Originally Posted By: dan newberryCatshooter,
You're probably honestly right. I don't have any certain confirmation that factories blend powders... I guess it's one of those things that you hear it so long, you just sort of start to buy into it. :
I was simply giving the "rumor" the benefit of the doubt, and finding some possible way that it may have gotten started. I have heard that same powder-differnt lot batches are blended to get a uniform burn rate for the whole batch.
One thing is for sure, it would seem that blending different powders would simply not work in a large scale operation. Powders have been blended by handloaders over the years, where "X" amount of this powder and "Y" amount of that powder are measured equally on a cartridge by cartridge basis. But powders that are different wouldn't stay in a uniform composition in a single batch; the loads would vary greatly as to the percent of each, so we can at least know that two different powders are not being mixed.
I think about where all the raisins go in a box of raisin bran.
While this paper is a bit more technical than I can fully digest, it does seem to bode against powders of different compositions staying mixed in equal percentages...
http://www.indicizer.com/files/SolidsMixingBlending.pdf
Dan
I have blended powders and I am still using what is left of S&P #7 (Salt & Pepper #7) which started as a 300 pound batch made for a group of benchrest shooters.
Other than that, (which was a special case) it is generally not worth it and you do have to know what you are doing and have a pressure gun to keep track of it. (I am a commercial loader and have a pressure gun...
... I "hope" I know what I am doing
).
