Being relatively new to reloading, I have been trying a variety of powders for the 123gr AMAX trying to reproduce the commercial Hornady ammo.
PA-Allen posted nice data on his favorite loads and had a brief discussion with longdayjake on the effects of burn rate and barrel length:
I wanted to add my observations based on a 16" barrel and eight powders. The data in the chart below were obtained using 123gr AMAX loaded into new Horndady or Lapua brass with REM 7.5 primers at temperatures between 80 - 88 degrees.
When viewing this graph from left to right, the order of the powders match very closely to the Hodgdon Powder Burn Rate chart:
H335 > XBR8208 > TAC > AA2520 > VARGET > WIN748 > BL-C(2) > CFE223
I do realize the the burn rate order is different depending on the source of the data.
The faster burning powders achieve higher velocities with lower charges in a 16" barrel.
I took the liberty to plot PA_Allen's data for his 20" barrel for the 120 gr Nosler Ballistic Tip:
According to the Hodgdon chart the burn rate order would be: H335 > TAC > AA2520 > RL15
So the trend is not as pronounced in PA-Allen's data.
PA-Allen posted nice data on his favorite loads and had a brief discussion with longdayjake on the effects of burn rate and barrel length:
I wanted to add my observations based on a 16" barrel and eight powders. The data in the chart below were obtained using 123gr AMAX loaded into new Horndady or Lapua brass with REM 7.5 primers at temperatures between 80 - 88 degrees.
When viewing this graph from left to right, the order of the powders match very closely to the Hodgdon Powder Burn Rate chart:
H335 > XBR8208 > TAC > AA2520 > VARGET > WIN748 > BL-C(2) > CFE223
I do realize the the burn rate order is different depending on the source of the data.
The faster burning powders achieve higher velocities with lower charges in a 16" barrel.
I took the liberty to plot PA_Allen's data for his 20" barrel for the 120 gr Nosler Ballistic Tip:
According to the Hodgdon chart the burn rate order would be: H335 > TAC > AA2520 > RL15
So the trend is not as pronounced in PA-Allen's data.
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