pressure" notice the curve and the velocities

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j84/Darkker13/Mobile%20Uploads/Screenshot_2014-12-26-14-35-27_zpsvfj221vz.png

Superformance at "high pressure". Again notice the shifted curve, and how little the velocity changes

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j84/Darkker13/Mobile%20Uploads/Screenshot_2014-12-26-20-07-13_zpsrbt4dqfy.png



Another point of not pretending that you can "Read" pressure signs. Which case do you think was the high pressure load??
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j84/Darkker13/Mobile%20Uploads/IMG_20150731_194234_zpsj7wyleqv.jpg



If you said the one on the left is "high pressure", you would be incorrect. Left is from Trace #4. The one on the right is from Trace #2.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j84/Darkker13/Mobile%20Uploads/Screenshot_2015-01-31-15-00-18_zpsmopqcu83.png

[bearcatrp]

Appreciate the detailed information. And I did pick the brass on the left as over pressure due to a flatter primer. Everything I have learned on reloading to look for pressure signs is flattened primers and case swipes on the brass. Not the case with the pic you just showed. Please elaborate more. If I am reading your charts right, It seems H4350 to be more consistent. Wrong?

[LoneWolf]

You know Dark, it's funny that those 2 pieces of brass you have there show something I have seen in my 243. Hornady and Winchester brass run the loads I've worked up to without issue, but the RP brass prepped and loaded with the exact same charge, bullet, and primer combo showed heavy bolt lift. I shot a few more in the Hornady brass after the first one with no signs or issues, then another piece of RP brass and the same thing occured. I've sworn off of RP brass for use in the 243 now and only run Hornady or Winchester. Lapua is still to expensive when I tend to lose brass now and again at some of the matches I shoot.

[darkker]

Appreciate the detailed information. And I did pick the brass on the left as over pressure due to a flatter primer. Everything I have learned on reloading to look for pressure signs is flattened primers and case swipes on the brass. Not the case with the pic you just showed. Please elaborate more. If I am reading your charts right, It seems H4350 to be more consistent. Wrong?

The last company to actually list alloys and hardness specs was Olin in the 1950's, when they were still producing 30-06 brass. They used Olin alloy C260, with a hardness spec of 80,000-ish psi tensile strength. They gained a reputation for having "stronger brass than the others". Where currently have I heard that...... Anyway what that meant was about the time you would see case stretch, or swipes you were approaching it's tensile strength, or the range of 80,000 psi. Not good when shooting a 60,000 psi case next to your face. With cases and primers that won't list spec's, "signs" are better than nothing, but absolutely no better than that. Starting at the start range, and chrono-ing up will let you know when you reach max pressure. Most book data is in SAAMI min spec test equipment, not a looser tolleranced mass produced rifle. The Creedmoor is only about a 2700 fps cartridge(with 140's) if you are going faster, you are over-pressure. So far in the Creed and a 308, it would appear that MOST brass in currently produced rifles; will "show signs" once you get to the 75,000 psi range. Always exceptions of course, but as a general rule of thumb it has been quite close.

No 4350 isn't more consistent, or at least not on face value. Like I said, the traces posted were randomly selected out of the series to show pressures/velocities. The 4350 trace happens to be on an accuracy node, where the Superformance traces are not on a node. If you were to do proper load work-up, you will find a few nodes. The funny thing about nodes: When you have a "stable" powder, be it extreme or otherwise, when the temps and loads are compensating, you will see some very interesting traces, regardless of the results on paper. As Rocky Raab used to say, a Pressure Trace will debunk many things that you thought you knew, unfortunately, it can leave more questions to answer.


You know Dark, it's funny that those 2 pieces of brass you have there show something I have seen in my 243. Hornady and Winchester brass run the loads I've worked up to without issue, but the RP brass prepped and loaded with the exact same charge, bullet, and primer combo showed heavy bolt lift. I shot a few more in the Hornady brass after the first one with no signs or issues, then another piece of RP brass and the same thing occured. I've sworn off of RP brass for use in the 243 now and only run Hornady or Winchester. Lapua is still to expensive when I tend to lose brass now and again at some of the matches I shoot.

Remington sure can be a bit hit-and-miss. The only thing I flat refuse to load is stupid Federal. They have VERY soft cases! Nice in that it seals the chamber very quickly, unfortunately the heads are also typically soft. I've blown apart several cases/extractors from that very thing. We had one blow apart at the 50,000 mark. Not exactly an over-load in the 308:mad:

[bearcatrp]

Darkker, besides looking at the case after fireing and looking for case swipes and flattened primers, what do you recommend to add to help us young reloaders. I know I am a little close using 43.9 gr of varget and hornady 178 ELD bullets, but after you showing that pic, Am a little nervous now.

[FW Conch]

I am sure that darkker will respond to your question with the proper answer. But what I gather from the "invaluable" information he is providing us, the only "reliable" way we can know if we are " over pressure" is with Trace Equipment, or for us more normal types, the Chronograph. When we see that our velocity is exceeding max book numbers, we are exceeding max book pressures. Without a Chronograph, the only way to reliably know we are there, is to stop short of max published loads. With the information I have gained from darkker I no longer look for a node that is at the "hot side". If for no other reason, my brass will last a lot longer.

As far as safety is concerned, I am convinced my Savage actions can handle a lot more than Max Book Pressure. It's just nice to have a reliable way to know when I am there.

It's going to be no small task to get the reloading public to stop relying on the "hocus pocus" of "brass reading" to tell us when we are nearing pressure trouble ! Hope this helps...Jim :-)

[bearcatrp]

I spent the money for my 1st chronograph. Labradar. Always use it working up loads. Hornady book will show max fps on loads but then go shoot superformance ammo and this stuff exceeds anything in the book. I know, its Hornady's special powder not for sale. I will chono these rounds and try to get close, which is near impossible, but I don't exceed it. Will research the trace equipment just see understand a bit more. Popnfresh on ar15.com post some of that info also. Been debating on spending the money on quickload. Anything better?

[LongRange]

QL is a great tool BUT you still need to shoot over a chrony when using QL and adjust the Ba(burn rate)to match your actual velocities...also adjust the temp in QL to match your actual shooting conditions. another thing is to make sure ALL of the data you put into QL is dead on.

[Hotolds442]

When we see that our velocity is exceeding max book numbers, we are exceeding max book pressures. Without a Chronograph, the only way to reliably know we are there, is to stop short of max published loads.

For the most part, I agree with this statement. Unfortunately, lawyers have made these "maximum published loads" anything but maximum. In the last couple of years, I've found most of the published maximum loads have dropped anywhere from 1% to 5%. This is based on values I acquired from the manufacturers a couple of years ago. Comparing my data to current published data, the lawyers are winning the velocity game. It would be nice to be able to just go out and buy pressure trace equipment, but at this time I just can't justify it.