Hogdon's H240

[Grampa]

Someone passed along a couple of cans of Hogdon's H240 "Rifle Powder". It's obviously fairly old, but the powder looks and smells fine. I intend to use it for some 44 Mag loads.

On the back of the can it has some load recommendation, including one for a 250 grain lead bullet using 20 grains of powder for an over 1,500 fps load. Looking at current loads, that seems nuts!

I plan to load for 240 grain plated bullets, so was thinking about backing off the 250 grain load by 10%, starting at using 18 grains.

Anyone recognize this powder? It looks a lot like bullseye. Does this load seem like a reasonable starter load?

 

[griz]

It sounds like 2400, but Hogdon never made 2400. It's probably better to make sure what you have before you load it. What does the container look like?

 

[Jim Watson]

I bought a can of H240 a number of years ago and it was already old stock by then. It was said to be 10% faster than 2400 so I loaded up some .357s with 10% less H240 than my usual load of 2400. That gave hard extraction, I suspect I was lucky not to have jugged a chamber in that little M19. So I cut and kept cutting charges. As I recall, I was down around 11 grains of H240 with 158 gr SWC before it started acting normal.

I think what had happened that the powder had dried out, the residual powder mill solvent vaporizing and diffusing out through the fibre can, leaving behind concentrated nitrocellulose with a lot of bare surface area. Any road, it was definitely hotter than it was supposed to be.

I don't know what would be a safe load for a .44 after even more aging.

Y'all be careful, now, you hear?

 

[Grampa]

Well, I only loaded six rounds at 18.0 grains, but I think you're convincing me to load six at 16 grains first. That's reaching down close to the 44 Special load recommendation on the can. I can do that.

I think all of these will go through the Super Blackhawk, first...