Originally Posted by
Bigslug
One of the useful listing categories found in the Nosler manual is figures for "Load Density", meaning that if you only fill half of the space behind the base of a bullet, you are at 50% load density; if you can shake the cartridge and barely hear the powder rattle, you're filled to 100% or very close; if you hear powder granules crunching when you seat the bullet, the manual will call it a "compressed load"
This is a bit of a simplification, but generally, for a given velocity and pressure level, the higher the load density, the more consistent the burn, and the better the accuracy. In a lot of larger cases, you need a certain amount of elevated load density for safety - the goal is to get your powder to burn steadily, not chain-detonate like chaff dust floating through the air in a grain silo.
5744 is a GREAT cast bullet powder because it's bulky, filling the case without generating the massive amounts of energy seen in something like 4350 or 4831 which are used for getting maximum speeds out of jacketed bullets. If you want to take a .375 H&H, .416 Rigby, or even .30-06 down to the levels at which cast bullets like to operate, it's a good one to have on hand.
And yeah, the big black powder rounds too - they're big because with black powder, the only way to get more performance was to use more of the only fuel they had available, and the loads were always compressed. 5744 is a tool that often lets you safely work in those big voids.