6XC Powder alternative

Hello Guys,

European shooter here. Sadly my provider for Hodgon powders will not be able to deliver H4350 or any other Hodgon powder the next year because of a potential brexit.
My plan was to use H4350 for my new 6XC shooting arround 105gr bullets. So as you might now the powders available here is not really the same as in the US. So im looking for someone who can recommend me some powder from manufactures like Vihtavuori, Norma, Reload swiss.

Best regards
Niels

 

Niels,
You can download a Smokeless Powder Burn Rate chart off the web. Viht. N150 and Norma 204 are close. Alliant Reloader 16 is as well if it is available to you. Alliant Reloader 17 is great powder but it is a high intensity type which, for me, burned out my throat pretty quickly. Same for Viht. N550.

 

Watercam,
I know about "Burn rate charts" but thanks for the reminder! I just want some hands-on experience.

 

In my 6xc I’ve used
Vit n160 (very stable and accurate but to slow for me)

Rs 60 (excellent powder and produced best speed but bad on barrels) rs60 is the same powder as reloader 17)

Rs62 is what I’ve stuck to for an easy 3000 plus ft/sec with a 105 amax
and kinder on barrels than rs60

 

I’m using Norma 203B with Berger 105 Hybrids. Shoots very well for me with two Bartlein barrels 8 and 7.5 twist). You can get a bit more speed with H4350, but I doubt if you can get any better accuracy ( and I have a 8lb keg of H4350 available and stick with N203B).

 

Here's a few good places to start....

https://www.vihtavuori.com/reloading-data/rifle-reloading/?cartridge=66

https://www.norma-ammunition.com/us/Ammunition-Academy/Reloading-Data/Norma-6XC/

I sure wish SAAMI would standardize the 6XC....

 

H4831 and Re 16

 

I had good luck with 40.8 of vihtavuori n160 with a 107 and small primer. it gave me 2950fps with very little vertical spread at 1000yds. you may get a little more speed out of some of the other vihtavuori powders. their reloading data is not real accurate and the powder charges are light. their n160 max is 37 gr.

 

N-160 is the ticket. I get 3035fps with 40.1gr. I can go up to 40.5. That’s with Sierra 110gr match kings

 

Mate - please explain to an ex-pat pom how Brexit affects Hodgdons business? No, really.

Can you access ADI powders from Australia? (who make 4350 for Hodgdon's and call it 2209)

If you need to substitute, and being in Europe - VV N150 and N550 would be my choice anyway. 550 is awesome, being very dense and double based.

 

I would give Norma URP a try. It works well in cases of that size.

 

I had really promising results with N550. Start around 35-36 grains and move up. With 108 ELD-M's and 115 DTAC's I got 2900fps with 36.5 grains and had plenty of room pressure wise for a little more. Loads were set up at 2.78" COAL with a decent jump to the lands. SD's were a little wide with this test load. With another grain of powder things trimmed out. Group size with this load was ~.2" for 5 shots. It was a single ragged hole.

 

The OP has got this wrong. Nothing to do with Brexit, rather a long-term (10 years in the research and implementation) EU health & safety program called REACH which identifies potentially threatening chemicals and chemical ingredients in products and regulates their importation / use. As of 1st June last year, most Hodgdon and IMR powders went onto the banned list due to certain allegedly carcinogenic / environmentally-unfriendly ingredients - nearly all burning rate or other modifiers. All ADI manufactured extruded grades and older St. Marks 'spherical' grades have lost their 'CE' certification making it an offence to import them into the EU. That also applies to IMR powders other than the 10 new 'green' grades - 5 pistol + 5 'Endurons'. (It affects all chemical products across all sectors and has had a major impact on the farming / horticulture / gardening / pest control sectors - everything now available to the public costs more than before Reach and nothing works as well as before.)

Other posts have mentioned all the likely substitutes: RS60/62, Viht N550/160, Norma URP. Also available in Europe and CE certified are: Ramshot Hunter and IMR-4451, and only just made available here, Alliant Re16. When I and a few others loaded the XC a few years ago we found Alliant Re17 (RS60 in Europe) by far the best powder available, but as stated in earlier posts it's hard on barrels. Since then, RS62, URP, Re16, and 4451 have become available. N550 created pressure issues at the accuracy / velocity node below RS60 and most of us killed some Norma cases trying to get enough MV out of the cartridge with it. N150 acts as a much faster burning powder in some applications than its position on burn rate charts suggests and I doubt if it would allow anything like full XC velocities. It also has a nasty habit in such cartridges of pressure-spiking in which a small charge increments takes you from a warmish load to a blown primer.

 

Im living in Denmark we have maybe 2-3 providers of Hodgon powder in the country. They all buy from the same distributor somewhere in Europe, and they all have been told that they cant get Hodgon powder the next year because of Brexit. That's all I know!

But thanks for all the recommendations. I have some 203B which I plan to start with, but it seems that I've have several options within Norma, Vihtavuori and Reload Swiss

 

Tried some H1000 in my 6xc with converted Hornady Creedmoor brass. Shooting 107MK in a 26 inch Krieger 1.7.5 twist. 5 shot average was 2980. That is enough gas for me just need to work on the accuracy and SD. I just picked a charge 45gr. No signs of pressure and still had a little room to stuff some more powder in it. SD was high at 28fps but the brass is old and mixed on the number of firings.

 

Sadly. H1000 is an ADI manufactured grade that alongside VarGet, H4350 etc is REACH non-compliant and was therefore decertified by the EU last year and cannot now be imported into Europe. No good to the OP, therefore.

Correct in that there is a single Europe-wide importer / distributor - the UK's Edgar Brothers. Wrong in that it has anything to do with Brexit. Edgar Brothers continues to import the relatively few REACH-compliant Hodgdon and IMR grades alongside Alliant propellants (whose entire range is compliant) from the USA. Edgar Bros has in fact taken a huge financial 'hit' on this losing >90% sales of two of its key brands.

Far from being Brexit induced, many UK handloaders here naively hoped that Brexit (should it ever happen!) would see us ditch the REACH regulations allowing importation of these banned products to resume. No chance! Anyway, even if this were to ever happen, the UK market alone almost certainly wouldn't justify Edgar Bros resuming importation as none could be re-exported to any EU member state.

The ECHA (European CHemicals Agency, an EU body) has managed the REACH research and implementation of what has been described as the EU's single largest project ever. Its tentacles creep into every aspect of work and life - what you can make, import, or buy. ECHA remains in being for the ongoing management of the processes and registration of companies and products. No doubt, as time goes on yet more h&S 'risks' will be identified and yet more products / ingredients will become non-compliant and therefore banned in addition to the thousands already so affected.

 

Guys,
The Brexit issue is different from the REACH one.
The problem now has to do with the EU countries not recognizing the British certifying agency both Hodgdon and we have used. We have rectified that issue, but I'm not sure how Hodgdon is handling.
If you contact Hodgdon they could explain their status.
Shoot well,
Paul

 

I would give a real hard look to R23.

 

@Alliant Reloading Thank you for clarifying the Brexit issue!

 

Paul, something has gone right in the certification processes as we're now finally seeing the 'missing' Alliant grades in our gunshops - ie AR-Comp, Re16 etc.

The loss of most Hodgdon and IMR grades is a straight REACH issue as they contain now-banned substances - deterrents / modifiers that account for <2% of the product by weight. I can never remember the abbreviations for the chemical(s) involved. (DNT?). All European manufactured powders - including your Reloder series - either don't use these, or switched to REACH-acceptable substitutes some time ago. This has been a long time coming - REACH started as a project in 2008 so manufacturers weren't exactly taken by surprise. Moreover, handloading propellants were among the final product groupings to be covered, June 2018 seeing the end of the initial sector by sector overview and enforced changes where needed.

It was known a long time before that all of Hodgdon's Australian ADI manufactured propellants for instance were non-compliant and unless Thales/ADI changed them they would lose their certification in June '18. I was told this in confidence three or four years earlier. Those in the know were looking for alternatives long before last year or trying to stock up well ahead with VarGet, H4350, H4831sc, H1000 etc. (Fat chance of that of course given the supply-demand imbalance for most 'Extreme' grades throughout this period in all of Hodgdon's markets.)