Learning about powder . . .

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Prof Young

New member
Loaders:
I think I need to learn more about powder, what's fast, slow etc. I have the Lee reloading manual and can review that content. What else should I read?
Live well, be safe.
Prof Young
 
There's lots of reference material out there. And, though I kinda hate saying it, google can get you loads of info. quickly.

There's some serious, long time reloaders on here that I am sure will offer specific reference material. Pay attention to those members... they are a wealth of knowledge.
 
One thing that can be useful is powder burning rate charts that will list a wde variety of powders from fastest to slowest. They are produced from a variety of sources and compare favorably. You should be able to easily identify one or more through Google.
 
Propellant Profiles is an excellent book that should be on every reloader's bookshelf. It contains every powder article published in Handloader magazine up to its publish date.

Holy crap! Its discontinued and goes for a grand now! I've got gold on my bookshelf! Glad I got it when it was 1/20th that price.

The Speer manual has a pretty good descriptions of current powders. The powder maker's websites have pretty good product descriptions too and burn rate charts.
 
the simple answer is jus using a plain old burn rate chart. it has helped me a lot when shopping for powders during the panic and still today, I have used it to pretty much helped pick out all my 300blk loads to give me a " loose" guideline for working up a load before there was common data out there. but you need o understand just because two powders are close on the burn rate doesn't mean their data will always be similar. it usually I pretty close though, but there is a few that can be close on the burn chsrt but be totally different on data. but I would have never thought t use 4064 for heavt-weight .223 loads w/o the burn chart, now it's my goto, seeing as it was close to varget is was got me using it in the first place.

now, people will say that whatever powder gets you the most velocity in a long barrel is also going to get you the greatest velocity in a short barrel. I hear this touted ALOT in 357 and 44 talk about revolvers vs levers. I have found that this is 100% not true. a slower powder will yield higher velocities from a 20" barrel than a 2" barrel of the same caliber. this also works vice versa, i would actually start to lose velocity using a fast powder after about 12" of barrel whereas a slower powder would keep increasing through out the long barrel. which always made sense to me, but was always told otherwise until I chrony'd them myself. fast powders in short barrels yield faster velocities in my cases. YMMV. I have learned alot from burn rates and do most of my shopping using that chart. it really helps finding alternatives when you cannot find the exact powder you want.

http://www.adi-powders.com.au/handloaders/equivalents.asp this chart is good for finding alternatives

this is hodgdons PDF download which just shows in numerical order from fastest to slowest. if you have a powder you like, if you stay within 1-2 spaces up or down of it, you can usually create similar loads
https://www.hodgdon.com/PDF/Burn Rates - 2014-2015.pdf
 
Be careful using burn rate charts. I have looked at a bunch of different ones lately and find that they don't all agree. As mentioned already they are useful as a "loose" guide.
 
Fast-slow burn rates are a good for figuring out where to go from one powder to the next.

What a person really needs is to know what burns clean and consistent with your caliber, barrel length, bullet and relative power level...

Powder profiles is a good reference. In addition, Handloader magazine is a great continuing powder reference. That is where powder profiles came from. Experience is a good teacher too.
 
Lyman's 49th edition has a section that describes the characteristics of different powders. The book is less than $18 in paperback from Amazon.
 
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