During a damn powder shortage, IMR decided to stop production of some favorite powders, and come up with 3 new ones. Does this make sense to anyone?

http://www.enduronimr.com/?utm_campaign ... unt-sticky

4756, 4759, PB and 7625 are supposedly out of production.

Never heard of them (those powders that is). However, I can believe a company that wishes to remain relevant in a competitive market will continue to bring new things to the table.

I heard a while ago that SR4759 was being discontinued . . . which is too bad, since it seems like it fits a niche.

As long as they continue to pump out 4227, 4350, 4064 and 4895 I'm good. Over the last three years though I have been trying new powders because others are just not available and have found a few winners.

I've been trying to find a bottle of 7977 to try with my 7mm Mag. I'm just starting out but I want to try it!

To bad I loved using PB for 380/9/40

I can understand wanting to develop new things to stay ahead. It just seems funny that they can't keep up with demand, but they have time to make new powders.

I have some PB. I have not found a use for it yet. I can tell you, I did not like it in 44 mag.

this is classic KelTec business - demand for your guns dates back a few years, and you are then promising new models which won't be seen by human eyes for another few years. I envy their business demand really.

Ruger has done this as well. They promised the ranch rifle would be offered in 6.8 SPC and as far as I know it has now been done.

If you mean Mini, yes there was a 6.8.

You've mentioned the key word "niche".

Many of the powders sold today are strictly for a particular niche. As those markets shrink and/or another powder makes it's way to market that performs adequately over several "niches", others will be discontinued.

For those that are unaware, the smokeless powder business is driven by military demands. They order many, many tons of it while the "sport shooters" make up only a few tons in a relative sense. Couple that with the fact that a batch of powder isn't as simple as just putting a bucket loader full of raw material in a hopper at one end of a factory and have the finished product flow out the other end in a few hours. Some batches of powder can take months to complete from beginning to end.

Shooter/Hand Loaders just need to realize that things will change and the changes are driven by demands from the military. In the end you will see a lot better products not unlike what happened to the motor oil industry when hydraulic lifters were introduced and on into the present when car manufacturers kept demanding more performance from a quart of oil.

We'll see powder that burns cleaner, leaves less copper in the barrels, yields higher speeds, is more uniform in burn rate, and is less sensitive to differences in ambient temperature.

As change, which is usually good occurs, the old favorites will go bye-bye but the replacements will be available in greater quantity. You'll also be able to get by with fewer different types on the shelf.

The ones who are stubborn will be pissed. Those that adapt easily and just work up a new load won't have any issues. They might even find that the new offerings do a hell of a lot better than their old favorite.

A good example of that is how little I miss "Varget". I've found that IMR 8208 XBR does even better. For my .223 I could care less if H335 ever is available again, CFE223 is superb in that application as well as .308 loads.

Just saying that life goes on and often for the better.

More manufactured shortages and higher profits.