Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Powder

I was piddling on the bench last week and realized that I was just about out of three of my favorite powders. I use Alliant Reloder 15, 19, and 22 and I'm just about out of those three. Reloder 15 is my go-to powder for the .308. I use Reloder 19 in the .30-06, and the slowest of the three, Reloder 22 shines in the .243 Winchester with heavy bullets.

I clicked on to Powder Valley and saw that they had all three in stock. That accursed haz-mat fee is always a problem unless you're buying bulk, and I wanted a five-pound jug of RL15 and a pound each of RL19 and RL22.

While I was looking at the choices, I saw a new powder with which I'm not familiar. It seems that Alliant is marketing a new line of spherical powders under the Power Pro label. Five speeds, Varmint, 2000MR, 3000LR, and 4000MR. They're all spherical powders, manufactured in the USA. I looked at some data and Google'd around and found that some guys like 2000MR in the .308

The price of the new spherical powder is less expensive than the price of the stick powder. That's a no-brainer. While I was ordering powder I added a pound of 2000MR to the list. We'll try it and see how it does. I don't think it will take the place of RL15 in my .308 lineup. RL15 is a known powder in use by the Armed Services, and I'm going to have five pounds to go through, but it never hurts to give a new powder a test run.

Now, I need to order some bullets.

1 comment:

Skip said...

Paw, let us know how the new stuff works out.
I use a lot of Varget but it is not available all of the time.
Midway usually has good prices on Sierra and Bergers.