243 and IMR 4895

[aerod1]

I am about to reload some 243 Win. and I have a pound of IMR 4895. Is this a good powder for this round? I have been on Hodgdon's website but I just want some opinions from the crowd. I am undecided between 75 gr. V-Max or 100 gr. soft point. Opinions?
Thanks!

 

[rcmodel]

It is an excellent powder choice for 75 grain bullets.

Too fast burning for best velocity with 100 grain.

rc

 

[HOWARD J]

Here is Winchester case with 105gr A-Max using 39gr of H4350 powder @ 50 yards--Savage "edge" 243--19 rounds

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[aerod1]

H4350? Thanks, but I was asking about IMR 4895.

 

[HOWARD J]

When you run out of IMR4895 buy some IMR4350 & speer 100gr SPBT--use 38gr of IMR4350 --- not as accurate as A-Max but a good round.
Have Fun,
HJ

 

[NCsmitty]

I am undecided between 75 gr. V-Max or 100 gr. soft point. Opinions?

What are you going to shoot, varmints (V-max) or larger game like deer (100gr SP)? We're talking two distinctly different bullet's construction here, designed for different uses. If target only, it likely will not matter.

You can use www.hodgdon.com to come up with sensible loads for each, because often, one person's pet load may not be close in some other person's rifle. Just match up bullet weights and use the data for regular cup and core bullets, using the start loads recommended.


NCsmitty

 

[HOWARD J]

100gr jacketed bullet-IMR4895---start 32.8gr--max 35.7

Use some other powder for your 75 gr V-Max

 

[james layman]

243 load

In 1977 my best load 44.5gr 4895. Using sierra softpoint 60 grain. At 120 yds a dime would touch the group, 4 holes are touching each other, one is about 1/4 inch away. With a 70 gr bullet, 1 grain of powder less group was twice as large and moved an inch to the right. There are so many variables, it will take time to perfect a load for your rifle. Be patient and enjoy the challange.

 

[rcmodel]

Use some other powder for your 75 gr V-Max

Why pray tell?

As I said, it is a near ideal powder for the .243 & light bullets if you want the best velocity.

And you can get 200 - 300 FPS more with other slower powders with 100 grain bullets.

rc

 

[aerod1]

BTW, I have shot several deer using 75 grain V-Max bullets and they seem to work just fine on whitetails. These were loaded by a friend who was using 45 grains of IMR 4350. I did not reload at the time.
The reason I mention IMR 4895 is because I have a pound of this powder on hand. I can live with a little less velocity, but will the accuracy still be good with this powder and 100 grain bullets?

 

[HOWARD J]

I missed this first look IMR4895
75gr bullet start 37.5------------max 41.7
I watching a movie---what do you expect---almost won the war

 

[gamestalker]

It is a bit fast for my taste, but it should hold a decent group and maintain acceptable pressures if your attentitive to pressure signs, both high and low.

 

[243winxb]

Is this a good powder(IMR 4895) for this round? (243Win.)

No.

 

[gshipps]

I like it. Low recoil, cool barrel. May not be the best but works good for me.

 

[popper]

I used H4895 (about the same powder) for 68gr AMax and 100 gr Sp, youth loads to full loads. Good accuracy in a vanguard @100 yds. Grandkids rifle, I reloaded, put my first 3 shots(from this rifle ) in a horiz. line, about 1" apart. May not be the best, but it works for me.

 

[4895]

I wouldn't sweat it. IMR4895 is listed as a suitable powder for .243 winchester from 55 grain bullets to 100 grain bullets. I bet if you load it properly, it will go bang when you pull the trigger. Anything in front of the muzzle will be destroyed. It is a fact of life. Just because there are 150 flavors of powder out there doesn't mean you have to try them all. I would load up what you have, start out safe, and worry about important things like marksmanship and sportsmanship. The important things seem to be lacking these days. Be a good steward of the land and enjoy your family.

 

[243winxb]

4895 said> it will go bang when you pull the trigger.

Sure will.

 

[41 Mag]

aerod1,

Lookie here, don't sweat the small #$^#, just use the load data and work you up a nice shooting load. It might work out great for one, or even both of your bullets, only you and your gun will be able to tell. I have never had a powder I could not get something working with. I simply got tired of trying the next best thing to come out and stick with the basics nowadays.

I loaded IMR-3031 in my .270 for quite a few years, don't even care to hear about what the consensus here thinks about that one, but I would put that load up against most any here using an off the shelf rifle with nothing done but a scope mounted. It shot plenty of 3/4" groups at 200yds in front of more than enough folks to satisfy me, and dropped deer and hogs on the spot, out way further than I needed to be shooting at them.

So just use the powder up in a kindly manner don't try to break any speed records and enjoy the time spent working up a hum dinger of a load. Velocity isn't everything, a fast miss is still a miss no matter how you cut it. Accuracy is your friend, and with some of the better cup and core bullets out today anything hitting the mid 2800fps range is plenty to kill any deer walking.

 

[Clark]

I have surplus bulk IMR4895 that is faster than canister 4895, and is more like H322.

43 gr is just about right for 100 gr bullets, and get 6 firings and no sign of primer pockets getting loose.

40 gr with 65 gr Vmax is wimpy, but at 3500 fps, it is as fast as I want to go and avoid fast Copper fouling. This wimp, but really accurate for me.

 

[2ndtimer]

I have surplus bulk IMR4895 that is faster than canister 4895, and is more like H322.

43 gr is just about right for 100 gr bullets, and get 6 firings and no sign of primer pockets getting loose.

40 gr with 65 gr Vmax is wimpy, but at 3500 fps, it is as fast as I want to go and avoid fast Copper fouling. This wimp, but really accurate for me.

No offense, Clark. But I hope that is just a typo on your load for the .243 Win with 100 gr bullets. Since Hodgdon lists a maximum of 35.7 gr of IMR-4895 with a 100 gr bullet, your load of 43.0 gr would seem extremely excessive and dangerous. Especially if the 4895 Clark is using is closer to H-322 than to H-4895. Hodgdon doesn't even list loads for the .243 Win with H-322. (too fast burning to be effective)
Which is another reason why new handloaders should consult at least 2 loading manuals and compare them before starting to assemble loads, and not just take a random internet post and assume it will work for them. If it was a typo, I hope it is edited and corrected before someone makes a tragic mistake.

 

[Clark]

No offense taken.
I took load books seriously and tried to make sense of them and decode the patterns.

45 gr has short brass life.
The primer pockets get loose in 2 or 3 firings.
43 gr has 4% safety margin, what I use for many rimless cases with weak primer pockets.

SAAMI registered pressures are bounded by primer pocket strength. The 243 is right up against it.
Load data is based on SAAMI registered pressures.
At each step there are errors and margins.

The 243 case head can take about 67 kpsi in handloads for an individual rifle. The 243 is registered at 60 kpsi. Much more recently the same case head in the 260 was registered at 62kpsi. Way earlier it was registered at 65kpsi in the 270. If we go back to 1905 and see the same case head pushing an 8x57 150 gr at 2900 fps, we can see it was about the same.

But if I use a Lapua small primer pocket case, I will do 90 kpsi in the 243, as the new limit is then driven by the firing pin to firing pin hole fit that controls the threshold of primer piercing with a CCI450 primer. Gre - Tan offers a firing pin bushing modification to slightly increase that threshold.

 

[243winxb]

Hey Clark, someone is posting about you here> http://forums.accuratereloading.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/2511043/m/9041044961 243win- The "service maximum average pressure" is 60,000 psi. Proof Cartridges 80,000 psi minimum average & 86,000 maximum average. Modulus of elasticity- Cartridge Brass-
Material is 70 copper/30 zinc with trace amounts of lead & iron , called C26000. The annealing temperature for this alloy is between 800 and 1400 F. Material starts to yield at 15,000 PSI when soft (annealed), and 63,000 PSI when hard.
Material yields, but continues to get stronger up to 47,000 PSI when soft, and 76,000 PSI
when work hardened. Modulus of Elasticity is 16,000,000 PSI. This means to pull a 1.000 inch long strip to 1.001 inch long induces a 16,000 PSI stress.
So if you pull a 1.000 inch strip to 1.005 inch long, you get about 76,000 PSI, which is the max obtainable.
SAAMI Link > http://www.saami.org/specifications_and_information/index.cfm?page=CC

 

[CHALK22]

I have used IMR4895 with both 105gr A-max, as well as 105gr ballistic silvertips, both with good results on paper, but no kills with either iof them yet. Can't remember the powder charge off the top of my head but it was a load off of IMR load data. Shot out of a '74 R700.

 

[Clark]

Hey Clark, someone is posting about you here> http://forums.accuratereloading.com/...3/m/9041044961 243win- The "service maximum average pressure" is 60,000 psi. Proof Cartridges 80,000 psi minimum average & 86,000 maximum average. Modulus of elasticity- Cartridge Brass-
Material is 70 copper/30 zinc with trace amounts of lead & iron , called C26000. The annealing temperature for this alloy is between 800 and 1400 F. Material starts to yield at 15,000 PSI when soft (annealed), and 63,000 PSI when hard.
Material yields, but continues to get stronger up to 47,000 PSI when soft, and 76,000 PSI
when work hardened. Modulus of Elasticity is 16,000,000 PSI. This means to pull a 1.000 inch long strip to 1.001 inch long induces a 16,000 PSI stress.
So if you pull a 1.000 inch strip to 1.005 inch long, you get about 76,000 PSI, which is the max obtainable.
SAAMI Link > http://www.saami.org/specifications_...ex.cfm?page=CC
__________________
Photos>http://photobucket.com/joe1944usa More Photos> http://s338.photobucket.com/albums/n...0 Reloading/

There was a guy at AR that quit ~ 6 ~ 8 years ago. But he could do Von Misses calculations on case heads. What was amazing was the tight corelation between his predictions and the Quickload estimations of pressure for the loads I was finding at the threshold of long brass life.

Here is quote from him:

Posted 22 June 2004 07:43
Clark,
Here are the results of the von Mises stress calculations for the 223 Remington case head.
Using mechanical properties for C26000 brass (cartridge brass)
Temper - H06
Tensile yield strength - 65,300 psi
von Mises stress at the Primer pocket surface - 117,186 psi
von Mises stress at the Extractor OD - 65,300 psi (initiation of yielding)
Chamber pressure - 86,427 psi (Nominal properties)
Chamber pressure - 80,809 psi (minimum properties)
Chamber pressure - 92,044 psi (maximum properties)
Again these values are ONLY valid for a H06 tempered C26000 case.
xxxxxxxxx
PS
The Mauser case head nominal condition chamber pressure for the initiation of case head yielding with H06 C26000 brass is: 76,977 psi
The H&H magnum case head nominal condition chamber pressure for the initiation of case head yielding with H06 C26000 brass is: 79,597 psi
The Rem Utra magnum case head nominal condition chamber pressure for the initiation of case head yielding with H06 C26000 brass is: 83,950 psi
The H&H magnum case head nominal condition chamber pressure for the initiation of case head yielding with H06 C26000 brass is: 79,597 psi
The 460 Weatherby magnum case head nominal condition chamber pressure for the initiation of case head yielding with H06 C26000 brass is:
89,987 psi
The Rigby case head nominal condition chamber pressure for the initiation of case head yielding with H06 C26000 brass is: 90,450 psi
The 7.62X39 Soviet case head nominal condition chamber pressure for the initiation of case head yielding with H06 C26000 brass AND LARGE RIFLE PRIMER is: 66,769 psi
The 7.62X39 Soviet case head nominal condition chamber pressure for the initiation of case head yielding with H06 C26000 brass AND SMALL RIFLE PRIMER is: 81,609 psi
The geometric and mechanical property tolerances for the C26000 H06 material and "estimated" case tolerancing provide for a +/- 7% value from the nominals I posted above.

 

[243winxb]

It would be better to have a pressure testing device, before a chronograph, if you could only have one.