Hodgdon
Hodgdon Lil'Gun
Developed specifically for the 410-bore shotshell, with wide use in the 22 Hornet and in magnum handgun cartridges.
Specifications
| Manufacturer | Hodgdon |
|---|---|
| Product family | Hodgdon |
| Status | Currently produced |
| Application | shotshell, pistol, rifle |
| Grain form | spherical |
| Composition | double-base |
| Temperature stable | Not marketed as temperature-stable |
| Burn-rate position | 72 of 198 (fastest = 1) — what this means |
| Typical cartridges | 410 bore, 22 Hornet, 357 Magnum, 44 Remington Magnum |
Hodgdon designed the granule to fit, meter and burn correctly in the awkward 410 case — no spilled shot or bulged hulls. Spherical form gives consistent metering.
Burn rate
Slow, just faster than H110, near Vihtavuori N110.
Chart agreement: consistent; Vihtavuori declines to separate this neighbourhood at all, banding Lil'Gun, H110, H4198, CFE BLK and H4227 into a single burn rate step. 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:
- Shooters World Heavy Pistol (position 70)
- Vihtavuori N110 (position 71)
- Hodgdon H110 (position 73)
- Winchester 296 (position 74)
- Accurate No. 11FS (position 75)
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.
Lil'Gun draws a specific and repeated caution: at least one experienced .458 SOCOM loader describes it as noticeably sensitive to temperature variation and inconsistent near the top of its range. Others use it happily for subsonic loads.
- reported temperature sensitivity
- reported inconsistency near the upper end of published data
- used and liked for subsonic and small-capacity applications
- separate widely-circulated concerns about throat erosion exist outside these threads
Availability: Not a scarcity topic in these threads.
Reported cautions:
- One detailed user report describes results becoming unpredictable close to maximum published charges. This is a single knowledgeable account, not a consensus, but it is a reason for extra caution rather than less.
Consensus level: single report to commonly mentioned. Drawn from thread 1.
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.