204Ruger

has anyone tried the new powders from hodgdon,IMR4166, IMR 4451 OR IMR 7977? I SHOT a four shot group with 32. gr. vmax and 28 grains of 4166 measured .541 at 100 yards and a 40 gr. vmax with 26.9. three shots into .363". rem. 7 1/2 primers, mod. 12 savage with a 26" bbl. not a bad start but it is supposed to resist extreme temps and copper fouling.

Have not tried any of them yet, but for some info on all three versions, the new Hodgdon 2015 Reloading Annual now on the newsstand has separate articles on them. Barsness did the writeup on 4166, and the manual contains beaucoup loads for the 17 Ackley Hornet upwards, with lots of data for the 204R.

Since General Dynamics owns the only private powder mill in the USA, and the Quebec plant; which they recently totally rebuilt. Not terribly surprising they took the same tech from their ball powder and stuffed it into extruded.
Just can't personally pay Hodgy's asking price... Got some really good pressure traces on how progressive their ball powders are, just gotta keep testing more calibers and options!

My local dealer has 20 or so 1 lb bottles of the 4451, but no 4166. which is the one I would try. Will give it a go, if and when. Hodgdon's annual loading mag does show numerous loads for them. Bill K

Darkker wrote:Just can't personally pay Hodgy's asking price...

I was speaking to one of their REP's the other day about another issue when I inquired; basically its an import issue that only one container is allowed on the ship at a time; really slows things down for sure.

On a different note, Alliant is producing their Power-Pro line of powders state side, haven't heard to much about them but I do see them laying around.

HTH

The Enduron powders aren't from Thales in Australia, they are from GD's Quebec plant.
The "Alliant" powders are an interesting problem. ATK wasn't meeting contracts while operating the Radford arsenal, so the G brought in General Dynamics to get them on track. That is where the (I may have the name wrong here) new river powder plant came in. Was a J.V. between GD & ATK to find a public market for "oopps" from the Radford plant. Moving to present time, ATK lost that contract, and B.A.E. systems now operates Radford. So I'm not sure about active blending to arrive at those powders.

My opinion is I'd like for Hodgdon to get the powders they already produce to become available as they once were rather than coming out with more powders, especially in view of the fact these new powders have jumped the price for 8 lbers. from $20-30. These powder shortages are beginning to appear to be a marketing gimmick.

I did a quick OCW run in my 6.5 Creedmoor with 4166. Very stable POI across the half dozen charges I put together for the series. Haven't used it enough to comment on temp resistance nor copper fouling.

DoubleUp wrote:My opinion is I'd like for Hodgdon to get the powders they already produce to become available as they once were rather than coming out with more powders, especially in view of the fact these new powders have jumped the price for 8 lbers. from $20-30. These powder shortages are beginning to appear to be a marketing gimmick.

Producing it isn't the issue, it's the import restrictions that didn't use to be in place is causing the problems. Hodgdon & Alliant just can't get it in any faster. We can all thank the US State Department for this and the current administration since 2008 hasn't been friendly one iota; to gun owners.

IMR comes from Canada so it isn't as bad. Per Hodgdon, Winchester powder comes out of Florida. I've read that the Alliant Power-Pro line is made here in the US but the popular "Reloder" series is made overseas. It would be nice if Alliant & Hodgdon would start their manufacturing operations here but that would probably harm other parts of the world; figuring the government would curtail exports.

You are correct. General Dynamics, at their Florida facility, manufactures all of Hodgy's spherical, the whole PowerPro line, all Winchester a branded powders, and one or two of the Accurate spherical.
General Dynamics' Canada facility makes most (not all) of the IMR-branded powders, including the new Enduron series, and the Accurate extrudeds.
Thales manufactures the Hodgdon "Extreme" line in Australia.
Groupe SNPE ( via Eurenco's sub-unit Bofors) manufactures most of Alliant's Reloder series in Sweden, except a couple which Rheinmetall manufactures for them in Switzerland.
Eurenco also manufactures all of the Ramshot powders, along with some Accurate spherical, in Belgium.

So, you see, most of the smokeless rifle powder we as hand loaders have access to is imported. That means we are extremely susceptible to supply disruptions.

MZ5: You are correct. The biggest supply "disruption" is currently being caused by the clown in the WH dictating a 50% import restriction on ALL imported powders; just another way to harm legitimate firearms owners and hamper our supply. What can we do without powder? Nothing, and that's what these people (Nobama Admin) are striving towards.

They're having trouble attacking us in the open, so this is the sort of tactics these Democrats are taking behind the scenes. With Nobama in charge, and his minion Bloomberg throwing money at the issue, we're still in for a long haul for the next two years.

That may all very well be true, but the current shortage began immediately after the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. Until that time there was no trouble finding most any powder that one would want. Perhaps the State Dept. only began the import restrictions in 2012, post Sandy Hook, I don't know, but there's still a lot of powder manufactured in the US and even those powders are almost impossible to find in my opinion.

Certainly want to see an end to this dangerous and destructive Administration. Don't know what we'll have left of America in 2 more years.

I heard that 26 grain barnes bullets and IMR 4166 shoots 1/2" groups at 200 yards. just fill the case full seat the bullet and go shoot. it sounded like a good story so I went home and after checking the manual I found that the max load did in fact fill the case to the top of the neck. I backed it down .5 grains and at 200 yards shot a .77" group. now I believe the story I heard at the gun range.