Winchester Winclean 244

wcwhitey said:

Anyone have any experience with this powder? There good available data on the website. Picked up a few pounds figured to give it a try for .38 Special and .44 Special. A bird on the hand these days.

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I did the same thing. Bought some a couple of months back because it was available and I never tried it. Asked here for load data and got some good responses. Seems to shoot a lot like W231 but not as polite and my velocities were lower than Hodgdon's data said to expect. Seems a little "spiky" in 9mm and .45ACP. I haven't tried it in a revolver round, yet. I bought it for autos because it says it's cleaner. Meh. It's okay.

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...ere-should-i-start-what’s-it-good-for.876938/
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/lack-of-data-for-w244.891278/#post-11982396

GeoDudeFlorida said:

I did the same thing. Bought some a couple of months back because it was available and I never tried it. Asked here for load data and got some good responses. Seems to shoot a lot like W231 but not as polite and my velocities were lower than Hodgdon's data said to expect. Seems a little "spiky" in 9mm and .45ACP. I haven't tried it in a revolver round, yet. I bought it for autos because it says it's cleaner. Meh. It's okay.

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/found-some-w244-where-should-i-start-what’s-it-good-for.876938/
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/lack-of-data-for-w244.891278/#post-11982396

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I got a pound the other week how does it compare to cfe-p?

Used it in 200gr. plated 45 Auto and 230gr. plated 45 Colt. Works very well in the Glock 21. Wasn't quite as happy with it in the 45 Colt. Like most other powders, it stains the Colt cases at standard (low) pressures.

It produces good accuracy with target to midrange loads in my 41 magnums, but leaves a lot of light gray soot on the cylinder. For a faster powder, case fill is pretty bad, barely filling 1/3 of the case with max loads. In the same burn rate range I'll stick with Green Dot and N320.

Comparable to W231, very sensitive to COL. I've tried it in 9mm and .45ACP and it works well enough. I'm a big .41 shooter, and I don't know that I would try it in .41 like Black Mamba did... I would probably be looking at W572 instead.

As Geo mentions, the velocity expectations in Hodgdon's data are pretty optimistic... I had to go to max data and I'm still off stated velocity by quite a bit.

I've burned through about 4 pounds of it. It's good albiet a bit smokey compared to my prefered AA#2. It is more consistent velocity wise at low charge weights though.

I get close to or above the published velocities with coated bullets and quite a bit less with jacketed bullets.

I'd buy it again but I prefer AA#2 and Shooters World Cleanshot in this burn range.

Here is a write up I did a few months ago.

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...d-to-accurate-2-and-hodgdon-universal.880761/

Smittypa said:

I got a pound the other week how does it compare to cfe-p?

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It's quite a bit faster than CFE-P. Lower charge weights but lower velocity ceiling.

I'm a huge fan of W231 and W244 is really close to it in performance. It's ever so slightly slower than W231 but it's a very good choice for the .38 Special, 44 Special, 45 ACP, the 9mm and anything else you would load with W231. I think you will like it, I know I do.

BBarn said:

Used it in 200gr. plated 45 Auto and 230gr. plated 45 Colt. Works very well in the Glock 21. Wasn't quite as happy with it in the 45 Colt. Like most other powders, it stains the Colt cases at standard (low) pressures.

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I used to use W231 in the 45 Colt but changed over to HS-6 a while ago. I tried W572 in the 45 Colt and it's a better choice than W231 or W244. It's not quite as good as HS-6 but you don't need a magnum primer and it's a bit cleaner than HS-6 too.

Is there a connection between Winchester Winclean 244 powder and the old line of Winchester Winclean ammo designed for indoor range use?

ArchAngelCD said:

I tried W572 in the 45 Colt and it's a better choice than W231 or W244.

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Did you ever try W572 in .45ACP or 9mm?

Charlie98 said:

Did you ever try W572 in .45ACP or 9mm?

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Sorry, I have not but it should work well in the 9mm with higher velocities than W231 or W244. Of course you will have to check the accuracy.

wcwhitey said:

Anyone have any experience with this powder?

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Sure, I like W244. I have good performing loads in 357sig, 9mm, 40acp and 45acp. It is one of the powders I like to have in stock.

wcwhitey said:

Powder did not leave the guns noticeably dirty but I am used to Unique.

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Question for you: Did W244 'stain' your brass? I have had that problem in the 9mm, for some reason, less in .45ACP.

I recently tried W244. It was available so I bought 2 pounds. I saw that it was specially designed for .38 Special and 9mm so I figured I would try it out. I quickly discovered that none of my manuals have any load info on W244. The only data I could find was from the Hodgdon site.
I was going to try it in .45 Colt but when I saw how little was in the case I decided I wasn’t comfortable with that so I didn’t use it for them.

I did try W244 in .38 Special 148 HBWC loads to compare it to my loads using Bullseye. I decided to test 3 different loads of Bullseye and 3 different loads of W244 in my S&W model 10. In my model 10 the Bullseye load that seems to be most accurate is 2.8 grains of Bullseye. I got the same / similar accuracy with 2.6 grains of W244. I did notice that W244 burned a little cleaner.

Here are my test targets where I shot 3 different targets with 3 different recipes with each powder. I did this test because my model 10 is a finicky little six shooter and I had reinstalled my BK grip adapter to see if I truly like it. I decided that I do.
Here are the targets from my test:





Gratuitous shots of my model 10-7 C&E gun.

In addition to .38 Special HBWC loads above, I recently tested W244 in some 38 Special and 9mm and .357 Magnum loads. These were work up loads for accuracy. The loads below were most accurate in my test at 10 yards.

.38 Special
158 grain RNFP, Bear Creek Supply bullet
3.9 grains W244
S&B SPP
COL 1.475”
Estimated 925 FPS 4” Bbl

This load is accurate from my S&W model 10, 325 NG and 19-4. It seems to burn cleaner than Universal and Unique.

9mm
147 grain RN TMJ X-Treme bullet
3.3 grains W244
CCI SPP
COL 1.125”
Estimated 900 FPS

Accurate load from my 2 Glock 34s. I will need to shoot it in my G45 as well.

.357 Magnum
158 grain FP TMJ Berry’s bullet
6.1 grains W244
CCI SMPP
COL 1.590”
Estimate 1100 FPS

Really accurate from my S&W model 19-4 and 327 NG. It’s funny, the max load for this powder per Hodgdon is 6.2 grains of powder for 1204 FPS from a 10.0” barrel (per website) and that load had exactly the same accuracy from both revolvers. I am wondering if I loaded 6.1 grains in the ones I thought I had 6.2 grains in them. I plan to retest this at some point.
Also, I don’t shoot really hot .357 loads from my model 19-4 because I want that gun around for a long time and I don’t shoot really hot loads from my 327 NG with a 2.5” barrel because I want my wrists around for a long time.

I have decided to go ahead and test this powder in 9mm with 115 grain bullets only I am going to also compare the loads for cleanliness against an accurate load where I use 5.0 grains of Universal powder in my 2 Glock 34s. I plan to detail clean both guns and shoot one with the Universal load and the other with W244 and see if there really is a difference.
W244 seems to burn cleaner than Universal and Unique in my revolvers.

wcwhitey said:

Thanks for the info, I have yet to load for the .38, that’s next. I have Hunter 158 SWC’s 12BHN and 158 Speer SWC-HPs. Now I have a place to start. I want to come up with a load that shoots well from all my .38/.357 revolvers, older air weight snubbies and k frames. A good practice round. So standard pressure or slightly below. Down to my last few hundred SP primers so I wont be going beyond the experiment stages for now. I have plenty of LPP so .44 has been on the grid. Cleaner is nice.

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Pretty sure everyone already knows but just in case: those Speer 158gr LSWC-HP are swaged and waxed so they tend to be a little smokey. WinClean might not appear to be so clean with them. I use them for can dancing because they fly really well and outside the smoke is part of the fun.