# What happened to H450 powder?



## ba_50

Hi,

I bought 8# of H450 at a garage sale and noticed it isn't listed anymore. Is there any particular reason for that? It looks like a versatile powder.


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## Gohon

Was discontinued sometime back. I think, but not sure that Winchester actually made the powder for Hodgdon. H4350 and H4831 are about the same burn rate so they should be a good substitute. Even H414 is only slightly faster but would give similar results as H450.


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## NDTerminator

H450 was my favorite powder for most medium-large capacity cases.

I tend to use Hodgon powders, and they don't make one that matches H450's combination of easy accurate metering, velocilty, and accuracy in stuff like the 270, 06', 7MM Mag.

Be darned if I know why they dropped it...


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## ba_50

How is it in a .243?


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## Horsager

For easy metering in cases like the 270 & 243 Ramshot Hunter is an excellent choice. The powder itself "looks" very similar to H380 but is a bit slower, a great choice for "medium sized" cases. Velocity is very good, I get 3100fps from 140gn 270's in a 22" bbl, and 3200-3300fps from 85gn .243's. I haven't tried it in any other calibers yet, but I will. Ramshot's Hunter is supposed to be consistant regardless of temperature, similar to Hodgon's "extreme" series of powders, I haven't loaded it enough to know if this is true or not yet. Ramshot Hunter meters through automatic powder measurers very easily, I loaded my 270's on a Dillon and powder volumes were within +/- .1gn for 100 shells, I'd expect similar results through any powder measurer. It also does a good job of filling the case well, my loads are not compressed, but my estimation is that the case is 85%+ full.


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## ba_50

Hogdon 380 was one of my 243 favorites, accurate and metered easily.


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## Gohon

NDTerminator, you might take a look at H4831SC which is the H4831 but in short cut form . It is suppose to meter very well and is close to the H450 performance. I've never tried it myself so I can't give you personal experience. Since Hodgdon doesn't make their own powders they are dependent on other manufactures. Winchester was the maker of the H450 which was identical to Winchesters 785 so when Olin stopped producing the 785, Hodgdon was forced to drop the H450. 
According to Hodgdon the grains of the H4350 have also been shortened for better metering but they don't list it as a short cut powder.


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## Csquared

Gohon is right. Info I have indicates it was discontinued in 1997. Prior to dropping it, Hodgdon described it as doing very close to the same thing as H4831, BUT WITH DIFFERENT CHARGE WEIGHTS.


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## NDTerminator

Gohon said:


> NDTerminator, you might take a look at H4831SC which is the H4831 but in short cut form . It is suppose to meter very well and is close to the H450 performance. I've never tried it myself so I can't give you personal experience. Since Hodgdon doesn't make their own powders they are dependent on other manufactures. Winchester was the maker of the H450 which was identical to Winchesters 785 so when Olin stopped producing the 785, Hodgdon was forced to drop the H450.
> According to Hodgdon the grains of the H4350 have also been shortened for better metering but they don't list it as a short cut powder.


H4831 and more recently H4831SC became my mainstay powder after H450 was dropped. All in all H4831 works well, but even in the short cut form, it's nowhere as easy or accurate to drop as H450 was.

I also use H4350 for some loads.

I've found Varget works very well in some medium capacity stuff too. 
I worked up a very nice 165 grain 30-06 load in which I use Varget.

I try Hodgdon's Extreme powders first when working up a new load. Temp swings can be murder up here in ND, and I've found the Extreme stuff actually does hold velocity across a wide range of ambient temps.


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