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Thread: Anybody got loads for Hodgdon H-570?

  1. #1
    GunLoad Trainee
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
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    Default Anybody got loads for Hodgdon H-570?

    A friend of mine has a BUNCH!!!! of H-570. It is a surplus powder that isso old that there are no longer any available data published. It is SLOW and looks like it would work well with heavy calibers. I think the powder was originally used for 50BMG and any data for that caliber would be great. Available publications would be best, but tried and true loads are better than nothing.

  2. #2
    Dogs Like Him versifier's Avatar
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    Dec 2005
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    Welcome to The Guide.

    Ask next door at CastBoolits under the Surp section. Some one there will have data for you. IME (and I use several of them) such slow powders can be a lot of fun for cast rifle loads, but are not so ideal for jacketed bullets (and I have no personal experience at all using the ultra slow powders with jacketed bullets, only with cast, so I am relying on what I have read with regards to jacketed). What you get is a great powder for some target loads (depending of course of the rifle and bullet) but expect much lower velocities and a lot of unburned powder left in the barrel. At less than half the cost of commercial powders, though, I go through many pounds of surp, especially WC860 in my cast rifles. With a free supply of powder and the right mould, all your cost will be for primers. You can't lose.

    With any surp powder, even if you have some data, you're still on your own as it were and are safest using a chrono and checking your case head measurements with faster powders. But, with the ultra slow .50BMG and 20mm Vulcan powders, you can't get enough powder in any medium capacity case to cause any pressure problems, so IME safety is never an issue, just trying to find the right combination for any particular rifle. Often you will see the sooty necks of incomplete case-to-chamber obturation and even the protruding primers of very low pressure loads, but neither is dangerous and won't present a puzzle to solve if you expect it to happen.

    For instance, with 860, you fill up the case to the base of the bullet in any medium capacity case (again, pressures are so low they're never a safety issue) and back off the charge a grain at a time until the groups tighten up, just the opposite of the way you work up loads with powders in the correct burning range for normal performance in the round. I have never been able to get enough velocity even for cast hunting loads, but for target loads, it can be both accurate and very economical to use. My K31 dotes on it with 180gr cast, and my .308 loves it with 150-180gr bullets. Velocities are way low, 1100-1400fps, so I have to use different and more appropriate powders for hunting loads. I have used it in cases from .30-30 up to the -06 family.

    You sound like you might be looking for loads in big mag cases, and for that I can't help you much, but again you ought to be able to get some good info on that next door, too. Good luck and let us know what you find out.
    "Stand your ground.
    Do not fire unless fired upon.
    But if they mean to have a war let it begin here."
    - Capt. Parker, Lexington Militia, April 19, 1775

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