Hodgdon Extreme
Hodgdon H4350
A very widely used medium-slow rifle powder, standard in the WSM family and in many classic standard-capacity hunting cartridges, and a common choice for light to moderate bullets in magnums.
The powder people camp on retailer websites for: the standard in 6.5 Creedmoor, .243, .270 and the WSM family, temperature stable, and it fills those cases at a density that gives genuinely low velocity spread with match bullets. The reputation is earned but it has outgrown reality — in careful head-to-head testing the separation from several alternatives is smaller than the forums suggest, once enough groups are averaged. The scarcity tax is real, and building a program around a powder you cannot reliably buy is its own kind of mistake. As a stick powder it does not throw well, so plan on weighing.
- 6.5 Creedmoor match loads
- 243 Winchester
- 270 Winchester
- 300 WSM
- 338 Winchester Magnum
Who has Hodgdon H4350 today
Checked October 10In stock at 3 stores — lowest in hand $54.28/lb (8 lb at Lohman Arms)
| Store | Size | Shelf | In hand /lb | Stock |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lohman ArmsHazmat charged, amount not published | 8 lb | $402.78 | $54.28 est. | In stock ↗ |
| Graf & Sons$23.50 hazmat per package | 8 lb | $417.99 | $56.93 | In stock ↗ |
| Hodgdon (direct)Terms not published | 8 lb | $450.99 | $60.30 est. | In stock ↗ |
| Lohman ArmsHazmat charged, amount not published | 1 lb | $56.36 | $87.80 est. | In stock ↗ |
| Hodgdon (direct)Terms not published | 1 lb | $64.99 | $96.43 est. | In stock ↗ |
| Graf & Sons$23.50 hazmat per package | 1 lb | $58.99 | $96.44 | In stock ↗ |
| Bruno Shooters Supply$26.95 hazmat + $19.95 ship | 8 lb | $377.99 | $53.11 | Out |
| Bruno Shooters Supply$26.95 hazmat + $19.95 ship | 1 lb | $52.99 | $99.89 | Out |
“In hand” is the shelf price plus that store’s hazmat fee and shipping, spread over one container. Stock is checked once a day — confirm on the store’s page before ordering. Compare all powders →
Specifications
| Manufacturer | Hodgdon |
|---|---|
| Product family | Hodgdon Extreme |
| Status | Currently produced |
| Application | rifle |
| Grain form | extruded |
| Lee VMD (bulk density) | 0.0725 cc per grain · 0.89 g/cc |
| Composition | single-base |
| Temperature stable | Yes — claimed by the manufacturer |
| Burn-rate position | 151 of 198 (fastest = 1) — what this means |
| Typical cartridges | 243 Winchester, 6mm Remington, 270 Winchester, 270 WSM, 7mm WSM, 300 WSM, 325 WSM, 338 Winchester Magnum |
Grain shape
Extruded, and the same chemistry as H4895 and H4831 with a thicker web — the wall the flame must burn through is what puts it between them on the chart, not any difference in ingredients. Long kernels bridge in a drop tube and shear in a rotary measure, so thrown charges wander more than the powder's precision reputation suggests.
Why geometry decides burn rate more than chemistry does: Shape Is the Product.
Hodgdon shortened the kernels over the years to improve metering. Extreme-series, so temperature insensitive and consistent lot to lot.
Burn rate
Medium-slow rifle, between Alliant Reloder 16 and Reloder 17, near IMR 4350 and IMR 4451.
Chart agreement: consistent across charts - listed in the same relative neighbourhood by every publisher that carries it Ranked by: Hodgdon, Vihtavuori, Shooters World, Wolfe/LoadData.
Powders charted near it — neighbours on the chart are not substitutes, and adjacency tells you nothing about what charge either one takes:
- IMR 4350 (position 148)
- IMR Enduron 4451 (position 149)
- Alliant Reloder 16 (position 150)
- Alliant Reloder 17 (position 152)
- Accurate 4350 (position 153)
- Shooters World SW4350 (position 154)
What reloaders say about it
Unverified community anecdote. The following is a summary of what handloaders report in public forums. It is not manufacturer information, it has not been tested, it may be wrong, and it contains no load data by design. Treat it as colour, not guidance.
H4350 is spoken of in the same breath as Varget — a temperature-stable extruded powder with a strong following in 6.5 Creedmoor and similar cartridges. Where it comes up in head-to-head range testing against ball alternatives, experienced posters tend to conclude the difference is smaller than people expect once group sizes are averaged over enough shots.
- long-standing following in 6.5 Creedmoor and precision bolt guns
- reported temperature stability
- chronic scarcity is part of its reputation
- head-to-head tests often show less separation from alternatives than expected
Availability: Widely described as a chronically scarce, high-demand powder that people buy on sight rather than plan around. Several posters report treating alternatives as the practical default and H4350 as an opportunistic buy.
Reported cautions:
- Extruded/stick — same metering caveats as Varget apply.
Consensus level: widely held. Drawn from thread 1, thread 2, thread 3.
Sources
The specifications above come from Hodgdon's own published documentation, linked below. The two “RCM's read” sections are ours, not theirs — our assessment of what this powder is like to load, drawn from its published characteristics and from what handloaders consistently report. No manufacturer endorses them and no source below backs them. If you think we have one wrong, tell us — we would rather fix it.