Hello all! For years now, I’ve been playing with the old standard of 16-20 grains of 2400 in everything from 7x57 to 7.5 Swiss, but this spring, when my then 10 year old son began shooting centerfires, I found how nicely 8-12 grains of Universal and Unique work in so many milsurps (and seemingly everything else...). Long story short, lately, as we all know, some powders are getting harder to find. Graf’s had a good deal on Vectan/NodleSport powders recently so I studied up on the burn charts and determined that their BA9 is similar to Unique/Universal and grabbed a couple pounds.
My question is, has anyone done any ladder tests on this powder in rifles as a replacement or supplement for our “usual” Unique or Universal loads? I’ve reloaded for a long time, so I completely understand I need to determine what’s safe in my own firearms, but I figured I could cut some time off the learning curve if there was a “known” relationship between the powders - as we’ve done with Unique and Universal, for example. Burn rate charts can give us a good place to start, as can comparing published data and making (qualified) deductions based on our knowledge.
If not, I’m happy to be the guinea pig, but with deer season getting close, I can’t promise thorough reporting too fast. I have tried the search function, but there simply doesn’t seem to be a lot of data to go with - although what I have found suggests the stuff burns clean and the fact it’s packed in 1.1 pound cans is a bit of a bonus from a cost point of view.
As it stands right now, I have plenty of handgun fodder loaded with Universal that it might be awhile before i get around to doing anything with it there, but I’ve just gotten my Arisaka project back with a “true” 308 Winchester barrel and chamber from Rick Steinhour at Extreme Rifle Works, so I’ve been doing a lot with it in cast and with 2400 and Universal. An added incentive is I was given a boatload of Missouri Bullets from a friend who didn’t understand why they wouldn’t shoot in his 30-06 with j-word loads, and my own work with these indicates they are very accurate under 1300 fps, but anything higher, they toss patterns even in rifles dedicated to boolits. My little boy didn’t seem to care how fast or how hard the alloy was, as long as he could ring the gong with my old Savage 340. That’s enough to make you want to buy a few extra cans of powder!