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Surplus ball powder

Hengehold

Silver $$ Contributor
i would like to get some surplus ball powder for 200-600yd high power NRA shooting in 223. Can anyone suggest a source for surplus ball powder?

Thanks
 
i would like to get some surplus ball powder for 200-600yd high power NRA shooting in 223. Can anyone suggest a source for surplus ball powder?

Thanks
Jeff Bartlett, Owensboro, KY. Check his website and I don't know it offhand but he may be a source.
Tom Alves
 
Jeff Bartlett, Owensboro, KY. Check his website and I don't know it offhand but he may be a source.
Tom Alves
I bought a lot of powder, bullets and brass from Jeff over the years and had very favorable experience dealing with him.
 
Thanks. Wow, for that price I guess I will shoot the ,,Hogdon powders. I was expecting it to be on the cheaper range but apparently I was mistaken.

All the cheap surplus 5.56 powder evaporated with the recent component shortages. You can still get .50BMG and similar surplus for less, but the faster stuff is all gone.
 
The days of good and cheap surplus powder are long gone. I'm sure I'll never see them in my lifetime again. Best bet is a local person/dealer selling 8 pounders. Some of the bigger matches have vendors that set up a tent or clubs that do group components buys.
 
The days of good and cheap surplus powder are long gone. I'm sure I'll never see them in my lifetime again. Best bet is a local person/dealer selling 8 pounders. Some of the bigger matches have vendors that set up a tent or clubs that do group components buys.
I am sure you are correct but it reminds me of folks that said the same thing fifty years ago when the $2 Hodgen surplus military powder ran out.
 
With the prices going up it is almost cheaper just buying from powder valley anymore. The days of 8 pound jugs for less than 100.00 is gone.
 
With the prices going up it is almost cheaper just buying from powder valley anymore. The days of 8 pound jugs for less than 100.00 is gone.
Considering the total cost of attending and shooting in HP match's reloading components are the things to cut costs on. Get with some of your shooting buddies and combine your orders to one big one, getting the powder & primers you want. If you do not have confidence in your loads, you might as well go fishing .
 
Years ago my buddies and I bought a bunch of surplus ball powder from Pat McDonald in Ohio for like $2-$5 a pound, depending on the lot's utility. (I think I've still got some of it around.) He's gone but the company is still there. I'm not sure how much useful surplus rifle powders survived the various Obama panics. You could always find really slow surplus stuff like 5010 (?) but for the equivalent of WC750 or IMR4895 you'd pay a premium. My question is; are you going to shoot so much .223 that the price of the powder matters that much? Buying the powder retail it would run, what, 7¢-10¢ per round? That's pretty much the cheapest part of the load any more.

Story: Buddies bought a barrel of 5010 for something like 50¢/lb. They told me that you could fill a .30-'06 case brim-full, cram a 200 gn bullet on top and produce about 2000 fps with shower of unburned powder all over the chronograph. They made out OK on the deal, after a while, when they found someone who had started reloading .50 BMG.

http://www.patsreloading.com
 
I remember buying surplus H4895 (it may have been IMR). It was the best powder ever for 223/6BR/etc. I think I paid about $6/lb. and had 75 lbs. of it. I sold some and used the rest. Those days are long gone. In my early days of BR shooting I had a case designed on the 30 American and would stuff the case full of this powder with a 68gr BR bullet and it would shoot tiny little bugholes. With all due respect to pats reloading but H322 and similar powders can be purchased for $5 more per 8 lb jug than the surplus 844 and would choose that any day over the surplus ball powder. But that is just my opinion.
 
How about the cheap T-Bird powder when it first hit. Sure didn't take long to vaporize tons of it into the atmosphere.
 
Years ago my buddies and I bought a bunch of surplus ball powder from Pat McDonald in Ohio for like $2-$5 a pound, depending on the lot's utility. (I think I've still got some of it around.) He's gone but the company is still there. I'm not sure how much useful surplus rifle powders survived the various Obama panics. You could always find really slow surplus stuff like 5010 (?) but for the equivalent of WC750 or IMR4895 you'd pay a premium. My question is; are you going to shoot so much .223 that the price of the powder matters that much? Buying the powder retail it would run, what, 7¢-10¢ per round? That's pretty much the cheapest part of the load any more.

Story: Buddies bought a barrel of 5010 for something like 50¢/lb. They told me that you could fill a .30-'06 case brim-full, cram a 200 gn bullet on top and produce about 2000 fps with shower of unburned powder all over the chronograph. They made out OK on the deal, after a while, when they found someone who had started reloading .50 BMG.

http://www.patsreloading.com


Valid point about powder and the overall cost of ammo
 

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