Remember now fellows I'm still new to reloading. I am currently loading 90-100 gr bullets with IMR 4350 and having great results. I will be choosing a faster burning powder tonight at a local Gander Mountain to push my ammo box full of 55 gr. pills. As you guys have responded to me on another thread, I have gotten replies from H414, H380, Varget, and many others. It seems to be very consistent across the board to receive the answer "you'll just have to see what works for you". Does this mean, choose a powder, and jump a 10th of a grain untill you find your sweet spot, or could it mean buying 3-5 cans of powder, and still have no luck? Let me word it differently, "should" any of these powders work, I just have to get the right combo? or should I get a can of each, because it's possible that any or all of these powders may not work in any combonation? Thanks for any feedback.

I've personally found that changing powders will make less difference than changing bullets, and also making sure that bullets are seated straight.

Pick one. Don't sweat it. I use Varget for everything I can find data for, FYI.

Didn't say what cartridge you're loading for, but I go along with MikeG in that Varget is a very versatile powder for a lot of cartridges. Thing to remember is the lighter the bullet, the faster the powder. The heavier the bullet, the slower the powder for a given cartridge.

All of the powders listed in your reloading manual specific to your cartridge and bullet weight "should" work so you should be able to purchase one brand of powder and use it to find the sweet spot that you are looking for. The other powders will also work however each powder will have it's own sweet spot that works best with your firearm. Once you change a component e.g. weight of bullet, you will have to retest all over again to find that elusive sweet spot. A sweet spot is the charge that will be the most accurate for your firearm using specific components but remember that a sweet spot with powder A might be a 2" group whereas with powder B it may be under 1" so it's difficult to say which powder will work best for you. If you aren't satisfied with the results, all you can do is test with another powder or try a different component. Also increasing/decreasing your load by a tenth grain is much too slow, unless you are testing a very small capacity case. Would suggest three tenths of a grain to get you into the sweet spot zone, then tenth grain after that to refine it.

Thanks guys, the caliber is 243 win. Of the powders I listed, Varget seemed to have the highest published pressures, but maybe I'll try it given Mike G's experience with the powder. I realize that loading is somewhat an open ended experiment, I'm just trying to take the path of least resistence.

Smitty, I've been loading for a .243 for about 35 years. For the 90-100gr stuff, 4350's, Win760, H414, all work. But I have had the best performance from MR 3100 in terms of accuracy/velocity in my current .243. But the 55-60gr bullets will do better with a faster powder.

BL-C2, and Win 748 meter well and produce very good accuracy, but I have had a very tough time improving on H4895 with lighter bullets.

I have to say, I haven't tried Varget or H380 :o, mostly because I have had a long run of good luck, and lots of the older Hodgdon powder's on hand.

I put Varget on my corn flakes.

A pleasant surprise for me over the summer was H4831SC and 85 grain bullets. It provides good case fill and man are they accurate. I also had excellent results with IMR 7828 and 100 grain bullets. I think you will find several good combinations for the 243.

Checked 3 or 4 stores last night, supplies are drying up, I was only able to secure 1 lb bottle of H4895, so it made the decision easy. There was data on the label for Nos 55 gr BT so I grabbed the can and ran.