Whats the best all-round powder, as cheap as possible, for general use?

Looking for maybe pull-down powder, or something that will cover normal 125 through 158 grain bullets. Not talking full house tactical stuff, just general powder that will cover a "one powder" category.

That would be WC820. It's 30 carbine pulldown powder with a burn rate similar to H110.

Go to the suppliers and see what is currently available.

Jeff Bartlett KY

Pat McDonald OH

HiTec ??

Powder Valley KS

Weidners TN

Natchez Shooters Supply AL

How cheap? H110 is right around $18-20 a pound. 466 to 525 rounds to the pound. About 4 cents a round.

Herco I have use a lot of it in 357. Not best not the worse. Well give good soild preformance with low cost per round.

My go-to powder for 357mag is BlueDot

quote:

Originally posted by Luckyducker:
My go-to powder for 357mag is BlueDot.

You tryin' to smack the Hot Core/Blue Dot hornets' nest?

Bullseye is great(cheep)for all cast bullets.
Unique is good for light to medium loads with cast or jacketed bullets in 110g to 170g weights. I buy 8 lbs at a time from Grafs and get it for 17.10 lb including haz-mat and shiping. Im geting about 900 rds per lb for cost of about 2 cents per rd. It does burn a little dirty but I dont mind. For med to hot loaded 125g and 158g jacketed bullets I use 2400 at about 4 cents per rd.

Jeff Has WC820 for $12.50 per pound, and Pat currently has my favorite large pistol powder for WC297. It's a clean burning, accurate powder, and meters well. He has it for $90 per keg.

quote:

Originally posted by homebrewer:

quote:

Originally posted by Luckyducker:
My go-to powder for 357mag is BlueDot.

You tryin' to smack the Hot Core/Blue Dot hornets' nest?

Alliant Unique

Great thanks. I've used most of the Alliant powder except Herco, never tried that. And I've never used any pull-down in a pistol, but it's worth a look and try.

What about Accurate powders? They seem to run cheaper than others.

I've used a good many differeent Powders in 357Mags - including Blue Dot (not Reduced Blue Dot Loads though) - and they all worked. I prefer H110 or WW-296 for the Bambi Blasters.

But "the best all-round powder, as cheap as possible, for general use", is probably going to be the Surplus Powders already mentioned.

Then have a can of H110 or WW-296 for the Deer Loads.

A powder in the burn range of Unique is economical & gives good performance across a wide range. H110 or any derivative is only for max effort loads, no down loading, so narrow range & you use quite a bit more. So any cost/# saved in a surplus powder is used up quickly in volumn. At say Unique charge wts, the powder is the cheapest part of the reload. Find cost savings in your bullets (most expensive part).

Most of the faster burning powders should show up in some of the reloading manuals, choose one that you like the results from like cost, cleanness, etc.

As Fred said the biggest cost savings will be in the bullet you use. Cast are the cheapest, usually, and casting your own may be an option.

I am happy with Unique. Actually it should be called Diesel for the amount of dirt it deposits on my revolver

But it does what it's suppose to do.

Unique. You won't get full patch loads, but can get close and use fairly modest charges of be as good as the gun is capable of, and it doesn't have the cylinder/barrel gap blast of the slower powders. It also performs well at lower levels and with different bullet weights.

For top end performance I prefer 2400, I've never found H-110 to provide the same performance as I thing H-110 is slightly too slow for best performance in the .357 mag.

Yeah, unique does burn a little dirty, but it shoots so well I can tollerate cleaning the gun once in awhile.

Chalk me up in the Unique crowd...

I'm saving all my Blue Dot for my rifle loads...
( just to piss off Hot Core somemore... )