IMR rifle powders... old vs new (Enduron)

I don't shoot gobs of rifle, but I do shoot some. I'm a big fan of IMR rifle powders, they have always treated me well, are almost always available, and for reasonable cost (outside of Cabelas... but I digress.) I began to load 6.5CM for a friend of mine, and reached for a can of IMR4350... that just wasn't there, the shelves at the time were stripped bare of any flavor 4350, so I picked up a can of IMR4451, one of the new Enduron line of IMR powders. It certainly produced accurate and reasonable handloads, so I don't think I'm missing anything there.

Old vs New...

So, I'm looking at the IMR lineup, for many of their older powders there is a new Enduron powder right next to it within the same relative burn range. I understand the new technology of the E powders... supposedly more temp stable, has a copper fouling reducer, and (maybe) more economical. Who here has made the switch to the new IMR powders, and left the old IMR version behind? The fastest E powder, 4166, would be a relative replacement to IMR4064 (and maybe 4320) which I don't use just a whole lot of, and is the slowest rifle powder I use, but I'm wondering if they continue to introduce the E powders for the faster standard rifle powders like IMRs 4895 and 3031 if it might be better in the long run to just switch to it and begin the process of rebuilding data for them.

As far as pistol powders, I've always been an Alliant guy, and just the world's biggest fan of Unique... but I wonder, as Alliant introduces new powders... and everyone is saying BE-86 is the 'new Unique' although I've not found it to be that... that they would begin to phase out the older powders in lieu of the newer ones. I wonder the same thing about rifle powders, and particularly IMR powders. I don't wake up at night in a cold sweat thinking about no more IMR3031, but it does have me thinking about it over my morning coffee...

FLIGHT762 said:

I have been slowly moving from the older IMR powders (4064, 3031, 4895 and 4831) to newer alternatives that have better temperature stability.

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Well, and that's one of my reasons for axing... IMR powders have been criticized in the past for not being as temp stable as some other powders (like H4895, for example.) I have recorded some significant differences in the very same lot of ammo... fired in 50F (NV winter) and 118F (NV summer.) While my loads are not at maximum, I can see where I might load to near-max for other cartridge/rifle combos.

JoJo, I'm curious about the 'environmental friendly' part... is it a production issue, or an 'end user' issue (however that could be measured.) I know, as I understand it... W231, for example, is a very expensive powder to produce, vs W244, which I see as the replacement to W231/HP38. The Europeans have some crazy ideas about being environmentally friendly, but I guess that has to be addressed if they wish to market their product there.

PecosRiverM said:

Do you remember Coke's "The Wave" (New Coke early 80's)?
Big failure while they changed from sugar to corn syrup.

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Well... and I was around for that, too, but all they did was bait n' switch... putting the 'New Coke' back into the old can and calling it 'Classic Coke...' and continuing on with corn syrup.

JO JO said:

Environmentally friendly - Enduron technology is environmentally friendly, crafted using raw materials that are not harmful to the environment. this is from IMR what it means I have don't
know just that it is a new formula to make gun powder . does it mean bio degradable gun powder then it would have a shorten shelf life as the chemicals degrade I would think ?

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Well, and that's what I mean. The environmental unfriendliness happens after you pull the trigger... so to speak. I don't know... it just sounds fishy, like ethanol-blended fuel, and non-aerosol aerosols...

That's interesting... Powder Valley linked a page this morning, some benchrest guy did a comparo between 2 Hodgdon powders, and the like IMR Enduron powders for claimed temperature stability. Very interesting....

Jim Watson said:

While I would think that "environmentally friendly" would refer to the manufacturing process; then why would the Europeans care about powder imported from Canada? I have a hard time imagining more or less "environmentally friendly" smoke.

I remember the W231 scares, then one of the Hodgdons reassured us they would keep having it made as long as it sold.
But if W244 was meant as a cheaper cleaner replacement, why didn't they make it the same "burn rate" as W231? They could have called it W231A and motored on.

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They may not have been able to replicate the exact burn rate with the same pressures, using newer tech and components. There is also the issue of cloning a powder... and then the end user using old data for the new powder. Look at all the confusion over old vs new W296 and other powders that are more or less identical...

hdwhit said:

Actually, it was a marketing triumph. People clamored for a return to the "old" Coke, but when Coke was returned to the market, it had the same corn syrup that everyone had protested about months before.

Rather than being a "failure", the introduction of "New Coke" followed by the retreat to a supposed classic "Coke" was one of the biggest marketing coups in history.

The fact there are people, like yourself, still thinking what they are drinking is not the reformulated Coke is more than adequate evidence of that.

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I remember the controversy... was the failure of the New Coke actually planned? I say no. They pumped enough effort into the release of NC to actually warrant it as an effort to market a new item, the return to Classic Coke was damage control... brilliantly done, but I don't believe it was planned initially. I do believe the whole effort was to reduce costs by switching to HFCS... whether it worked with NC or, then, CC... either way, it wasn't, and isn't, the Coke of old. You want real Coke, you have to buy the stuff from Mexico, made with real sugar. Go figure.

Just MHO, but very few things new and improved for the sake of being ‘green’ rarely turn out for the better. That may be my cynicism poking out. A few of you have mentioned long-term deterioration, that was something I hadn’t thought of.