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Re: New Powders from Hornady

PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 7:42 am
by bushmeister
chemical reactions are temperature sensitive, and as big as it swings up there where Hoot is, I wouldn't be surprised to see a difference, but 100fps? It may burn a little faster when it's hot, but it's still the same amount of powder. Here's some more info on those powders.... http://accurateshooter.wordpress.com/20 ... mo-secret/

Re: New Powders from Hornady

PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 9:27 am
by lawle102
I know that like the article says, Hornady uses blended powders in their 450 offering. The guy in the tech center told me that they weren't able give out the mix they use and what quantities, just that LIL GUN is my best bet. But I am assuming this is why they couldn't tell me. :D

Re: New Powders from Hornady

PostPosted: Fri Aug 20, 2010 1:03 pm
by wildcatter
lawle102 wrote:I know that like the article says, Hornady uses blended powders in their 450 offering. The guy in the tech center told me that they weren't able give out the mix they use and what quantities, just that LIL GUN is my best bet. But I am assuming this is why they couldn't tell me. :D


Just a little correction, the Blended Powders and Hornady Loads, are a myth. Duplex loads with a couple of three different powders, are just two complicated and the safety margins are so wacked, that nobody but a serious hand loader is going to experiment with them. Hornady is however, using powders that are generally not available to us. But as Hodgdon is doing right now, which is releasing some of the powders that Hornady is using, this will make things much more user friendly for us all. The 450B is loaded with WC297 and is the very powder that gives us all the fine accuracy we see in our factory ammo. 297 is slower than 296/H110, generally, as non cannister powder burn rates, can and do change from lot to lot and need careful work-up for each lot, hence the Hoot admonition, buy allot of a particular powder and then go for it for a long while..t

Re: New Powders from Hornady

PostPosted: Sun Aug 22, 2010 10:08 am
by pitted bore
lawle102 wrote:I know that like the article says, Hornady uses blended powders in their 450 offering.

lawle102-
There is some confusing terminology connected with the word "blended" as used in the gunpowder industry. Most powders used by ammo makers are blends; so are those that are sold to reloaders in cannisters.

The burning characteristics for the named and numbered powders we reloaders use have been standardized. To make up a standard powder, the manufacturer will run off batches of powder following their usual recipe. It's not likely that any batch will conform exactly to the standard. So they run off several batches of the same recipe, and then mix them to achieve the standard characteristics. So they may take 20 tons of batch A and 14 tons of batch B and 18 tons of batch C and mix them (blend) to arrive at the standard.

The blend of A, B, and C is assigned a lot number and put into containers and passed along to us.

Powder makers work with the ammo makers, who can test a particular batch or blend to find the powder drop that will meet the pressure and velocity specifications for the ammo. Because of their testing capabilities, ammo makers can use powders that need not be as standardized as powders sold to reloaders. The ammo makers can get their powder at a considerably lower cost than reloaders, not only because they buy it by the boxcar load but because the powder makers don't have to work to blend batches to match a standard.

It's not unusual for an ammo maker to work with a powder maker to develop a powder for a specific new type of ammunition. Like most powders, the new types will be a blend. Hornady has been working with Hodgdon to produce some special powders, which are blends, but they aren't blends of currently available cannister powders.

However, I think there is a bit of marketing hype in the "proprietary blend" statement. A statement of "proprietary powder" would have been just as meaningful, and less misleading. "Blend" provokes an image of the Hornady and Hodgdon chemists dressed in black robes in a back room, chanting around a cauldron:

"Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and howlet's wing,--

(Somebody let me know if I've gotten any of this wrong. I'm pretty sure the Shakespeare quote is correct.)
--Bob






--Bob

Re: New Powders from Hornady

PostPosted: Sun Aug 22, 2010 4:07 pm
by wildcatter
lol,

Yup and my favorite was the 2nd Witch in Macbeth:

"Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and howlet's wing,--
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble."

Of course the Doc has it right in his receipt Recital scheme of all things of Chemical Combustion and of course better says them than "light from MY yonder window". My dissertation was a mere thought of duplex loads being unmanageable, from a production point of view. But as we are waxing strong in the Great Works, how about an observation and then a quote from a gentleman who actually came to see me.

..A complex system that does not work is invariably found to have evolved from a simpler system that worked just fine. -or- "Simple is good, complex is bad." - Mikhail Kalashnikov..

..t

Re: New Powders from Hornady

PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2010 9:20 pm
by oldmanjeffers
AWESOME T !! ( Quote from Mr. Kalashnikov )