Hodgdon CFE BLK + 300 gr. bullet

[Waynzee]

Hi fellas, anybody here load the Hodgdon CFE BLK powder with a 300 gr. bullet in their 450 BM
?

[Bmt85]

I haven't personally tried it. I have tired Shooter's World Blackout with the 275 TSX. It didn't go very well. I THINK my starting charges had a slight hang fire, can't remember for sure. I do know that I had A TON of unburnt powder everywhere in my rifle, and I mean everywhere. It might be an ok powder, depending on a few things. If you do try it, I would suggest starting middle of the road on Hodgdon's load data, and move up to over max. When you start to load over max, move slow and watch your case head growth and case length.

[Decoy Defender]

Hi fellas, anybody here load the Hodgdon CFE BLK powder with a 300 gr. bullet in their 450 BM
?

I've done a fair amount of testing with CFE BLK and 300gr bullets in my Ruger bolt gun with a 22" barrel. I'll start off by saying that MY gun does NOT like that weight/profile of a bullet whatsoever. I've never gotten what I would consider a good group with that weight. OK at best. As far as the powder, CFE BLK, it's been a real disappointment to work with. About the only good thing I can say about it, is that it meters very nicely. Other than that, I've had nothing but problems with it. Hang fires mainly, and very bad suiting. It definitely needs a hot/mag primer. I've tested it with 250gr and 300gr Speer Deep Curls, WSR primers and CCI 450 MAG primers and it did improve as far as the suiting and hang fires with the hotter primer and tighter crimp, but the gun still didn't shoot it very well. To load using it, will require an almost full case of powder since it is one of the slower burning powders for this caliber. I swore I was done with it, but against my better judgement and because of this damn bat flu, I was board and went ahead and loaded up some new 245gr Hornady interlocks the other day to max case capacity, to test it for as a compressed load. If you're debating buying a pound of it strictly for this caliber, I'd advise against it. I have had great results with Accurate 5744 and IMR 4227 and gotten some amazing SD numbers and groups with them.

[Texas Sheepdawg]

Hi fellas, anybody here load the Hodgdon CFE BLK powder with a 300 gr. bullet in their 450 BM
?

I've done a fair amount of testing with CFE BLK and 300gr bullets in my Ruger bolt gun with a 22" barrel. I'll start off by saying that MY gun does NOT like that weight/profile of a bullet whatsoever. I've never gotten what I would consider a good group with that weight. OK at best. As far as the powder, CFE BLK, it's been a real disappointment to work with. About the only good thing I can say about it, is that it meters very nicely. Other than that, I've had nothing but problems with it. Hang fires mainly, and very bad suiting. It definitely needs a hot/mag primer. I've tested it with 250gr and 300gr Speer Deep Curls, WSR primers and CCI 450 MAG primers and it did improve as far as the suiting and hang fires with the hotter primer and tighter crimp, but the gun still didn't shoot it very well. To load using it, will require an almost full case of powder since it is one of the slower burning powders for this caliber. I swore I was done with it, but against my better judgement and because of this damn bat flu, I was board and went ahead and loaded up some new 245gr Hornady interlocks the other day to max case capacity, to test it for as a compressed load. If you're debating buying a pound of it strictly for this caliber, I'd advise against it. I have had great results with Accurate 5744 and Accurate 4227 and gotten some amazing SD numbers and groups with them.

Try this.

9525C403-9D2E-4799-BC14-1D9CD0F65A32.jpeg (34.92 KiB) Viewed 9593 times

[Decoy Defender]

Hi fellas, anybody here load the Hodgdon CFE BLK powder with a 300 gr. bullet in their 450 BM
?

I've done a fair amount of testing with CFE BLK and 300gr bullets in my Ruger bolt gun with a 22" barrel. I'll start off by saying that MY gun does NOT like that weight/profile of a bullet whatsoever. I've never gotten what I would consider a good group with that weight. OK at best. As far as the powder, CFE BLK, it's been a real disappointment to work with. About the only good thing I can say about it, is that it meters very nicely. Other than that, I've had nothing but problems with it. Hang fires mainly, and very bad suiting. It definitely needs a hot/mag primer. I've tested it with 250gr and 300gr Speer Deep Curls, WSR primers and CCI 450 MAG primers and it did improve as far as the suiting and hang fires with the hotter primer and tighter crimp, but the gun still didn't shoot it very well. To load using it, will require an almost full case of powder since it is one of the slower burning powders for this caliber. I swore I was done with it, but against my better judgement and because of this damn bat flu, I was board and went ahead and loaded up some new 245gr Hornady interlocks the other day to max case capacity, to test it for as a compressed load. If you're debating buying a pound of it strictly for this caliber, I'd advise against it. I have had great results with Accurate 5744 and IMR 4227 and gotten some amazing SD numbers and groups with them.

Well i finally got a chance to get to the range yesterday to try out the 8 different loads i worked up for the 245gr interlocks I picked up. To my surprise, the CFE BLK shot the best! A 5 shot group @ 100yds at just under 1.5". Just when I thought I'd made it out of the rabbit hole, I get sucked back in..I'd post a picture but I dont know how.
51gr CFE BLK
CCI 450 mag primer
2.212 COAL
.474 crimp
245gr Hornady Interlock

[Hoot]

Efficient powder combustion doesn't necessarily go hand in hand with best groups in many calibers. I have both 1680 and CFE BLK. I would never use either of them with a 300gr bullet as with my 20" 1:24 barrel, I would be throwing more unburned powder out onto the ground than I care to. Powder does cost money. It will be worse with shorter barrels. I have tried 1680 with the 300gr Gold Dot, 300gr XTP Mag and 300gr FTX (SST) but could not get consistent 1 MOA or less 5 shot groups at 100 yds. Actually, I never got any 1 MOA 5-shot groups under those constraints. CFE BLK is even slower than 1680 so more wasted powder. I did re-size some .458 325gr FTX bullets down to .452 (lotta work) and 1 MOA 5-shot groups began to appear. So, my opinion is that those two powders should be reserved for 325gr or heavier bullets, if good groups are your metric for a successful recipe, with minimal powder waste.

Hoot

[Hoot]

Just a follow up to my last post. If you're running a 1:16 twist barrel, you may get a little more thorough burn out of those two powders. That's more my gut feeling speaking than personal experience with those powders, as I don't use 1:16 twist barrels. Still won't help with a 16 inch long "pop gun" (carbine) barrel. They just don't spend enough burn time in such a short travel. There are powders that excel in shorter barrels.

Hoot

[Waynzee]

Thanks guys, I'm a little late getting back here, been pretty busy. So I'm shooting a RAR with a 16.5 barrel and the twist I believe is 1-16. Does anybody have a good powder that will burn well with good accuracy using a 300 gr. bullet in the above mentioned rifle ?

[Bmt85]

Sounds like a good group, and a lot of powder. Lil gun and Win 296/H110 seem to do good for 300gr. I think Al in MI uses 300-MP with good results. I would look into SBR Socom. It's suppose to be a good powder between Lil Gun, win296/H110 and A1680, SWB, CFE BLK. Definitely worth a try.

[Texas Sheepdawg]

You can always depend on LilGun for 300 down to 200 grain.