Someone, much more experienced than I, has had to have ran across this before. Where they change recipes, perhaps?, for powder thru the years causing newer lots to not run the same as the older stuff. Or maybe I will have no change, we are gonna find out.
Story starts about 5 months ago. I was cruising a local gun classifieds when I saw an ad for a sealed pound of H4895. I wanted to try it, so I ponied up the $25, after making sure it was sealed, and went on my way. I’ve used a little here and there for 223 loads with 88gr ELD’s. It worked great. Like a lot of other reloaders, I began searching high and low for more. I wanted to try it in other cartridges, but the fear of running out is a real thing. About 2-1/2 weeks ago, I struck gold. A gentleman on another forum was selling 8 pounds of it for $35 a pound. Luckily it was in a state that I had an office in, so I got one of my guys to meet up with him and buy the powder for me. While waiting for the new lot of 8 pounds to get to me, I worked up a load for my 6 dasher with the original pound I had purchased. I hadn’t been able to get 107 SMK’s working quite the way I wanted. But using 31.4gr of h4895 from 1996 was yielding mid 3’s pretty consistently. Velocity is pretty low at 2880, but it works for what I am doing at 750 yards and in. But I’ve just about used it up. So now I need to start using the newer stuff which has a date code of 2016.
Opened a bottle, and it looks different. It has a more yellow look to it where the older is just a dark grey like pencil lead. Is that a coating of some sort that is now put on the powder? Or did my old powder just deteriorate and my naïveté is showing? Am I asking for giant trouble mixing the 2 lots together to use up the last of what’s in the bottle from ‘96? These are the questions running thru my head. Sorry if they are remedial in nature, but reloading has become an all encompassing passion of mine over the last year of finally doing it. Every load I try is like a puzzle to me, and I love trying to solve that puzzle to get to what works for me.
Here are some pics showing the differences from 20 years apart. Kind of interesting, at least to me. Also, a target from Friday showing how the older stuff has been shooting in 6 dasher. It’s pretty cool to see that powder that is 27 years old can still produce such good results, at least to me anyways. I sure hope the newer stuff works the same. I’ve also included pics of older and newer canisters. Luckily, we have pretty much no humidity in NM throughout the year, and so the older bottle really doesn’t show its age on the metal lid like I have seen in a lot of other pics.
So back to the questions above, has anyone else been using h4895 throughout these years, from 1996 till now, and not seen too much change in their own load data? Thanks for any info you can share. I know my own testing will tell the tale, I am just interested in what others have seen.
Story starts about 5 months ago. I was cruising a local gun classifieds when I saw an ad for a sealed pound of H4895. I wanted to try it, so I ponied up the $25, after making sure it was sealed, and went on my way. I’ve used a little here and there for 223 loads with 88gr ELD’s. It worked great. Like a lot of other reloaders, I began searching high and low for more. I wanted to try it in other cartridges, but the fear of running out is a real thing. About 2-1/2 weeks ago, I struck gold. A gentleman on another forum was selling 8 pounds of it for $35 a pound. Luckily it was in a state that I had an office in, so I got one of my guys to meet up with him and buy the powder for me. While waiting for the new lot of 8 pounds to get to me, I worked up a load for my 6 dasher with the original pound I had purchased. I hadn’t been able to get 107 SMK’s working quite the way I wanted. But using 31.4gr of h4895 from 1996 was yielding mid 3’s pretty consistently. Velocity is pretty low at 2880, but it works for what I am doing at 750 yards and in. But I’ve just about used it up. So now I need to start using the newer stuff which has a date code of 2016.
Opened a bottle, and it looks different. It has a more yellow look to it where the older is just a dark grey like pencil lead. Is that a coating of some sort that is now put on the powder? Or did my old powder just deteriorate and my naïveté is showing? Am I asking for giant trouble mixing the 2 lots together to use up the last of what’s in the bottle from ‘96? These are the questions running thru my head. Sorry if they are remedial in nature, but reloading has become an all encompassing passion of mine over the last year of finally doing it. Every load I try is like a puzzle to me, and I love trying to solve that puzzle to get to what works for me.
Here are some pics showing the differences from 20 years apart. Kind of interesting, at least to me. Also, a target from Friday showing how the older stuff has been shooting in 6 dasher. It’s pretty cool to see that powder that is 27 years old can still produce such good results, at least to me anyways. I sure hope the newer stuff works the same. I’ve also included pics of older and newer canisters. Luckily, we have pretty much no humidity in NM throughout the year, and so the older bottle really doesn’t show its age on the metal lid like I have seen in a lot of other pics.
So back to the questions above, has anyone else been using h4895 throughout these years, from 1996 till now, and not seen too much change in their own load data? Thanks for any info you can share. I know my own testing will tell the tale, I am just interested in what others have seen.
