I have just bought a RugerM77 22/250 with a target barrel.I bought a new can of H380,and on the can it lists the max load for the 22/250 as 41grs. with a 55gr.bullet. On the old cans of H380, it lists 37grs. as max load, also that is the max load in every manual I have. The last time I bought a can of H380 was about 2 yrs. ago. What did I miss?I sent an e-mail to Hogdgon twice, but I never did hear from them. I'm starting to work up loads for my new 250. Any you guys out there got pet loads for a RugerM77 with the heavy barrel. This is my first post on this board, as I just found it this morning. Happy Thanksgiving to all. Thank you, Bill Adams
Bill - Had a similar experience with H-380 and 22-250. It was always my understanding that H-380 got its name from the fact that Bruce Hodgdon used 38.0 grains of it with a 55 grain bullet in a 22-250 wildcat he had. Since Hodgdon doesn't actually make their own powder, only re-sell powder they purchase from different manufacturers (I think they're using Aussie Mulwex now), it's quite conceivable that the burning rate of today's H380 is actually slower than the old H380.
In my 22-250, 41 grains H380/F210M primer/53 grain Hornady H.P. match/Fed. Gold Medal case really cooks. Also had pretty good luck with H4895.
Have fun with your project - the 22-250 is a really fun cartridge to work with.
Welcome to the forum. A great bunch of guys and a wealth of knowledge.
R-WEST
Posts: 1483 | Location: Windber, PA | Registered: 24 January 2001
Not a Ruger, but a Tikka Supersport with heavy 14" twist barrel.
I get my best results (flattest at 200 metres, tightest groups) with 38.4 grains of H380 sitting beneath a 55 grain V-Max. This passes the chrono at 12 feet from the muzzle @ 3603fps.
------------------ tikka 3 barrels
Posts: 360 | Location: Sunny, but increasingly oppressed by urbanites England | Registered: 13 February 2001
If you're shooting groundhogs or paper, you can get some good results with H4895 but if you're going out to shoot sage rats, you're better off using H380 or H414. both are ball powders and flow thru a measure like water so you can sack up the 500-1000 rounds you are going to need if the shooting gets good. Actually, a 22-250 will thrive on just about anything you want to feed it.
Posts: 2037 | Location: frametown west virginia usa | Registered: 14 October 2001
H-380 has traditionally been considered to be a little faster than H-414, but it does appear as though fairly recent lots have shifted their burn rate to somewhere between H-414 and H-4350. An example of this is some fairly recent tests I conducted with 165 gr. bullets in the '06 and 270 gr. bullets in the 375 H&H.
I took the propellants charge to 60 grs. behind the Hornady 165 gr. BTSP, and still stayed a little under the 60,000 psi of the '06. 62 grs. took the pressure up to a little over 61,000 psi.
80 grs. of H-380 behind the 270 gr. Hornady SP in the 375 H&H produced 2692 fps @ 54,000 psi. Normally, we would expect about 78 grs. of H-414 and about 83 grs. of H-4350 to produce around 56,000 psi with a 270 grainer in the H&H.
Hodgdon's latest manual has legitimized Jack O'Connor's .270 load of 62.0 grains of H4831 with a 130 grain bullet. The only constant in the world is change.
