Thank you 340six,
That is the only point I am trying to make. Even the "same" powders MAY shoot different. You will not know unless you test them.
If they shoot different for you that is all you need to know since they are shot in your gun by you.
If you partner shoots different groups, then the best load shot is what is best for him not you.
If you think you jerked when you should have squeezed, if you are a competent, shot you will know that and re-run the test.
Hence, when someone says "What's the best powder for my .38 Special?" And well meaning folks post their pet loads...I contend the most helpful answer is, "You must test a lot of powders to know that answer."
There are powders more suited for magnum loads or target loads and so testing a magnum powder in a target load might NOT be the best answer.
Granted I pulled in a lot of folks with my original headline on the thread of H110 and W296 not being the same, but inside the message I clarified my statement, and henceforth had to literally spell it out many times over.
And yet some folks do not seem to understand what I have said.
And, I contend that almost all of us do our testing on a bench, over a rest, at whatever yardage we choose. Very few shooters and writers use a mechanical rest to test their loads.
Any competent shooter, with good eyes, can definitely create a rest system of his/her's design, usually using sandbags, that will eliminate a great amount of human error as long as they are practicing good sighting and trigger techniques.
I will admit that if Unique is THE load for my .45 Long Colt (I said that on purpose to get THAT argument started!!!) I will not retest a new canister of Unique. I just "bet-on-the-come" that my chosen truly same powder is going to probably/maybe shoot as it did before.
Because of what I have found out about H110 and W296 I probably should re-test that new canister of Unique when I crack it open, if it is a new lot.
I, years ago in about 1974, with my first S&W .357, did not know that both H110 and W296 were the same. I bought those two powders and 2400. I tested as I did here, off a bench at 25 yards, from a rest for five shots each. As I said before that was the "accepted" technique then as well as now, for most folks.
I found that in that handgun H110 was the most accurate. Years later I tested more .357s and .44 Magnums, still unaware of the "sameness" of the two powders. Again I had different levels of accuracy.
Then I learned that the two powders are the same. I still tested them and still found them to shoot to different levels of accuracy.
I can only attest this to the difference in powder lots. Which if true could mean that two cans of different lots of any "same" powder may do this.
