Thanks for the nod,
Nick!
Here's a point about Titegroup that I think should be shared...
It seems to me that Titegroup (and many other
fast burners) end up getting used in the wrong place for the wrong goals, it's a common pitfall that happens to newer or newish handloaders.
Titegroup
should be used as a specific answer to a need, like I described. Need a light load AND a powder that works well with a small charge in a huge case? I honestly don't believe there is a better powder on the market for exactly that.
INSTEAD... what typically happens with newer handloaders is "okay, I have been making 9mm for a year now and it's worked great! Now I want to make .44 Magnum. Oh hey look, Hodgdon has published load data for .44 Magnum, let's do this!"
Frankly, I wish the published load data would add a comment. Something such as I wrote above. You can use this max load, but it's really a terrible choice for a max load in .44 Magnum. All of the pressure but without the performance you're looking for.
The published data would be even more telling if they could graph the pressure curve that a fast burning powder lays down in a max magnum load, especially when compared to a slower burning powder that is more appropriate for a full magnum load.
Anyone who has seen me post on this subject knows that this is a crusade for me. This is because I loaded for 15-plus years before I had this epiphany. No, I wasn't building bombs with fast burning powders all that time, I simply didn't load magnum revolver rounds.
This information should be obvious, especially to new handloaders and it
isn't. It has never been obvious and I wish it were.