Shooters World powder?

[jsimonh]

Just another update and probably the final one. I do like this powder, it meters well and I have yet to shoot a group that I'm not satisfied with. At this point I've shot 12 5 shot groups that have been in the 4s and lower, most in the 3s. For PRS/NRL shooting like I do this is fantastic accuracy BUT I cant get comfortable with the temp/velocity inconsistency.

I'm in SW Oklahoma and we are having some pretty wild temp swings right now. Yesterday was 70° and sunny with temps falling fast when the sun goes down.

With a DA of 2260 and 68° i shot a string that averaged 2933 with an SD of 4.3. These are numbers I've seen before and I wasnt surprised. The gun and ammo was left outside for 2 hrs before this group was shot at 430pm. I left the magnetospeed, ammo, and gun laying right where they were until 8pm. I put a light facing my target so I could shoot in the dark. DA was reading 1140 on my Kestrel 5700 and temp was 48°, avg speed was 2896 with an SD of 8.1.

Again the accuracy was fantastic and the numbers are great per group but the up and down has me back on the hunt for Varget. Was really hoping this would be a good replacement....

 

[1Merlin]

If I use my 6BR info from the Hornady BC Calculator that would be ~<5 inches lower due to the change in velocity at 1000 yards. That is a pretty substantial difference to a F Class shooter. Less than an inch at my max distance of 550 yards as a HP silhouette shooter. I plugged it in using a 200 yard zero as that is the chicken line distance in MS High Power.
Truthfully I am not sure what that means to me as a lower/mid level old fat man shooting offhand.... Right now I am really proud to have a jug of powder that works in my rifle.

Maybe when I can actually Find some Varget I will turn up my nose at the SW powder and jump right in there with the cool kids.

 

[TylerFromMS]

It’s garbage. Don’t buy any.

 

[1Merlin]

An inch and a half at 600 yards.... Should I just throw my jug in the trash?

If I might ask...What bullet Tyler?

 

[TylerFromMS]

Pour it out in the garden. The nitrogen grows great tomatoes.

105 hybrid jumped either 0.030 or 0.080. I got them mixed up but they both shot pretty much the same. I shot a ladder with it at 600 that was less than 3” over a grain. 10 shots with 0.1 between each. Used QL data for SO62.

 

[beemanjohn]

Nothing to see here.....move along. Keep searching for VarGet.

 

[jsimonh]

Not as good as yours, but these were shot during load development. Its not the accuracy I'm worried about, it's the temp.

Jan 19
47° DA 340
10 shots SW Precision 2902avg SD 11.2
10 shots Varget 2959avg SD 10.4

5 hours later on the same day. 27° DA -900
10 shots SW Precision 2865avg SD 10.6
10 shots Varget 2944avg SD 7

Gun & ammo left outside a couple of hours before the first go and left outside until the end. I also did 5 shots each and then switched and let the gun cool a few minutes between the 5 shots. I'll use it for other guns but it doesnt change the fact that in all the testing I've done for myself it isnt temp stable.

 

[urbanrifleman]

View attachment 1153031

Not as good as yours, but these were shot during load development. Its not the accuracy I'm worried about, it's the temp.

Jan 19
47° DA 340
10 shots SW Precision 2902avg SD 11.2
10 shots Varget 2959avg SD 10.4

5 hours later on the same day. 27° DA -900
10 shots SW Precision 2865avg SD 10.6
10 shots Varget 2944avg SD 7

Gun & ammo left outside a couple of hours before the first go and left outside until the end. I also did 5 shots each and then switched and let the gun cool a few minutes between the 5 shots. I'll use it for other guns but it doesnt change the fact that in all the testing I've done for myself it isnt temp stable.

Good test. More head to head testing like this will show the truth.

If you have a food dehydrator stick your ammo in there and set it to 125 degrees for an hour.

Then shoot them again.

Might want to drop your charge first with that eastern block powder though.

 

[TylerFromMS]

That’s weird. I’ve seen the same/similar speeds velocity wise at 35F and 70F, so I can’t explain yours. As long as the groups are consistent between temps, I don’t put much thought into speed, honestly, but I’m shooting at known distance. I’m loading right in the middle of a wide node I tested at about 65F-70F. It’s at 32.4 with Lapua brass on a dasher. Maybe the extra fill?

 

[Laurie]

A supplementary question re this conundrum is .... What chronograph were these different measurements taken on? If optical, it may well have been the chronograph that worked differently, not the powder.

Doing my shooting and at one-time a great deal of load testing and recording in a northern England valley range and with constantly changing light conditions, I simply don't believe that optical chronograph results come anywhere near accurate with the exception of the old accuracy standard the Oehler 35P. And even with the 35P really close alignment to the bullet path and consistent alignment between sessions are essential. With most hobby chronographs using a much shorter 24-inch skyscreen or even closer spacing, any misalignment gives skewed results, often badly.

Going back to light levels, I once watched recorded MVs steadily drop shot by shot over a near 100 fps range as a single thick cloud came slowly over the range and dropped ambient light levels. That was shooting a single load with a ~20 fps ES in a cool barrel. After that I stopped believing what my chronograph told me.

The MagnetoSpeed and better still Labradar devices mean that changing light levels are no longer an issue and reliability increases by several factors.

 

[jsimonh]

It's been a few of my replies ago, but all of my numbers were taken with a magnetospeed v3. I use a wiser mount for it so it doesnt touch anything. And to further try and keep everything the same after I installed it I never took it off. After last night's confirmation of zero with the varget load I finally took it off as I feel like I've done enough at this point.

I do think capacity could play a role in it but that's just a guess with nothing to back it up lol

 

[TylerFromMS]

Dunno, but it’s working for me. I’ve never been able to get some of the recommended powders (RL15) to work and I’m always looking for new stuff to try. With Australia having been on fire, finding alternatives to some of the powders made there was some of the point of my testing. Varget, h4895, h4350 (I think), etc... Having been involved in another hobby in which the supply could dwindle or disappear due to weather or sociopolitical reasons, finding alternatives is a good thing.

Worst case, I burn up some barrel life and find out what doesn’t work for me. Best case, I can buy jugs of what does work.

Good luck with whatever you pick!

 

[Josh11]

I tested Precision in my 6mm Comet. With Varget at 33.0 and 105s, I am getting 3020 fps and no pressure signs. I tested Precision at 33.3 and it ran at just under 3000 fps. My groups were small and the sd and es numbers were great. Downside- I am getting a sticky bolt lift at the top. No other pressure signs. I think Ill try the Match and see if its a little faster. DISCLAIMER- YMMV, be safe and work up loads.

 

[1Merlin]

First shots from my R700 single shot standard firing pin 6BR. 29 - 29.2 and 29.4 of SW Precision.
Comments on the primers please?

I had a nice same elevation group/node from 28-28.6 and am thinking I may just stop and load at 28.3. But.. thought about going on up to ~30.4 or so but not sure it will benefit me in any way if I do even if I find a great node. All of my shooting is offhand and 550 yards max. (HP Silhouette shooter)

 

[perazziguy]

I'd have that firing pin bushed, @Grimstod did my Savage. The primers looked like yours.
Jonathan Taylor

 

[Grimstod]

To clarify perazziguy they look like that before it was bushed right? Not after

 

[perazziguy]

Yes, the primers previously showed some cratering. The shells that came with the rifle were a stiff charge of Varget at 30.4 grains, Berger 105 VLD and Wolf SRM primer in a Lapua case. After the work, the primers are flat. I'm glad I had the work done.
Jonathan Taylor

 

[Dgd6mm]

Laurie is a wealth of information on these powders.
Thank you Laurie.

 

[branagh]

These powders are made by Explosia in the Semtin region of the Czech Republic. (You can guess where the notorious Semtex plastic explosive much loved by Black September, the Provisional IRA and other nice people originated, given that regional location!) We've had them for years in the UK under the Lovex name.

If you go back far enough, sometime over 10 years, Explosia / Lovex supplied most of the old Accurate Arms powders, and they're still close to today's Western Powders 'Accurate' numbers even though Western terminated the contract with Explosia when it bought Accurate Arms and today's grades are made by other people.

In its Accurate Arms days, SO62 (aka Shooters World 'Precision Rifle') was sold as AA-4064, and that's exactly what it was, and still is, a very good stand-in for that old and trusted warhorse IMR-4064, a flexible number that works very well in a large number of cartridges, especially 308 Win. I'd have said it was a bit faster burning than VarGet and unlikely to produce as high MVs in the 6BR with bullets of over 90 or so grains weight. (Modelling in QuickLOAD says that too.) It also has bit less energy than VarGet - QuicklOAD lists its heat of explosion as 3,850 KJ / Kg v VarGet's nominal 4,050.

The Explosia / Lovex burning rate chart is well out on some of its powders. Do NOT believe that Lovex SO65 aka SW 'Long Rifle' has the same burning rate as VarGet and is therefore a possible substitute. It is a lower energy, slower burning number whose actual in-a-cartridge burn speed is either the same as or marginally faster than the fastest of the 4350 trio (can't remember off the top if that is the IMR or Hodgdon version) and is ideal for cartridges like 30-06, 270 Win, 7X57 Mauser, 7X64 Brennecke, and I see from the Shooters World website, the mid size 6.5s such as 6.5mm Creedmoor too. If your 6BR likes slower powders than VarGet such as N150, it might just take to this too, but I'd be surprised if you got VarGet MVs.

The Explosia / Lovex sphericals are 'hot' numbers - they certainly produce the velocities in suitable applications and many of our UK equivalents to US varmint hunters like them, especially Lovex DO73.6 (aka SW Match Rifle) which produces very high MVs with 70-77gn bullets in 223, the old 75gn Hornady AMax often paired with this powder and used on foxes here at long ranges. DO73.6 was labelled Accurate Arms-2520 in the days when Explosia supplied this marque and today's Accurate-2520 from Western (made by another European outfit, Eurenco P B Clermont just up the road from the famous arms making centres that spawned FN), isn't too different in applications / performance with one exception. That is clean burning which the modern Accurate-2520 / 2230 etc are and the Lovex DO ball powders definitely are not. I stopped using DO73.6 many, many years ago for this reason, especially the rock hard fouling left on case-necks. With STI or ultrasonic cleaning today, that may not be a great drawback anymore, but it's not a clean burner. For this reason alone, I doubt if SW 'Match Rifle' / DO73.6 would prove any great shakes in a good 6BR for precision match use, although it might be fine for varminting. (The 'Match Rifle' moniker comes from the days when 2520 was known as 'the Camp Perry powder' as many M14 / M1A XTC shooters allegedly chose it in 308 with the 168gn SMK - although everything I've read as a foreign observer about these days of this discipline suggests IMR-4895 and 4064 were the standard powders.)

I too am a Viht N150 fan for the 6BR with 105-108s - like most Brit users of the cartridge. We gave up on VarGet here years ago due inconsistent / non-availability, and it can no longer be legally imported here anyway as of last year due to a raft of bullsh*t EU 'Health & Safety' regulations

 

[branagh]

Well the Provo IRA wouldn't have existed if English Paratroops hadnt murdered 14 civilians in Derry NI in Jan 1971. The "Crown" started it and spent 40 yrs and billions shifting the blame.