Irving
05-15-2015, 18:00
I was at Sportsmans today and they have something like 8 different Norma powders in stock. The guy behind the counter was saying he hadn't seen them in a long time and that they used to be somewhat popular. Just wondering if people on here had any experience with them. I did a search before posting and found this input from spqrzilla from a few years ago. This was about the most relevant post I could find.
The reality is that there are about five major powder manufacturers in the world. Hodgdon, Winchester, IMR brands (all distributed by Hodgdon) manufacture no smokeless powders at all and the rest of the powder brands like Ramshot, Accurate, and Alliant manufacture little if any - they repackage powders made for them by one or more of the five manufacturers. The main sources are in Belgium, Czech Republic, Australia (ADI or Thales?), Canada (General Dynamics) and Florida (St Marks - almost all ball powders come from them).
Norma, Vihtavouri market their own manufacture to my belief.
Some powders are marketed by several of those brands, e.g. Winchester 231, Hodgdon HP38 are all the same powder off the same line. Hodgdon H110 and Winchester 296 is another example. More often each brand is buying a powder made to its own specifications, and so even though it might be similar to another brands' powder it isn't interchangeable.
Sometimes a brand of powder has actually moved through multiple manufacturing sources over time. Often with almost no one noticing any differences beyond lot to lot variations.
So the only real reason to pick one powder brand over another is the availability of good reloading data, perhaps some characteristic like Hodgdon's Extreme line of less temp variation, or ease of finding them locally.
And of course price.
The reality is that there are about five major powder manufacturers in the world. Hodgdon, Winchester, IMR brands (all distributed by Hodgdon) manufacture no smokeless powders at all and the rest of the powder brands like Ramshot, Accurate, and Alliant manufacture little if any - they repackage powders made for them by one or more of the five manufacturers. The main sources are in Belgium, Czech Republic, Australia (ADI or Thales?), Canada (General Dynamics) and Florida (St Marks - almost all ball powders come from them).
Norma, Vihtavouri market their own manufacture to my belief.
Some powders are marketed by several of those brands, e.g. Winchester 231, Hodgdon HP38 are all the same powder off the same line. Hodgdon H110 and Winchester 296 is another example. More often each brand is buying a powder made to its own specifications, and so even though it might be similar to another brands' powder it isn't interchangeable.
Sometimes a brand of powder has actually moved through multiple manufacturing sources over time. Often with almost no one noticing any differences beyond lot to lot variations.
So the only real reason to pick one powder brand over another is the availability of good reloading data, perhaps some characteristic like Hodgdon's Extreme line of less temp variation, or ease of finding them locally.
And of course price.