Author Topic: General Powder Questions (Read 370 times)

mountainview · « **on:** January 13, 2005, 05:39:25 AM »

I've been trying to understand what the practical difference is between the different types of powders are and what are the best uses for each. I've only been using ball (win 748) for target shooting and wanted to try and figure out what different powders are best suited for (if there are significant differences) to guide future load development. What info I have come across has been more in-depth than I need.

Not sure there is a short answer but my question concerns what is the difference between ball, flake, and extruded powders for reloading rifle cartridges. And is one type better for a given purpose (e.g. target shooting or hunting or small bores vs bigger bore calobers)?

Darrell Davis · « **Reply #1 on:** January 20, 2005, 06:28:00 PM »

Hey there Mountainview,

The answer to your question, can probably best be found in the opening chapters of a good loading manual.

Just setting here at the pooter, I recall such a section in an older Speer manual and I would be very surprised if at least some of the current publications didn't contain the same type of info.

The Speer manual listed the powders in order of relative burning rates and also listed a short bit of info as to the suitability of each powder.

Take that info and couple it with the published loading data for different ammo of interest to you, and you should soon get a bit of "feel" for at least some of the MANY available powders.

Good loading and keep em coming! :wink:

Graybeard · « **Reply #2 on:** January 21, 2005, 04:59:22 AM »

Really neither type powder you mention is better or worse than any of the others for such uses. It is burning rate and other characteristics not the way the powder is made that determines it's use.

I like ball powders as they meter well and do not require weighting charges as much as do extruded powders. I use more ball than extruded for this reason. The newer Western Powder Co. line is even temperature stable which the others generally aren't.

Flake powders for the most part are in the super fast burning range suitable for shotgun and pistol use but not generally for rifle rounds.

mountainview · « **Reply #3 on:** January 21, 2005, 05:17:03 AM »

Thanks for the replies.

DD, I'll try the references you listed.

GB, do you have any recommendation for loads for the 30-06 using ball powder? This is what I am going to start working on developing next using 150 grain bullets.

Safe shooting.

Flash · « **Reply #4 on:** January 21, 2005, 05:22:33 AM »

This is the story that was passed on to me by an old, long gone gunsmith. During the dawn of the Smokeless Powder loads, the propellants were granulated and no attention was given to shape. When the country was gearing up for the battle of WWII, smokeless powders were evolving for production needs in everything that was fired on land, sea and air. The larger cases like 20, 40, 76 milimeter could be mass produced without closely metering the charges and extruded powders could also be produced at faster rates. The small arms like the 06', 30 Carbine and 45 ACP required a ball powder for production speed. I believe that Dupont was one of the major powder companies from that era and Hodgdon was started from buying up all the left over military stock and the powder shapes kept their form from there when production resumed. As Graybeard stated, their burn rate is paramount when choosing a powder for a given round. Visit www.reloadammo.com for a view of powder burn rates from fast to slow.