Hodgdon CFE Pistol

[Miracle Man]

Tried CFE-P as I said. Doesn't do a lot more than my old favorites and different older powders. I've got 3 kilos of Alcan 5 about the same Alcan 8...they still work for specialty loads. And I continue buying old cans of Hercules/Alliant powders. They never go bad and most sell cheap...because they are old. There are some younger reloaders that know nothing about older powders i.e. Unique, Herco even Red Dot. They got started on newer powders and calibers

Oh I agree totally. If I had a bunch of unique or whatever I wouldn't change. However, if you're like me and don't have a stock of old stuff it seems to be a good powder to stock up on while you can.

 

[sniper]

Like probably many of us, I have several powders, gotten as they became available. Problem is, I have too many. My favorite, UNIQUE, I have the most of, but in attempting to find a replacement, probably one more won't hurt or matter.
I shoot mostly .38 Spl +P level loads in 357 magnum brass, because I don't care for the drama of "full snort" 357s.
It looks like a true toss up between CFE-P and BE 86...if and when they are stocked at any of the LGS. Any choice between them?
For years, my go-to load has been 5.5 gr. Unique...860 fps chrono'ed from a 4" barrel, standard primer. Thinking of increasing that to 6.0 gr., for no higher than 1,000 fps Jacketed and plated/cast I wonder if BE 86 or CFE-P will be good for that level of velocity, providing I can't find any Unique?

 

[venomballistics]

Like probably many of us, I have several powders, gotten as they became available. Problem is, I have too many. My favorite, UNIQUE, I have the most of, but in attempting to find a replacement, probably one more won't hurt or matter.
I shoot mostly .38 Spl +P level loads in 357 magnum brass, because I don't care for the drama of "full snort" 357s.
It looks like a true toss up between CFE-P and BE 86...if and when they are stocked at any of the LGS. Any choice between them?
For years, my go-to load has been 5.5 gr. Unique...860 fps chrono'ed from a 4" barrel, standard primer. Thinking of increasing that to 6.0 gr., for no higher than 1,000 fps Jacketed and plated/cast I wonder if BE 86 or CFE-P will be good for that level of velocity, providing I can't find any Unique?

I'm finding plenty of the Hodgdon powders out there and they are not a vista outdoors company ... that im aware of.
So ... I'd opt for CFE for those political reasons.
Otherwise, the two powders are brothers from another mother.

 

[Nevada Ed]

Like probably many of us, I have several powders, gotten as they became available. Problem is, I have too many. My favorite, UNIQUE, I have the most of, but in attempting to find a replacement, probably one more won't hurt or matter.
I shoot mostly .38 Spl +P level loads in 357 magnum brass, because I don't care for the drama of "full snort" 357s.
It looks like a true toss up between CFE-P and BE 86...if and when they are stocked at any of the LGS. Any choice between them?
For years, my go-to load has been 5.5 gr. Unique...860 fps chrono'ed from a 4" barrel, standard primer. Thinking of increasing that to 6.0 gr., for no higher than 1,000 fps Jacketed and plated/cast I wonder if BE 86 or CFE-P will be good for that level of velocity, providing I can't find any Unique?

BE-86 in my 9mm pistols will beat Unique powder in fps with a heavy 147 gr plated bullet

only because the "Fat" flakes of Unique fill the short 9mm case
more than the fine grained BE-86 powder.

CFE load data is too "Safe" to let it beat out these two other powders in fps. However it does a good job with a lighter 124 gr, plated bullet, in getting top fps, in or near +P.

 

[Chuck Edwards]

Like probably many of us, I have several powders, gotten as they became available. Problem is, I have too many. My favorite, UNIQUE, I have the most of, but in attempting to find a replacement, probably one more won't hurt or matter.
I shoot mostly .38 Spl +P level loads in 357 magnum brass, because I don't care for the drama of "full snort" 357s.
It looks like a true toss up between CFE-P and BE 86...if and when they are stocked at any of the LGS. Any choice between them?
For years, my go-to load has been 5.5 gr. Unique...860 fps chrono'ed from a 4" barrel, standard primer. Thinking of increasing that to 6.0 gr., for no higher than 1,000 fps Jacketed and plated/cast I wonder if BE 86 or CFE-P will be good for that level of velocity, providing I can't find any Unique?

My practice load for .38 Special is five grains of BE-86 under a 158-grain Rainier plated RN. This is halfway between Alliant's max standard pressure load and their max +P load, and I chose it because it effectively matches my .38 Special carry load, the R-P version of the FBI load which runs ~830 fps from my 3" M10-7. Hitting 1000 fps using .357 brass would be no problem, and is well within Alliant's .357 data.

My sole experience with CFE-P is with .40 S&W using coated 180-grain LTCs in my M&P40 1.0. Using 5.8 grains, which is .1 grain less than Hodgdon's starting load, it was one fps off Federal's 180-grain HST (979 fps vs. 980). It's a good load.

I've settled on BE-86 as my "one powder to rule them all". But if I got a better deal on CFE-P, I'd be comfortable going with it.