Ball powder verse stick powder

[Jrb572]

I am curious why most .308win match grade factory ammo is ball powder? I know Remington,Black Hills and HSM use ball powders in there match ammo. What other companies use ball powder for there match ammo ? Reason I ask is why if they use ball do most people use stick powders? I know they have special blends of powder which we don't get. But why is it you never really see anybody using ball to duplicate match ammo and it seems pretty much like everyone uses stick? R-15 Varget to name a few. I have seen some use Tac but have heard it's temp. sensitive. I guess I am just wanting to know what if any ball powder is recommended and which are not temp sensitive? I pulled a Remington 175smk match and weighed it. Ball powder and alot of it I wish I had wrote down the weight. I think it was around 47.9. Any help is appreciated.

Thanks once again,
Joe

 

[308sako]

Re: Ball powder verse stick powder

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[Jrb572]

Re: Ball powder verse stick powder

Good point I didn't think about it like that. Reason I am asking the question my rifle seems to like the Remington match and the Black Hills. I have just started to load for my 308. I am going to the rang tomorrow to try out Varget and R-15. Just wanted to know if I was missing out on using ball powder.

 

[cal50]

Re: Ball powder verse stick powder

Other than ball powders metering extremely well through a powder drop and cooler burning I get better accuracy from extruded propellant in .308. With ball powder you can throw charges within .1 tenth of a grain and that is hard to do with any stick powder.

 

[Nocalphoenix]

Re: Ball powder verse stick powder

Im not seeing a lot of temperature sensitivity in TAC going from about 40-90degrees. I have heard other say it gets a little erratic over 100 degrees but I have not seen it. I have not seen a diffence when shooting in normal weather and letting a round sitting in a hot chamber.

Im going to be playing with Ramshot Hunter in a .243 as a similiar burn rate to H4350 and I dont expect to see a huge amount of diffenece. Also I load on a Dillon so Im pretty biased on smooth flowing powders.

 

[cal50]

Re: Ball powder verse stick powder

I swapped out my dillon powder drop out for the rcbs uniflow with hornady auto linkage on my dillon 1050. It meters a LOT better with extruded powders. Stick the aluminum powder baffle in the uniflow if you get one. It works well.

 

[codyb]

Re: Ball powder verse stick powder

I've used 760 in my 308 for about 12 years. I started with it because a load was recommended to me that had already been running well in a rifle I bought. I tried it in other rifles and found it acceptable in them as well. I stuck with it because if flow so consistently, however when I started shooting out over 600 yds I found that switching to stick powder made a huge difference in my rounds performance even thought it was not throwing through the meter as accurately as the ball powder did.