Thread: H1000 and AR2217 History

Greetings All,
I was fossiking through some old Handloader mags this morning and stumbled on a Propellent Profiles column by San Fadala on H1000. H1000 was developed by ICL Nobels Powder co at Hodgdons request. Originally called Experimental 1968 it was named H1000 for its presumed association with 1,000 yard bench rest shooting. Sam had a batch of Experimental 1968 to test in 1987 and his column on H1000 appeared in Handloader 141 September October 1989. Load data developed by Hodgdon for mostly heavy projectiles in cartridges from the .22-250 to the .308 Norma Magnum was included. For most cartridges tha data was within a grain or two of todays loads but for the .243 and 7mm Rem Mag some start loads equalled or exceeded todays max loads. Loads for these two cartridges were reduced after the use of the more sensitive electronic pressure measurenent systems showed high or variations in pressure..
At some stage ADI got involved and a short cut version aka AR2217 was introduced. My can of AR2217 was packed in 1999 and I measured the length of a powder grain at 1.25mm v the 2.0mm length of the original H1000 quoted by Sam.
Regards Grandpamac.