Originally Posted by
edmehlig
So by eliminating powders that are not temperature sensitive, do you go by what powder gives you the highest velocity, or by the least amount of powder to give you near the highest velocity in selecting a powder?
I don’t really care too much if a powder uses 30grn or 35, and honestly, I rarely worry too much about achieving maximum velocity - even shooting long range, speed is nice, but it’s not everything, and the difference 50-100fps makes between one powder and the next doesn’t tend to matter to me as much as forgiveness of a load. A specific example of this - Leverevolution will handily outrun 8208 in 243 LBC (6 Grendel) or 6 ARC, but it’s far more temp sensitive, so I use 8208 and shoot smaller groups.
There are a lot of resources which discuss temperature sensitivity, or insensitivity, of various powders - even some tables out there referencing specific fps/degree changes. Hodgdon uses the “Extreme” line to denote their temp stable powders, and uses the “Enduron” line label for their IMR temp stabilized powders. Online forums like this are great resources as well. Temp sensitivity isn’t the only piece of the puzzle, naturally, as I mentioned, chargeweight forgiveness nodes will vary for different powders, and for different cartridges. Some powders promote big, wide nodes for almost any cartridge, while others seem to never offer well defined nodes at all - I choose the former, which for MOST cartridges I shoot lands me between Varget, 8208, H4350, or Retumbo.