While looking for an alternate powder to H4350/Unicorn Dust I saw on the Hogdon website that one of the powders listed as a suitable alternate was CFE 223. The specs look nearly identical, except much lower charges for the CFE. Has anyone used this combo, and what were your results? Planning on using Berger 130 AR Target Hybrids. Thanks
CFE 223 as a powder for 6.5x47 Lapua?
- Thread starter Matt Pridachuk
- Start date
You might also get ignition problems with the 6.5X47L's small primer / small dia. flash-hole arrangement. I had both hangfires and a couple of complete misfires with CFE in 308 with Palma small primer brass. The shorter powder column and smaller charge in the Lapua design might just let you get away with it, but I suspect ignition may be only marginally reliable at best.
A good powder but a substitute for H4895/VarGet rather than H4350 which is considerably slower burning. IMR-4451 is the Enduron equivalent to H4350.
Judd
Gold $$ Contributor
He's right, I got my numbers mixed up.
Laurie,
I found that when I started seating the primer with a 5 thousandth crush, my ignition problems stopped with CCI 450. CCI recommends these primer are seated deep in the primer pocket.
Joe
Joe, I don't have ignition problems with small primers - I use them all the time in 223, 6BR, 7mm-08 (reformed 308 Palma), and 308 Win, so shoot a couple of thousand rounds a year with these caps. I've never had a hangfire never mind misfire previously until trying CFE in 308 Palma brass. I also loaded up and tried CFE in conventional large rifle primed brass at the same time and this combination was fine. I only rarely load ball type powders, but I have used Hodgdon H414 (in quite chilly conditions at that) in 308 Palma brass purely for research purposes when these cases were first introduced and much to my surprise, it worked very well indeed with remarkably small ES/SDs, and unlike with many powders saw no MV reduction compared to firing in a LR primed case. I've also used a couple of the Belgian manufactured Ramshot grades without problems in this set-up.
So, it appears that on an admittedly small sample of ball powder makes and grades that CFE is harder to ignite than others and that the SR primer, and probably more significantly, the small (1.5mm dia.) flash-hole struggle when CFE charges reach a certain level. The powder certainly works with SR primers in other cartridges - 223 Rem being the obvious one - but they have the larger standard size (2mm dia.) flash-hole. If you go back to when Lapua introduced the small primer / flash-hole 308 case at the US Palma teams' request initially, the US Rifle Teams Long Range Forum was full of quotes of doom from those with experience in the last century of Remington 308 UBBR brass when used as a 308 case in out of the box form. Unreliable ignition even in warm conditions was the bugbear and some posts said that the only way it could be made to work was to drill the flash-holes out to the standard size, so this feature whilst an essential element in getting the SR / small flash-hole cartridge benefits, seems to simultaneously be a performance limiting factor. Between the 1980s when UBBR brass was made (to form into the BRs) and the 20 oughties when Lapua 308 Palma brass was introduced, primers apparently improved and extruded powders seem to have become easier to ignite since those dire predictions didn't come to pass. However, there is still an underlying theme here that there may be problems with powders that need a bit more heat injected into the powder column.
The two rounds that failed completely showed spent primers OK, so they'd ignited, but no signs at all of any damage or partial ignition to the powder kernels.
So, it appears that on an admittedly small sample of ball powder makes and grades that CFE is harder to ignite than others and that the SR primer, and probably more significantly, the small (1.5mm dia.) flash-hole struggle when CFE charges reach a certain level. The powder certainly works with SR primers in other cartridges - 223 Rem being the obvious one - but they have the larger standard size (2mm dia.) flash-hole. If you go back to when Lapua introduced the small primer / flash-hole 308 case at the US Palma teams' request initially, the US Rifle Teams Long Range Forum was full of quotes of doom from those with experience in the last century of Remington 308 UBBR brass when used as a 308 case in out of the box form. Unreliable ignition even in warm conditions was the bugbear and some posts said that the only way it could be made to work was to drill the flash-holes out to the standard size, so this feature whilst an essential element in getting the SR / small flash-hole cartridge benefits, seems to simultaneously be a performance limiting factor. Between the 1980s when UBBR brass was made (to form into the BRs) and the 20 oughties when Lapua 308 Palma brass was introduced, primers apparently improved and extruded powders seem to have become easier to ignite since those dire predictions didn't come to pass. However, there is still an underlying theme here that there may be problems with powders that need a bit more heat injected into the powder column.
The two rounds that failed completely showed spent primers OK, so they'd ignited, but no signs at all of any damage or partial ignition to the powder kernels.
JBT47
Silver $$ Contributor
Have to agree with Varget and 130's. I run 38.0gr Varget under the 130 AR Hybrid.
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