Powder Equivalents?

[conksarmy]

So i was looking for info on Ramshot Competition as it was a powder that was new to me. i happened upon a post in a random forum that informed me that most of the powder manufacturers are just merchandisers and buy in bulk and rebrand the product. it was accompanied with a link to this site:

ADI Powders Handloaders' Guide

that is apparently the parent wholesaler and a table with brand to brand equivalents of their products. i have reloaded alot for along time but never really knew that from brand to brand they weren't proprietary formulations. Is anybody else familiar with this? i just want to hear a little more about it before i go dumping the half bottle of red dot in with the half bottle of clays. which i am looking forward to consolidating all my half bottles if i haven't just found a bunch of crap.

thanks for the insight.

 

[milo 2.0]

No, don't mix! That is their equivalent of a burn rate chart, not a cross-reference. IMO, it's fucked way of printing a burn rate also. ADI is not the sole manufacturer of powder in the world, so how could they have recipes for the other 6-7????

Maybe substituting ADI powders for Hodgdon's may work, but I'd get a more definitive answer.

 

[witchhunter]

Some powders are the exact same formula like W296 and H110. They are made by the same manufacturer currently. However, it depends on the age of each powder. Some of the older formulas are still different between them. I wouldn't mix unknown ages of powders.

 

[fnbrowning]

Why Powder Burn Rate Is Meaningless

By Randy Wakeman

Perhaps you have looked at various "Burn Rate Charts" and wondered what good they are. Well, you have good reason to wonder. Burn rate charts seldom agree. There is no specific meaning for "burn rate," so it shouldn't surprise us that the numbers don't agree. They mean nothing by themselves.

What amateurs call burn rate is not used by professional ballisticians to develop loads. The actual term closest to burn rate used in interior ballistics is "Relative Quickness."

Relative quickness is defined by "closed bomb tests," which quantify pressure rise in a sealed container. However, professional ballisticians do not use relative quickness for load development, either. A closed bomb relative quickness value does not translate into any type of value outside of that 'closed bomb' test. Powder performance varies widely by actual application. Relative quickness is one of several preliminary considerations when assessing a powder's suitability for a particular application by ballistics, but nothing more than that.

Relative quickness does not tell use the physical shape of a powder, its composition, or the types of coatings. It cannot tell us whether a powder is single-based, double based, or triple based. It does not tell us the heat of explosion, the progressive / degressive gas creation values, the ignition characteristics, and so forth. There is no way to translate a double-based powder performance into a single-based powder performance level with any accuracy. Even further, relative quickness does not define the erosiveness of a powder, the residue left by a powder, its ability to meter properly; and on it goes.

Energy content of nitrocellulose varies by manufacturer. It varies by the amount of nitrogen in the nitrocellulose. The more nitrogen, the more gas a powder can make. Once you have a specific type of nitrocellulose the energy content is further controlled by the addition of nitroglycerin, which is basically what constitutes a double-based powder. Now you have further considerations, as nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin do not behave the same way as temperature changes. The amount of nitro percentage varies by powder to powder, and with it its performance in a specific application.

All this combines to make burn rate charts something to ignore, or to view with very little importance placed on them. Professional ballisticians do not use them at all, simply because they have no particular meaning. Ping-Pong balls are nitrocellulose, but not many of us would bother cutting them up and attempting to use them in a firearm.

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