Hodgdon Extreme
Hodgdon H4895
A broadly useful medium-burn extruded rifle powder that spans varmint, target and big-game cartridges. It is the powder Hodgdon most often names for reduced rifle loads.
Specifications
| Manufacturer | Hodgdon |
|---|---|
| Product family | Hodgdon Extreme |
| Status | Currently produced |
| Application | rifle |
| Grain form | extruded |
| Composition | single-base |
| Temperature stable | Yes — claimed by the manufacturer |
| Burn-rate position | 112 of 198 (fastest = 1) — what this means |
| Typical cartridges | 30-06 Springfield, 308 Winchester, 17 Remington, 250-3000 Savage, 458 Winchester Magnum |
The first powder B.E. Hodgdon sold to handloaders. Extruded kernel, Extreme-series temperature stability, and Hodgdon lists it as workable for subsonic loads.
Burn rate
Medium rifle, immediately faster than IMR 4895 and Vihtavuori N135.
Chart agreement: consistent across the three charts that list it Ranked by: Hodgdon, Vihtavuori, Wolfe/LoadData.
Powders charted near it — neighbours on the chart are not substitutes, and adjacency tells you nothing about what charge either one takes:
- Alliant AR-Comp (position 109)
- Ramshot TAC (position 110)
- Alliant Power Pro Varmint (position 111)
- Vihtavuori N530 (position 113)
- IMR 4895 (position 114)
- Vihtavuori N135 (position 115)
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.
H4895 has a solid reputation as a near-do-anything extruded rifle powder and is the fallback people name when Varget is unavailable. In 2025-2026 discussion the availability picture appears to have inverted for some users, who report H4895 being harder to find than Varget in their area.
- treated as a do-it-all extruded rifle powder
- named as the usual fallback when Varget is out
- reduced-load reputation for lighter loads
Availability: Multiple users report not having seen it locally for a year or more, and at least one reports it disappearing from a major retailer's website. Other users in the same threads report having plenty — availability seems highly regional.
Consensus level: commonly held. Drawn from thread 1, thread 2, thread 3.
Sources
Other Hodgdon powders
Verify the charge, not just the recipe
Good data gets you a safe starting point. It does not tell you what actually went into the case on stroke 340 — a bridged measure, a double charge, a squib. That is what an RCM Laser Powder Check is for.