Ned Ludd
Silver $$ Contributor
Psssst...Wade...Re17 or PP2000MR. That is totally super-secret, so don't you dare tell anyone else!
Seriously, have you ever tried any of the less commonly-used F-TR powders with burn rates a little slower than Varget, such as AA4064, N150, Vectan Tubal 5000, Norma 203B, etc.? I recently bought some AA4064 to try. I think it will work as a substitute for Varget in rifles that have sufficient freebore, but it occupies slightly more case volume and has slightly lower energy than Varget, so I don't see it as being any "better" than Varget. Unfortunately, most of those powders are even harder to come by right now than Varget, so it's not a good time to be doing that kind of testing unless you already had some prior to the current shortage.
) when I was looking for something else. That's when I discovered that all the burn rate tables for N150 are out to lunch. The loads that most of us running N150 are shooting are so close to Varget loads that it could almost be w/i lot to lot variances. Just for reference, the 2017 lot of N150 I'm currently loading is 44.0 to hit the mid 2600 node. The other problem with N150 is that it's really bulky. You aren't getting more than 44.5 or .6 in a case with a bullet. (OK, I did have a barrel that would take 45, but the bullets only had about .050 engagement on the bearing surface) All that said, I've been shooting N150 exclusively in competition since 2015. It works great with the 200s, but it's on the fast side for the 215s which is what I was searching for at the time.
