Over my chronograph, ball powders do not show any clear superiority in tighter extreme spreads and standard deviations over stick powders. I have shot kegs of AA2520, because it was cheap, and Accurate Arms told me they blended it to copy the IMR 4895 pressure curve by weight. While AA2520 shot very well, it was peaky, and it left a lot of fouling in the gas system of my M1a and AR15's.
I read somewhere that ball powders took a lot less time to manufacture which may be the reason the military adopted the stuff. Ball powders are typically double based, and double based powders have less than half the shelf life of stick powders. Since the taxpayer pays for the demilling of military munitions, the cost to DoD is just one of those things that the taxpayer must bear. But to me, having to pour out powders because they went bad is not something that makes me happy.
Without pressure curves on these new powders, we know nothing beyond blaring labels and end of history statements by compensated influencers. Just how much better, in percentages, are the new powders in terms of performance, than those old and nasty gunpowders? I as positive we are not going to see anything like pressure curve comparisons and quantified performance information.
Given powder stock blending, there is probably an infinite range of burn rates that can be achieved with powders, and I consider the powder du jour, just a fashion show.
