Shooters World Blackout is a very good powder, very similar to 1680. Burns a little cleaner, a little faster so you use a little less for subs, higher velocity with supers. If you’re working up a load, starting data for 1680 is fine.
As far as comparing the three powders, assuming your still talking suppressed subs. My criteria may not be yours.
It needs to cycle the action,
It needs to be quiet, this is hard to explain until you have shot suppressed some. As I said before, most people first shots suppressed, using factory ammo in a gas gun are pretty disappointed at the results. The powder makes all the difference.
It needs to be clean. Shooting suppressed is dirty. Adding a powder that takes a higher volume and burns a lower percentage, just make shooting miserable. More so if you happen to shoot indoor. Some smokeless powders seem to rival black powder when you suppress them. Except all the smoke come out the action instead of the muzzle.
It needs to produce low ES/SD numbers. MOA at even 50 yards is tough with an ES of 50 and 200 grain bulge at 1000 fps.
CFE BLK.
Worst of the bunch. Of all the qualities listed, the only one it really has, is the ability to cycle just about any bullet, in any action at any speed. The reason it does this is by producing extreme amounts of gas at low pressure. Smokeless powder in general does not like low pressure. It burns inconsistently, leaves a lot behind in carbon and partially burned powder and causes high ES/SD numbers. As in triple digit ES is not uncommon. It will also have the largest flash for the first couple shots. Until all the O2 is burned out of the suppressor. Works much better for supers, but is very low velocity compared to other popular powders.
H110/296.
The hardest to work with of the bunch, but by no means difficult, suppressed with heavy bullets. It will take the least volume for same velocity, burn the cleanest, sound the quietest to the shooter. As you drop bullet weight below 200 grains, it gets fussier to load. Below 180 grains you might need to start looking at springs, port sizing and or buffer weight. It depends on how the rifle is set up from the factory. The lighter the bullet, the faster the powder, the more difficult it is to tune. Will also be an excellent powder for supers.
Shooters World/1680
I’ll group these together because if I could only find one or the other, it really wouldn’t matter. If they were sitting side by side with a similar price, I’d buy the Shooters World. Same if I was shooting heavy supers, Shooters World. It’s much easier to work with for subs and is somewhere between the others for nose and cleanliness.
But here’s where the powder snob starts to show. I can tell the difference between 1680 and Shooters World at the ear when shooting. When I laid out the criteria for qualities I look for in a powder, note the order. Accuracy is last thing I worry about.
When people are talking a defensive weapon for when things go bump in the night, the most important attribute is function. If you can’t get more than one squeeze of then trigger, it’s pointless to continue the conversation.mit has to function flawlessly.
Noise,
even if you have the chance to grab ear protection, what about everyone else in the room? Will they be able to hear your instructions?
Clean,
if you fire two shots in a small room, does it already look like a pool hall at midnight? Are your eyes burning yet?
Accuracy
It’s not that it’s not important, but if you need to depend on 1/4 MOA accuracy to hit a basket ball sized target at 30 feet in a poorly lit area in probably the most stressful 15 seconds of your life, you might want to choose another weapon. Better off being able to hit the same basket ball without sights with a snap shot. Time better spent training than load development. 1-1.5 MOA is pretty easy to obtain out to 100 yards and adequate.
One final thought when you have some time with your suppressor. You might just fire and compare your chosen sub load against a super, both shot indoors where the bulls travel stops at 10-50 feet. The results will probably surprise you.
