Hodgdon Powers @ NRA 2016

[Airgead]

Hi all! Spent the weekend at the NRA Annual Meeting & Expo in Louisville. Being packed shoulder-to-shoulder of the larger firearms community was quite an interesting time as always. Wanted to share a few things I learned from the Hodgdon rep at their booth.

First is that Hodgdon has no plans to discontinue any current powder, including any overlap in the IMR series w/r/t the Enduron lines. The rep was careful to say "at this time" obviously. There was one exception he made to the above and that was IMR7828. He said that it's likely that 7828 will be discontinued in favor of the SSC version.

Second, he said that one of the things being considered is reformulating all of the extruded powders into short-cut versions that would have the same performance characteristics and same charges while being much better for metering. He said that was "at least" 18-24 months away. Also sounded like it's under consideration but not finalized. I asked him to confirm that I'd heard him right and since I'm a huge fan of IMR4895. He confirmed I'd heard what he said about same charges and performance.

Just one of the many interesting conversations I had with vendors this weekend.

 

[Load Master]

I have to say I am jealous. I would have loved to been there. Not this year, maybe next year. What is the most memorable thing from the show you came away with?

 

[Airgead]

I really enjoyed it. I was at the meetings back in 2011 in Pittsburgh but was only able to spend about 5-6 hours at the expo. Drove in Friday with the wife, spent the weekend, had a great dinner at a restaurant with a huge selection of local Bourbons, and went back home Sunday afternoon. I enjoyed the ability to explore the floor much more leisurely, especially with the much smaller crowd on Sunday.

I think the best takeaways I had was with a Nosler rep about the .30 Nosler, an extended discussion with the Boyds Gunstocks rep for my Axis build project, a discussion with one of the main Hornady techs about primer seating in the LNL-AP, and the reason for this thread - the discussion with the Hodgdon rep.

Regarding the .30 Nosler, I had a great chat with a booth tech and another attendee about the .30 Nosler and how it compared to cartridges such as the .300WinMag, .300RUM, and .300 Weatherby for energy as well as recoil. I've been interested in that cartridge since it came out. I asked about the uptake and the tech said it's been very strong and that Nosler viewed it as a success. I said I wasn't interested in investing in a cartridge that would disappear after a few years ala the Marlin Express. It sounds like Nosler intends to be similar to Weatherby and have a rifle + cartridge product lineup. In fact, the rep mentioned Weatherby a number of times as a comparison. He said that .30 Nosler brass is now available widely and handloaders were reportedly happy with their loads.

I talked to the Hornady tech regarding my concerns about the LNL-AP being able to seat below flush. He said that the engineering behind the press is a max of .002"-below-flush and primers usually seat at flush or .001" below. He said that people who have received the little round discs for the divots are being shipped a part from their shotshell press. He said a dime or penny works just as well, but in Hornady's view they aren't solving anything. He said that the primer seating nut will only travel so far and regardless of the divot, dime, penny, or anything else. He said people who are really worried about a slam fire due to a floating firing pin might want to use a harder primer like a Winchester. He said he's a competitive shooter with an AR and has never had a problem and indicated that no one else has any serious concerns about it either.