Vihtavuori powders

[Dons1911]

Can VhitaVouri powder be purchased locally? Wanting to try some and compare to my present powders, but cannot seem to find it in North Idaho or Spokane. Where do you guys find it? Thanks!

[thumpar]

Sportsmans Warehouse shows it at the online store but no way to check local stock. You might try calling them to see if they have it. I am surprise Black Sheep doesn't have it.

[Dons1911]

Thanks, I am going to call Sportsman tomorrow. I was in Black Sheep today and they had none. Plenty of Hodgdons though...I was hoping to find out about a new 'has it all' reloading supply store, perhaps in the Valley...one can hope, right?

[ron]

Thanks, I am going to call Sportsman tomorrow. I was in Black Sheep today and they had none. Plenty of Hodgdons though...I was hoping to find out about a new 'has it all' reloading supply store, perhaps in the Valley...one can hope, right?

According to information that I've gleaned from Loadbooks USA manuals, the V V powders. Compared to other equivalent (Similar burn rate) powders, seem to give higher velocities at the same pressure levels in pistol cartridges such as the 9mm and 38 super in particular. Not that velocity is the most important factor in load development. but because of efficiency. The most efficient load will develop the most velocity with the least pressure and generally will be the most accurate, and usually this is accomplished by using the slowest burning powders available. However with many pistol cartridges the opposite is sometimes true when fast burning powders such as Bullseye often produce the best accuracy with both reduced velocities as well as pressures.

That is the beauty of the loadbooks USA seven dollar manuals for one chambering only. This books have data from virtually ALL other published manuals and you compare one load manual's recommendations to another. I can't stress how important that is. but some people on this forum have accused me of owning stock in the loadbooks USA publishing company or having a close relative who owns the company.

Not so. It's just that having comparative data to look at is extremely useful for finding the best load for any gun. Same thing with understanding Burn Rate. once you understand burn rate as it relates to case capacity, projectile diameter and projectile weight, you can figure out what powders are best for any given cartridge and which ones to exclude in the load development process.

The only reason why I've never tried the VV powders was that they cost more than other powders. But now the other powders are more expensive and there isn't much difference any more,

[glockdude1]

I have loaded with N320 for years, but I had to find it online and paid a lot for Hazmat fees, but it is the cleanest burning and most consistent powder there is......I just bought some CFE Pistol from Black Sheep and am going to try that out, since it is suppose to be a very clean burning powder..

[SnowMan]

I just bought some N340 at Sportsman this past Friday. A little spendy, @40 for 1lb.

[ron]

I have loaded with N320 for years, but I had to find it online and paid a lot for Hazmat fees, but it is the cleanest burning and most consistent powder there is......I just bought some CFE Pistol from Black Sheep and am going to try that out, since it is suppose to be a very clean burning powder..

I've never tried the VV powders but in a Loadbooks USA load manual I notice that they gave the highest velocity with the lowest pressure for the 38 super and were pretty good in that respect for the 9mm as well. As far as consistency, I've always found Unique, 2400 and AA0 to be the most consistent of any wod3ers I've ever used. And not only consistent but very flexible at every velocity and pressure level.

Nut Unique is supposedly "dirty" and I've never really understood that. Back when I started reloading no one even ever mentioned it. It wasn't until about the '80's that I heard anyone talk about it but that was mostly people who used it as a shotgun powder, and people complained enough about it that when Alliant took over Hercules they re-formulated it to be cleaner burning.

But I never noticed when using it in handgun that it made my hands dirty or my guns dirty or at least what I would consider dirty meaning that it took longer to clean my gun than it would with any other powder and even when I took a combat training class and fired 300 rounds in one day, it didn't take any extra time to clean my gun.

So maybe people like "clean burning" powders so they don't have to clean their guns at all? I don't see why everyone these days make such a big deal about
"Clean Burning". I can understand as far as rifles go with the new CFE powder that helps prevent copper build up and make the rifle easier to clean nut Unique in handguns is not any harder to clean than any other powder. I've ever heard people say that some loads that they tried with Unique were more accurate than a load with a different powder but that they still didn't want to use unique because it was so horribly dirty.

I don't get that. Maybe it's all relative to personal experience. I've played around with black powder cap an ball pistols and to me that's what "dirty" really is especially if you put Crisco over the loaded balls to prevent chainfires instead of using wonder wads under the balls. That's the kind of dirty that compares to swapping engines in an old car kind of dirty where your hands don't come completely clean for a week or so.

I'm wondering what anyone else's take is on this matter of clean burning powders and why it's considered to be such good thing. What am I failing to comprehend? Someone needs to hip this old geezer to the latest school of thought.