Stick, ball, flake

[Mike6158]

This is probably an obtuse non-question question but when I was doing some load testing the other day and I loaded a stick powder and a flake powder. The stick powder, in the case of the .308 and .270 that loaded, seemed to be quite a bit more accurate. Quite a bit is not like inches but groups were visibly better. I got to wondering about that. Is it just an anomaly of the load / caliber that I was working on or does stick powder have some inherent property that makes it burn more consistently?

I have and load all kinds of rifle powders so this isn't some kind of mission to lock myself into one type of powder. I'm just curious.

 

[boomtube]

Actually it's not all that clear-cut, which explains why we have such a diversity of burn rates in each type.

In broad, over-lapping terms, accuracy for different cartridges is more dependant on burn rate and ignition qualities than powder shape.

Flakes are good for fast powders and are easily ignited. Ball can be fast or slow burning, slighly harder to ignite than the others. Tubular is usually slower AND a bit easier to ignite than most ball powders.