Surplus powder ? What's different

So I see alot of information on Surplus powder and I have some myself.

Is there and difference in that from regularly purchased powder.

So what's the scoop.

Spot

Spot, As with commercial (cannister) powders milsurp powders vary in color, appearance (extruded, ball, flake) burning rate ("speed") and application. However, unlike cannister powders, different lots may vary significantly in burning rate. E.g, WC 820, a fine ball powder, is marketed in 3 different lots with respect that property. Many of the milsurps are suitable for CB loads, giving excellent performance at a very modest price. There is loading data available on this site and on castpics.net, which may be linked to this site.

...........There isn't any difference between surplus and commercial canister so far as being powders go. The thing we as end users have going against us with surplus it that there is no ballistics lab work done that we can access for a broad number of cartridges.

So that being the case, we have to do that ourselves using all our past knowledge, recognition (and a bit of seat of the pants) intuition and familiarity with our guns, components and then inferring from there. We then find a place for it individually as to it's apparent burning rate amongst our other powder inventory.

If there was enough of a lot of a particular batch of surplus, a commercial company might buy it and release it as one of their own, such as Hogden did with some WC820. Theirs was H108. There was a release of what was called IMR4198 and it was gobbled up very quickly. I know I bought a bunch and so did Jethro Strait.

I think amongst the old Shooters.com bunch we were about the first to use and report on it. It was NOT like IMR4198 in the least, and was a bit slower then some H4895 and about like IMR4895. Yet they labeled it 4198 :D Of course doing that you sure couldn't get hurt using it like any 4198. Now if it HAD been like 4198 and they'd called it 4895 or 4064 there might have been some bad things happen.

The surplus 4895 I have (speaking of that) is a little slower then H4895. I had run out of what I'd bought and what I'm using now is 6 lbs I bought from a friend. He had a load for a specific cartridge and bullet using H4895. The surplus didn't give him the same velocity so he didn't want it and sold it to me. I was glad to get it as I didn't need the very last FPS of speed.

If the surplus powder numbers, and the few that have different lots out there could be tested in a ballistics laboratory, they could then handily slip it into the current burn rate charts (which are guidelines only, as powders can swap places) then we'd have a lot easier time with it all.

As it is with the Olin Chemical batches of surplus ie: the WC's we do have a bit of understanding with it's lineup. Such as: WC820, WC844, WC846, WC852, WC860 and WC872, going from fastest to slowest. Now with the 3 distinct batches of WC820, they might have been labeled WC815, WC820, and WC825, then WC852 might also have been numbered WC850 and WC855, That way they could have retained a place in burn order at least for themsleves.

............Buckshot