New Hodgdon Powder - Winchester StaBALL 6.5

[WelshShooter]

Hodgdon has announced the release of a new, temperature stable ball powder called Winchester StaBALL 6.5. Looks like it will cover a good range of calibres from .223 up to .375 H&H Magnum, including the (in)famous 6.5mm calibres such as 6.5mm Creedmoor. I'm already looking forward to finding out if Laurie will be getting his hands on some and conduct some extensive testing for us!

Note: the powder is REACH compliant according to this source so we should expect to see it in the UK at some point(click).

https://www.ssusa.org/articles/2019/10/ ... taball-65/

Right on the heels of Berger’s newest 6.5mm and .224" bullet offerings, Hodgdon announced this week the release of StaBALL 6.5, a new temperature-stable ball powder from Winchester Smokeless Propellants that should make an excellent accompaniment to Berger’s new bullets.

Hodgdon identifies StaBALL 6.5’s salient feature in claiming it “…the world’s first temperature-insensitive BALL Powder, stable in extreme-hot or -cold conditions.” Additionally, StaBALL 6.5 has the other benefits of a ball-type powder that handloaders have come to appreciate: easy metering through a powder measure for precisely-thrown charges and excellent load density for its burn rate in appropriately-sized cartridges.

Here's a list of suitable calibres listed for this powder, directly form Winchester's website:
https://wwpowder.com/sb65/

1. .223 remington
   .224 valkyrie
   .22 Nosler
   .22-250
   6mm Dasher
   6 GT (this is 6mm GayTiger apparently... I kid you not)
   6x47mm Lapua
   6mm Creedmoor
   6.5x47mm Lapua
   6.5mm Creedmoor
   .260 Remington
   .270 Winchester
   7mm-08 Remington
   7x57mm Mauser
   .30-06
   .300 WSM
   .375 H&H Magnum
   .375 Ruger

Depending on the price and performance of this powder, I'd certainly be interested in trying this out in my .223 and 6.5x47mm Lapua. Whilst I prefer the metering properties of ball powder compared to extruded stick powders, I find that (in my experience) the downrange performance of extruded powders is more consistent. It'll be interesting to see if this StaBALL powder can tick both boxes because they'll be on to a winner.

[Laurie]

I suspect this is the first of a range of new technology 'StaBALL' temperature stable ball powders, hence its name of StaBALL 6.5.

It's not the first temperature stable powder of this type though. P B Clermont in Belgium, part of the French Eurenco explosives group, bought this technology and process patent rights from Olin many, many years ago and has been busy improving it ever since with a very energetic (pardon the pun) R&D programme, arguably outstripping the type's US original owners. (Formerly Olin Corporation, now the St. Marks Powder Co. division of General Dynamics Corporation, the factory located in St, Marks Florida.)

We have Eurenco P Clermont powders here under the Ramshot name - TAC, Wild Boar etc.

I'm intrigued by how wide a range of cartridges StaBALL 6.5 is claimed to deal with, though as it appears to operate in the same bracket as IMR-4350 and H4350, that's perhaps less unlikely than it seems. The loads for 223 for instance are restricted to 77gn and heavier bullets.

Whether we'll see it here is a moot point. Winchester brand powders are marketed and distributed by Hodgdon Powder Co. Without Reach, we'd almost certainly have got it (them?) eventually alongside IMR and Hodgdon brand products from the same source.

Although it'll almost certainly be Reach-compliant like other recent Gen Dynamics / St. Marks powders (H. CFE 223; H Li'l Gun), Edgar Brothers doesn't seem to be putting much effort into supplying the few Reach-compliant grades available from the various Hodgdon managed ranges such as the new range of IMR 'Enduron' extruded powders and appears to be putting much more effort into getting the full and now much larger Alliant range in. I have sympathy for Edgars - the problem is trans Atlantic shipping - to be economical you need to have large enough orders to fill a full-size shipping container (or two) - and also cover the fixed export/import fees for regulated products such as explosives. Reach has gutted our (and Europe's as Edgars is the EU importer) demand for Hodgdon group products and pretty well ruined the economics.