Different but same? - Hand Loading

I'm sure it's not a secret Hodgdon does not manufacture smokeless powder; they buy it from a number of different sources. Some of those have always been ball powders from Winchester. Hodgdon even went so far as to come up with their own trademark -- Spherical -- for the same stuff. If you look at the labels of a number of Hodgdon powders you'll see, "Made in U.S.A." and know they came from Florida. Today the plant is owned by giant defense contractor General Dynamics and is known as St. Marks Powder Co., but previously it was Primex and before that, Olin or Winchester.

It's not exactly a secret, but neither is it common knowledge, that sometimes they both sell the same powder but with different numbers or names. Not too long ago a couple of Winchester powders -- 540 and 571 -- were discontinued.

Now along comes a press release from Hodgdon reminding us their HS-6 is exactly the same as 540, and HS-7 is just 571. They go on to state the loading data is exactly the same. The bottom line here? If you have a load using data for 540 you can directly substitute HS-6 powder. Ditto for 571 and HS-7.

But still, be careful -- and don't assume just because powders from two companies have the same or similar numbers it means they can be interchanged!

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