Have any of you used this powder? I was given an 8# jug of this military surplus powder.

Any info would be appreciated!

Bill--

I had an 8# jug of wc852 some years back (don't know how that varies from the 852f). I found it to be excellent in my 30-06, and wish I had more of it. I'll see if I can find you some of the loads I used when I get back home next week.

IIRC it was probably a medium powder in speed, somewhere around 4064 or 4895 for general reference. Start low and work up and you won't be disappointed.....

What are you wanting to use it in?

Cheers,

Dan

I finally got off my lazy butt and went and looked at my jug of WC 852F (FAST), not WC 852.

The jug of WC 852 FAST is marked, "Use H-380 data".

As others have said the plain WC852 is roughly 4831 speed.

Make sure which you have.

If memory serves me correctly there was actually a third lot of WC 852 which was slightly different burn rate, but I forget what it matched. That was some years back and I only have two lots and so I quickly dropped that one from my mind.

The last days of Milsurp powders are here now, it will be OEMsurp only in the future.

I checked my WC852 data. In my 30-06 it was much slower than H380....actually closer to W760. There may be quite a bit of lot-to-lot variation, so start low and work up cautiously. You may be quite pleasantly surprised with its performance.

Cheers,

Dan

A few(10-11) years back they sold wc852 and wc 852F, the wc852 was sold as 4831 speed and the wc852F(F for fast lot) was supposed to be H380 speed

Swheeler--

That would check with regards to the WC852 I had. Thanks for explaining the approximate difference between WC852 and WC852F. As a ball powder you could get more into the 30-06 case than 4831 and it metered very well.

Good thing surplus powders are usually found in bulk--each seems to have a speed unto its own and requires its own workups!

Cheers,

Dan

Dan; I burned up a couple jugs of wc852, same stuff as the now discontinued H450-the ones I had were anyway. Thank goodness for the mil surp powders, I've loaded them for 40+ years, quite a few numbers have disappeared and are missed. I have a friend that was a commercial loader for 20 years and just recently retired, there will be a lot of OEM powders that I can no longer get, sounds like a good excuse to work up new loads, if a reloader needs an excuse.