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N500 or N100 powders for a long range rifle.


kernel gadaffi

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A shooting mate of mine is really getting onto his shooting and has a few days shooting to 600 yards and has fair amount of money squirreled away from the eyes of SWMBO, he's toying with a .260/6.5 calibre to get him ot to 1,000 yards and beyond, He's been shooting for many years and is a safe and competent shot, he reloads at the moment, but is wondering which powder to use, he currently sticks to Vihtavouri 100 series powders and I mentioned N160 to him, he was looking at the N500 powders, but was told by another long range shooter, to keep off the 500 powders as they are very corrosive and reduce barrel life drastically. I've never heard of this, but would any of the present experts on the long range discipline like to offer a yes/no reason to use or avoid?

 

Alan.

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The 500 range will give you better velocity for less pressure but I think it burns much hotter and at top end loading drastically reduces accurate barrel life burns out the throat

I'm sure Laurie will give more detail as to what the 500 series powders actually do to barrels that 100 series doesn't

 

Duey

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I have looked into this before. I think i recall reading on the internet that........

 

The N100 series is a single base powder, manufacture using raw materials,

 

N500 is a double base and contains small amounts of nitroglycerin, which is what gives you the better speeds, but unfortunatly it also corrodes the throat, some sort of chemicals are added to counteract this effect but from what i have read they still like the taste of a barrel,

 

(I might be compleatly wrong here but thats what i recall)

 

Rob

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I use N550 and am up to 900 rounds on a .260 pushing it quite hard. I've recorded the throat erosion after every 100 rounds because of those concerns everyone talks about with the 500 series of powders. I used 3 139gr Scenars when I started this process and am still using the same bullets. So far, there has been zero throat erosion. I'm not saying it can't happen or won't happen suddenly but so far I'm just not seeing any change in my rifle with my load.

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I believe you get an increase in fire cracking but may be wrong

I ran 560 in my winmag for a while but actually got better results with 165 so that's what I've been running for a couple of years now

Up to 1650ish rounds now and just waiting for the barrel to die on me but no major signs of throat erosion yet as seating depth is the same as when I started

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  • 11 months later...

Una pregunta al respeto de la vivacidad de las pólvoras Vhita 150, 160 y 165. No son demasiado lentas para barrels de menos de 26". Con que largo tiran ustedes el 6.5. Yo tengo un 6,5x47 y uso RS52 de doble base. Pues con la Rs50 y la Vhita 150 la velocidad máxima que alcanzo son 870 ms. Y con la Rs52 de doble base, con menos presiones consigo 880 y 890 ms con un barrel de 28" LW. Un amigo quema RS60, pero no creo que consiga mejor velocidad. Ustedes que opinan?

También tengo intención de hacer trabajos con un 6.5 Creermord, con barrel de 24" y por el momento con la RS40 y Vhita 140 para velocidades intermedias responde bien. Pero pienso que la Vhita 150 o la RS50 no quemarán dentro del barrel, por ser demasiado lentas para ese largo de barrel. Muchas preguntas, no?

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I use N550 and am up to 900 rounds on a .260 pushing it quite hard. I've recorded the throat erosion after every 100 rounds because of those concerns everyone talks about with the 500 series of powders. I used 3 139gr Scenars when I started this process and am still using the same bullets. So far, there has been zero throat erosion. I'm not saying it can't happen or won't happen suddenly but so far I'm just not seeing any change in my rifle with my load.

1800 rounds now and still hardly any throat erosion. Impressive.

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I use N550 with 123g Scenars and SMKs......and N560 with 140g Bergers.

 

I like the speed and accuracy that I get.

 

Probably best not to fire major strings and overheat the barrel but that is true of any powder.

 

I cannot quantify any accelerated barrel wear but there are no free lunches and barrels are wear items.

 

I am going to experiment with RS62 but will probably stick with my known loads of 550 / 560.

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  • 2 weeks later...

N100 series are single based and N500 double based. You can get the same velocity with N500 series at a lower pressure compared to N100 series - however the rub is that peak pressure last longer in the N500 series - use quickload to see pressure vs time graphs.

 

You can either chase a velocity node or look at what pressure is acceptable for you - for some games like ftr screwing the most velocity out to keep supersonic at 1200 yards seems important so N500 series have been run at max pressures to get the velocity required- not surprisingly barrels get burned out quickly.

 

If you look at maintaining a reasonable pressure - hint - Geoff Kolbe said he saw a big difference in barrels run over 57,000 psi to those run below, then if you can obtain that pressure with a N100 series powder why would you not use it as it seems more temperature stable as a single based powder, at least from what I have chrono tested N165 vs N560 from -20c to +40c.

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N100 series are single based and N500 double based. You can get the same velocity with N500 series at a lower pressure compared to N100 series - however the rub is that peak pressure last longer in the N500 series - use quickload to see pressure vs time graphs.

You can either chase a velocity node or look at what pressure is acceptable for you - for some games like ftr screwing the most velocity out to keep supersonic at 1200 yards seems important so N500 series have been run at max pressures to get the velocity required- not surprisingly barrels get burned out quickly.

If you look at maintaining a reasonable pressure - hint - Geoff Kolbe said he saw a big difference in barrels run over 57,000 psi to those run below, then if you can obtain that pressure with a N100 series powder why would you not use it as it seems more temperature stable as a single based powder, at least from what I have chrono tested N165 vs N560 from -20c to +40c.

What fps are you recording per degree of temp change for the single vs double based powders ?

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TJC, it is one of the things that I update when using a chronograph at the moment 6 m/s per 10c temp change - see screen shot of my Lapua app. More testing = more data = more refined. That is for 338 LM using N165. Data is from testing sessions over more than a few years. The drop data from the app has been surprisingly accurate up to 33c at distance.

 

N560 was giving 8.6 m/s per 10c temp change. However this was with one tub of N560, data collected over winter months from -11c to +6c. Cannot rule out other factors- cold slow primers, different reoloading process as I am now annealing and ES is lower, which may affect velocity averages etc.

 

What are your findings re N100 vs N500 type powders ?

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TJC, it is one of the things that I update when using a chronograph at the moment 6 m/s per 10c temp change - see screen shot of my Lapua app. More testing = more data = more refined. That is for 338 LM using N165. Data is from testing sessions over more than a few years. The drop data from the app has been surprisingly accurate up to 33c at distance.

N560 was giving 8.6 m/s per 10c temp change. However this was with one tub of N560, data collected over winter months from -11c to +6c. Cannot rule out other factors- cold slow primers, different reoloading process as I am now annealing and ES is lower, which may affect velocity averages etc.

What are your findings re N100 vs N500 type powders ?

 

Thanks. I haven't done any real testing so appreciate the information. Thx

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I have a .260 my load is 46.2 grains of N165 giving me 2800 fps with a 142 grain smk in a 30 inch Barrel and it still shoots 1/2 Moa after 1300 rounds.

Rgds Paul

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