Winchester
Winchester StaBALL 6.5
Aimed at mid-capacity precision and hunting cartridges, particularly the 6mm and 6.5mm competition rounds. Winchester emphasises precise metering and low velocity and pressure standard deviations as the basis for match accuracy.
Official Winchester load data →
Specifications
| Manufacturer | Winchester |
|---|---|
| Product family | Winchester |
| Status | Currently produced |
| Application | rifle |
| Grain form | spherical |
| Composition | double-base |
| Temperature stable | Yes — claimed by the manufacturer |
| Burn-rate position | 157 of 198 (fastest = 1) — what this means |
| Typical cartridges | 6mm Creedmoor, 6GT, 6.5 Creedmoor, 7mm-08 Remington, 270 Winchester |
Part of the StaBALL family, marketed as temperature-insensitive double-base BALL POWDER that stays stable in extreme heat and cold. All StaBALL powders are REACH-compliant and carry copper fouling reducer additives that Winchester says extend the interval between bore cleanings. Made in the USA. Winchester marketed it as the first temperature-insensitive BALL POWDER. Hodgdon flags it as both temperature stable and extra clean burning.
Burn rate
Medium-slow rifle speed, slower than Winchester 760 and faster than IMR 4831.
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:
- Shooters World SW4350 (position 154)
- Norma 204 (position 155)
- Hodgdon Hybrid 100V (position 156)
- Hodgdon Superformance (position 158)
- Alliant Reloder 19 (position 159)
- IMR 4831 (position 160)
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.
StaBALL 6.5 is discussed as a ball powder marketed to compete with temperature-stable extruded powders in 6.5 Creedmoor. Reports are mixed-to-favorable: in careful side-by-side range testing against H4350 one poster found no meaningful difference once results were averaged, while others report their rifles simply preferring the extruded alternative.
- ball powder that meters well
- marketed as temperature stable; users treat that claim with some caution
- side-by-side testing often shows no clear advantage or disadvantage versus H4350
- some rifles reported to prefer H4350
Availability: Generally reported as easier to find than H4350 and often cheaper, which is a large part of why people try it.
Reported cautions:
- Users caution it is not a drop-in stand-in for H4350 — several report needing full independent load development and some report their rifle preferring the powder they were trying to replace.
Consensus level: commonly mentioned. Drawn from thread 1, thread 2, thread 3.
Sources
Other Winchester 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.