Lincoln County Gun Club 200 - 500 yard gong match.

[Don McDowell]

OE generally starts to show it's best with about .2 compression. But as with most things this gets to be gun/chamber/bullet specific. This Shiloh 77 in 45-90 is a classic example, in my other 45-90's 84 grains of 1 1/2 and patched bullets really seem to work well but this one is liking 82 grains with most bullets and 81 with my new dd bullet. ( little side story, after a target rifle match a while back my hiwall, patched and OE made such a good show that one of the noted swiss users was so upset by being bested, that he insisted there was something wrong with the barrel on his rifle and the gunsmith that installed it should rebarrel and rechamber it)
I'm of the mind that if looking at making the switch/comparison to/from Swiss, it best to load the same weight of the same f size in the OE, then let the target tell the rest of the story.
In my experience OE really seems to show a preference for BR2 or RP 9 1/2 primers in the big rifle cartridges, in the smaller stuff such as the wcf cartridges and 45 colt etc, it doesn't seem to bother much by primer choice.
When testing OE if it's fouling heavy, you ain't mashing it enough. 40 round offhand match placing in the top ten with lever guns shooting the barrel sights against smokeless with target sights , and shot the entire match with only wiping the bore at the end of each 10 shot relay.
It's a good powder and when someone takes the time to do actual work with it will certainly give Swiss a run for it's money.
Contrary to some information being sported about the inconsistency from lot to lot I have not noticed it to vary as widely as Swiss has over the last few years. I was fortunate enough to receive 5 lbs out of the first case that Powder Inc received, and it didn't take me long to leave KIK and Schuetzen behind. Loads generated in the first case are still just as good with this last case.